Socio-Technical Challenges in Implementation of Monitoring Technologies in Elderly Care Ella Kolkowska 1(&) , Anneli Avatare Nöu 2 , Marie Sjölinder 2 , and Isabella Scandurra 1 1 Örebro University School of Business, Örebro, Sweden {ella.kolkowska,isabella.scandurra}@oru.se 2 SICS Swedish ICT, Kista, Sweden {anneli,marie}@sics.se Abstract. Although new monitoring technologies (MT) supporting aging in place are continuously developed and introduced on the market, attempts to implement these technologies as an integrated part of elderly care often fail. According to the literature, the reason for that may be the prevailing technical focus applied during development and implementation of monitoring technolo- gies in real settings. The aim of this paper was to investigate the socio-technical challenges that arise during implementation of monitoring technologies in elderly care. We used a qualitative case study and semi-structured interviews to inves- tigate socio-technical (S/T) challenges in implementation of monitoring tech- nologies generally and social alarms especially. Based on our findings we suggest a framework for classification of S/T challenges arising during implementation of monitoring technologies in elderly care and in this way this paper contributes to a better understanding of these challenges. Keywords: Monitoring technologies Á Social alarms Á Assistive technologies Á Socio-technical aspects Á Elderly Á Security Á Safety 1 Introduction Utilizing monitoring technologies (MT) the caregivers can receive information about activities and the status of different entities in the home where an elderly person lives alone [1]. Continuous monitoring gives the caregivers the opportunity to quickly react in case of emergency and in this way increase their own and the elderly person’s sense of safety and security [2]. The rapid development of MT and technologies generally supporting aging in place creates possibilities for new and more ef ficient solutions enhancing elderly people’s quality of life through improved outcomes in safeguarding, living standards, social interaction and independence [1]. Such solutions also reduce workload for caregivers and decrease the costs for elderly care for the society [3]. Nevertheless, MT are not commonly adopted as a part of elderly care of today [4]. According to recent literature [4–7], the reason for that might be ignoring socio-technical (S/T) aspects in development and implementation of MT into everyday life. Various scholars [5–7] argue that MT, developed with a techno-centric perspec- tive, are not able to address the needs that arise in complex social environments. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 J. Zhou and G. Salvendy (Eds.): ITAP 2016, PartII, LNCS 9755, pp. 45–56, 2016. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-39949-2_5