AT-HOME 2.0 – An Educational Framework for Home- based Healthcare Izak van Zyl (Università della svizzera italiana, Lugano, Switzerland vanzyli@usi.ch) Retha de la Harpe (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa delaharper@cput.ac.za) Abstract: This paper intends to describe some of the primary social and cultural dynamics in South African home-based healthcare, using ethnographic case study material and design methodology. This constitutes a detailed narrative of the “care experience” in a poor community, emphasising the needs of and barriers to educational information, particularly concerning caregivers. In reaction to this context, a collaborative training model – AT-HOME 2.0 – emerges through design intervention. This is foreseen as a basic framework whereby caregivers (are encouraged to) develop educational content via information and communication technologies (e.g. mobile phones and social media). Such content can and may include experiences, suggestions, and guidelines that are relevant to the practice of caregiving. AT- HOME 2.0 will conceptually – and in some cases practically – demonstrate how educational content may be generated, published, and disseminated in the sphere of home-based healthcare. Keywords: home-based healthcare, informal learning, digital technologies, socio-cultural dynamics Categories: L.2.1, L.3.0, L.3.6, L.6.0, L.6.2 1 Introduction “Enabling and encouraging people to participate in education and learning during their lifespan is a key political and academic concern in contemporary society” [Selwyn 2004]. Home-based healthcare (HBHC) is the delivery of basic health services by caregivers to persons in their homes. This community-oriented service is usually for individuals with physical and mental nursing needs, but may extend to emotional, social, and even financial aid. Typically, HBHC serves those who are not able to afford or access formal healthcare facilities [WHO 2004]. In developing nations, HBHC has become an important provision to communities in need. In South Africa particularly, where HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis is rife, a home-based system reaches those patients that are beyond the reach of the Department of Health (DoH) – the government body responsible for healthcare in the country. In fact, each year the DoH makes countless referrals to various HBHC providers, operative across South Africa’s nine provinces [Van Zyl 2011]. This often bestows – as we shall come to understand Journal of Universal Computer Science, vol. 18, no. 3 (2012), 429-453 submitted: 30/9/11, accepted: 31/1/12, appeared: 1/2/12 © J.UCS