Investigation of Procurement Practices for Welfare Technologies in Municipalities in Sweden

Abstract: Major demographical changes, such as aging population, constantly increases the demand for healthand social care services and technologies. The concept of welfare technologies is a response to meet this demand, since it increases independency, activity, participation and safety for people that has or is at risk of developing a disability. The procurement process of welfare technology is described as ineffective and problematic and is one of the major bottlenecks in implementing this type of technology. The aim of this study was to explore how the practical procurement process of welfare technology is performed in Swedish municipalities, an area which is currently under-researched. Moreover, the main problematic areas in the procurement, and their causes were investigated, which was carried out through qualitative semi-structured interviews with municipal actors. Data was collected from 3 municipalities, with 8 interview participants in total. The collected data from these interviews was transcribed, using intelligent verbatim, and analyzed inductively in the framework of qualitative content analysis. The data analysis yielded 7 main categories of problematic areas in the procurement process, along with 47 sub-categories. The main issues discussed were related to insufficient resources, such as competence, time and money, too little focus on the userneed, and difficulties with integrating welfare technology with other technical systems. A set of concrete advices for how to target some of the identified problems was generated, along with a couple guidelines for how to streamline the procurement process of welfare technology. It is argued in this report that the municipal organization of this process needs to be looked over, which cannot solely occur within municipalities, but must also be decided from a higher political level.