Technology for ageing societies and healthcare

Patent analytics and policy analysis for smart elderly care, barrier-free mobility and healthcare digitisation.

Populations are ageing quickly, and health and care systems are turning to digital technology to cope. This work studies which technologies are actually being developed and adopted, and whether policy is aligned with them.

Smart elderly care and mobility

  • Adoption-weighted patent analytics. A technology function matrix for big data patent analytics in smart elderly care, presented at IEEE BigData 2025 (Govindarajan et al., 2025). I was the corresponding author.
  • Barrier-free mobility. An analysis of how policy and innovation align for barrier-free mobility in China, presented at CSCWD 2026 (Govindarajan et al., 2026).

Healthcare digitisation

  • Blockchain in healthcare. How healthcare organisations can overcome adoption barriers amid the blockchain hype cycle, published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change (Govindarajan et al., 2025). I was the corresponding author.
  • Earlier work on a unified blockchain schema for chronic diet management (Zhang et al., 2022) and on Industry 4.0 cross-domain blockchain solutions in healthcare (Govindarajan et al., 2022).
Actors and enablers in the healthcare ecosystem considered in the blockchain adoption study. Figure from Govindarajan et al. (2025), Technological Forecasting and Social Change, CC BY 4.0.

Community

I co-chaired the special session “Collaborative Technologies for Ageing Societies” at IEEE CSCWD 2026, and I am lead co-chair of the session “Collaborative Robotics and Societies” at IEEE CSCWD 2027 in Brisbane, Australia.

References

2026

  1. CSCWD
    Policy innovation alignment analysis for cross-referencing China’s barrier-free mobility
    Usharani Hareesh Govindarajan, J. Li, Marcin Pawel Jarzebski, and 2 more authors
    In 2026 29th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD), 2026
    DOI

2025

  1. IEEE BigData
    Adoption-Weighted Technology Function Matrix for Big Data Patent Analytics in Smart Elderly Care
    Usharani Hareesh Govindarajan, Qian Gui, Gagan Narang, and 1 more author
    In 2025 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData), 2025
    DOI
    0 Google Scholar citations
  2. TFSC
    govindarajan2025blockchain.jpg
    Blockchain technologies adoption in healthcare: Overcoming barriers amid the hype cycle to enhance patient care
    Usharani Hareesh Govindarajan, Gagan Narang, Dhiraj Kumar Singh, and 1 more author
    Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2025
    DOI
    35 Google Scholar citations

2022

  1. CSCWD
    A Unified Blockchain Schema for Chronic Diet Management
    D. Zhang, U. H. Govindarajan, Y. Shi, and 2 more authors
    In 2022 IEEE 25th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD), 2022
    DOI
    5 Google Scholar citations
  2. Chapter
    Industry 4.0 Cross-Domain Blockchain Solutions in Healthcare: Trends and Clinical Considerations
    U. H. Govindarajan, G. Narang, N. Zivlak, and 1 more author
    In Blockchain for Industry 4.0, 2022
    DOI
    3 Google Scholar citations