Applying DEMATEL to assess TRIZ’s inventive principles for resolving contradictions in the long-term care cloud system
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/IMDS-06-2016-0212 |
| Date | 10 July 2017 |
| Pages | 1244-1262 |
| Published date | 10 July 2017 |
| Author | Dong-Shang Chang,Shu-Ming Liu,Yi-Chun Chen |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Data management systems,Knowledge management,Knowledge sharing,Management science & operations,Supply chain management,Supply chain information systems,Logistics,Quality management/systems |
Applying DEMATEL to assess
TRIZ’s inventive principles for
resolving contradictions in the
long-term care cloud system
Dong-Shang Chang, Shu-Ming Liu and Yi-Chun Chen
Department of Business Administration, National Central University,
Taoyuan City, Taiwan
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to find the key innovative principles for evaluating the long-term care
(LTC) cloud system by exploring contradictory and complex points in its development.
Design/methodology/approach –The theoryof inventive problemsolving (TRIZ) and the decision-making
trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) approaches are integrated to resolve complex contradictions in
the system. The heuristic reasoning of TRIZ is applied to obtain innovation principles for an LTC cloud
mining system. However, the importance and feasibility of these innovative principles require further
assessment. In this study, DEMATEL is employed to clarify the complex relationships among the principles and
evaluate theirkey influences.
Findings –This paper identifies six primary contradictions and derives 25 innovative principles for the
resolution of these conflicts. Further analysis confirms three key innovative principles. First, the government
should consider the overall planning of the cloud system platform, followed by the participation of other
medical and LTC institutions. Second, the information capability of LTC institutions should be unified by
recording the pathology data of care recipients to create an information exchange system. Third, LTC
institutions should act in cooperation with medical institutions to provide professional medical capabilities.
Originality/value –The contributions of this paper are two-fold. First, this study provides an integrated
methodology integrating the TRIZ and DEMATEL approaches to resolve LTC problems. Second, this
research identifies the key innovative principles for developing an LTC cloud system in Taiwan.
Keywords DEMATEL, TRIZ, Health care, Cloud system, Long-term care (LTC)
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Medical and technological advances have gradually extended average life expectancy,
resulting in a significant yearly increase in the ratio of elderly in the population. In 2012, the US
Population Reference Bureau noted an increase in the world’s elderly to morethan 564 million
people (Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), 2013). In other words, this segment of the
population increased by 100 million over a 12-year period. Health care for the elderly has
become a common global issue, with long-term care (LTC) becoming increasingly important.
To help meet this challenge, in 2012, Taiwan’s MOHW proposed the health cloud project,
taking advantage of cloud computing, comprising a medical cloud, care cloud and wellness
cloud. The medical cloud aims to improve the service performance of medical institutions by
connecting the medical care services of different medical institutions through exchanges of
medical e-records exchanges. The care cloud aims to promote early prevention and early
treatment, and convey individualized preventive health care information to the public.
The wellnesscloud targetsresidents in remoteareas and the elderlywho are often isolated, and
aims to offer remote care and home-care by establishing a common care IT platform for
care-giving institutions (MOHW, 2013). Under the premise of LTC, th e cloud system offers
Industrial Management & Data
Systems
Vol. 117 No. 6, 2017
pp. 1244-1262
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0263-5577
DOI 10.1108/IMDS-06-2016-0212
Received 12 June 2016
Revised 1 November 2016
Accepted 8 November 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0263-5577.htm
The study is supported by a research grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan,
Republic of China (MOST 104-2221-E-008 -046).
1244
IMDS
117,6
resource sharing capability, as well as waste and cost reduction, instant accessibility to medical
expertise and services by LTC operators and care-givers, reduction in the number of return
hospital visits, and access to the critical time window for treatment during emergencies.
The cloud system also raises complex technological and social issues such as the necessity for
modification of inadequate legal provisions, changes to the doctor-patient relationship when
offering remote care, concerns about system leaks endangering patient privacy, and
administrative contradictions between government and medical inst itutions. Thus,
the operational model of the cloud system must be re-defined.
There has already been much scholarly discussion of health care issues such as the legal
issues in telemedicine (Dierks, 2000), management of telediagnosis (Phillips et al., 2002),
the acceptantof health care professionals of remotee-health care (Richards et al.,2005), the use
of the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) to develop innovative IT technology
mechanisms relatedto Taiwan’s health care s ervices (Yang and Hsiao, 2009) , the feasibility of
the remote application of patient data (Lane and Schur, 2010), the appropriateness of
telemedicine and technical limitations (Gardiner and Hartzell, 2012) and the factors affecting
the consumer’s willingness to adopt wearable technology for healthcare (Gao et al., 2015).
However, none of these studies have dealt with the adaption of the cloud system to LTC.
To successfully develop a cloud LTC system, contradictions within the system must be
resolved andinherent benefits established.This can best be done through examination from a
system perspective of the complex relationship between technological and social issues.
The TRIZ provides an innovative basis for problem solving. Its theoretical framework
originates from the principle of abstraction, already widely used in engineering,
mathematics and medicine (Kaplan, 2005). This principle is applied using past experience
to convert abstract issues into an operational system. Specific computational methods are
then applied to obtain answers to the abstract domain, followed by the application of
heuristic reasoning to real world scenarios. Usually the conversion can be achieved through
trial and error in the same or similar scenarios which can significantly increase efficiency
and accuracy. Since its development, the systematic TRIZ approach has provided quick and
efficient problem-solving capability, and it can be applied to solving complex social science
issues, such as those involved in the LTC cloud system. However, Ilevbare et al. (2013) noted
that although the ideal final result (IFR) of TRIZ is more definitive in technological
applications, objective quantification and pre-analysis is more difficult in the complex
relationships of social disciplines.
This study usesTRIZ heuristic reasoning to derive innovative principlesfor the LTC cloud
system which are used to further clarify the complex relationship results from contradictory
problems which cross departments in the LTC cloud system, such as medical management
agencies and oth er LTC instituti ons, and to determ ine the extent of i nfluence among the
innovative principles, and which principles exert the most criticalinfluence. For example, the
operational needs between the medical management agencies and the LTC institutions create
a flow of information. The LTC institutions only provide limited business information to
medical management agencies, but access to detailed operational information from these
institutions would facilitate management. Methods such as multiple criteria decision making
(MCDM), interpretative structural modeling (ISM), fuzzy structural modeling (FSM) and
the decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory(DEMATEL) can be used to determine the
degree of influence among criteria. For example, Govindan et al. (2010) used ISM to
explore supplier development criteria for the automobile industry. However, ISM can only
determine whether a relationship among the criteria exists, but not the degree of influence.
FSM is less commonly used in social sciences. On the other hand, the DEMATEL not only
measures the relationship and degree of influence among the criteria, but the computation
process is simple. The proposed criteria for the application of the DEMATEL have been
demonstrated in past studies. For example, Lu et al. (2014) extracted the criteria based on a
1245
Long-term care
cloud system
To continue reading
Request your trial