, companies and scholars have paid little attention to the end users of medical devices: patients. We focus on the innovative … behavior of patients and their relatives, their motivations, and their contributions to improving the quality of their own and … ultimately of other patients' therapy. We analyze innovations of producers, healthcare professionals, patients, and relatives in …

) visits made by patients aged 65 and above, explaining between a quarter and a half of the growth in ED use among this … inpatient or outpatient hospital use, and consequently little impact on overall public hospital costs. These results suggest …