BEST - Beyond the Evaluation Standards of Today

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Many applied eHealth interventions are currently being developed within applied research. In order to bring these interventions into practice, an evaluation of applicability and effectiveness is important. Within healthcare, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are often used for this, but this often does not fit well with interventions in which eHealth plays a major role. For example, RCTs do not offer the option of directly adapting the developed intervention to the latest technological possibilities. In addition, participants’ experiences cannot be directly converted into an improved intervention for later participants. Finally, an RCT demands a lot from participants, which has a major impact because they often come from a vulnerable target group.

Although practice shows that RCTs do not fit well with the way in which eHealth interventions are developed, there is currently no clear alternative. Various evaluation methods are being developed to investigate the effects of eHealth interventions, but little is known about which evaluation methods are suitable for which form of research into the effectiveness of eHealth interventions. This hinders the implementation of the developed interventions in practice, while this transfer is one of the important parts of applied research.

In project BEST we will gather knowledge about suitable evaluation methods for eHealth interventions. This includes evaluating the usefulness and applicability of interventions in practice as well as the effects of the intervention. In this project, we initially focus on eHealth projects from the SPRONG Urban Vitality program. Based on the knowledge gathered, we are developing a guideline that provides insight into which evaluation method is suitable in which situation for conducting research into the effects of eHealth interventions.