Technological Innovations Through Digital Service Design in Hospital Districts

Digital Service Design

Service science, including service design, emphasizes the differences between services and goods (Hofemann, Raatikainen, Myllärniemi, & Norja, 2014). In the literature on service sectors, the concept of service innovation is used more frequently than product innovation (Gallouj, 2002), better showing the characteristics of services (Barrett, Davidson, Prabhu, & Vargo, 2015). Services differ from products in that services are usually intangible, heterogeneous, inseparable, and perishable (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, & Berry, 1985). Services are also immaterial and highlight communication between service providers and customers (Harisalo, 2013). In addition, digital services are used, at least to some extent, as part of service interactions. Furthermore, digital services often involve the coordination or arrangement of a physical function (Williams, Chatterjee, & Rossi, 2008). Services can be equipped with different products, such as medicines, instruments, and devices. This makes them partly immaterial and partly material. Similar to information technology initiatives, health care services can be developed through servitization, which is a process of connecting services and products (Barrett, Davidson, Prabhu, & Vargo, 2015). Servitization can be seen as a continuum where, at the beginning, a pure product-centered organization moves through a process toward becoming a pure service-centered organization (Chase, 1981).