A recent European Commission report revealed the discrepancies in e-health adoption amongst older people between various European countries (Kubitschke, 2010). Uptake rates, in terms of the percentage of people aged over 65 using e-health technologies, differ for example, for social alarms between around 3% in Germany and the Netherlands, 6-10% the Nordic countries and 15% in the United Kingdom. Even within individual countries there are areas with vastly different adoption rates (Cooney, 2010).
Considering that the European population is ageing and the life expectancy at birth is still rising significantly (European Commission, 2011), there is a need for government policy on ageing in place to keep people at home as long as possible and there are chances for producers and providers of ALT solutions to increase their sales. The most important barrier to overcome is the low adoption rate of ALT solutions. Governments, companies and society as a whole need to find out why individuals prefer not to use ALT products and/or services even though they can be seen as potential users.
