Table 4 A summary of the other strategies provided by the interviewees

Providing telecare services to older adults with a focus on multidisciplinary teams

“In the telecare system, the most important thing, in my opinion, is that we should not consider the older person as a piece of the puzzle. What do I mean? I mean, should I, as a nurse, just come to cover the person’s nursing part or not…” (P15)

Applying incentive and compulsory policies

When the issue of e-learning came up 4, 5 years ago, for example, when a professor started sitting at a desk instead of teaching at the board;

Everybody started saying it was impossible. No way. Tehran University of Medical Sciences came and said that every professor who teaches 25% of his/her courses online, for example, he would be given a certain amount to be encouraged” (P3)

Supporting service providers and recipients

“I think we need to prepare the required background by removing the barriers that are on the way of these start-ups working in this field. They are all young. They have no support and…” (P2)

Education and culture-building

“The most important solution is education, meaning there should be culture building and information dissemination. It’s very important. The first thing to be taught is what telemedicine is…” (P3).

Creating a comprehensive information system for older adults

“For example, from an organizational point of view, If the main organization, being the Ministry of Health, has a registration system, it should first identify, screen and know the older person and determine the exact age of older adult care…” ( P12)

Providing feedback to patients and their companions

“… and the next thing is to provide feedback to the patient’s family about how much improvement has been achieved since they started using it. This is the main gap that needs to be bridged in our care systems.” (P5)

Creating a competitive environment for the activities of private institutions in this field

“… If there is a competitive environment for all the private sector’s institutions and everyone follow a unified standard yet they can provide their own solutions, it will be very good.” (P6)

Forming a suitable national committee in this field

“… I think the solution is to create a national committee, a national committee that primarily considers the different dimensions of the package. This committee should define specific services for its telecare system. It should gather experts from related fields and reach a truly comprehensive package based on such services. Such a package is a subset of the country’s older adult health package. Yet, it is known as a telecare service package for older adults…” (P16)