Attentianet - advanced teleassistance network

Acronym of the case:

Attentianet

Web address of the case:

http://www.attentianet.eu

Country of the case:

Belgium , Spain

City/region:

Barcelona and Ostende

Posting Date:

12 December 2007

Last Edited Date:

12 December 2007

Author:

JosÃ© Luis Jorge MarrasÃ© (Alcatel-Lucent)

telecare | teleassistance | Aging

Type of initiative

Project or service

Case Abstract

Attentianet is an eTen project that creates the way to enrich aging society life transforming the way elders and their families and caretakers use communications. Living in hospitals or residences, especially for elders, has a tremendous impact on their life standards and quality, and at the same time represents a huge cost for society, in terms of time, money and resources to attend these social groups. This is especially true in non-critical situations, normally related to loneliness states that require human touch or close human contact sensation to feel safe and comfortable. Current solutions to keep these people living at their own homes are quite simple (regular phone line and a bracelet button system to send an alarm to the tele-assistance service provider). They do not use the big advantage represented by current technologies to provide enhanced services to the end users. Indeed, they fail in the most important thing, that is, in using the big advantage provided by the current communication facilities: face to face visual communication and permanent â€˜on lineâ€™ situation. Attentianet extends the basic service to provide an enhanced video & mobile integrated assistance. So, it brings a new service model that includes two dimensions: 1) Mobility, allowing user location and out-of-home support using an adapted mobile phone, and 2) Broadband communications, allowing enriched communications between elders, caretakers and families.

Description of the case

Domain

eInclusion

Topic

ICT and Aging | Broadband | (public) e-services for disadvantaged people

Sector

Healthcare | Social Services

Date

January 2006 to June 2007

Date operational

September 2006

Target Users

Older people (60+)

Target Users Description

The service is addressing the needs of the elderly population with some moderate degree of dependence. It can be also used in other segments where the same principles apply: there is a moderate degree of dependence that allows the user to live at home and certain level of mobility. In this case the system provides a set of tools that enhances the cares support to those groups.

Scope

International

Status

Operation

Language(s)

English

Policy Context and Legal Framework

The commercial deployment of the Video Assistance & Location service solution is nowadays in a quite favorable institutional and regulatory framework.

Due to the clear aging of the European society and the interest of the public administration and States to provide sustainable health and social care systems, multiple initiatives have been launched.

At EU level, in 2004, the Commission launched a communication to make a health care better for European citizens, proposing an action plan for an European e-Health Area [45]. In this action plan, the Commission identified as a top goal to develop citizen-centered health systems and identified as main challenges (among others):
- rising demand for health and social services, due to an aging population and higher income and educational levels. In particular, by 2051, close to 40% of the Unionâ€™s population will be older than 65 years old;
- the increasing expectations of citizens who want the best care available, and at the same time to experience a reduction in inequalities in access to good health care;
- increasing mobility of patients and health professionals within a better functioning internal market;
- the need to provide the best possible health care under limited budgetary conditions.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

Inclusive services of general interest

Overall Implementation approach

Private sector

Technology choice

Standards-based technology

Funding source

Public funding EU | Private sector

Project size

Implementation: €1,000,000-5,000,000

Yearly cost:

€1,000,000-5,000,000

Implementation and Management Approach

The project is a market validation of a new service based on already existing technology. This market validation consisted in building two prototypes to provide service to 40 users in Barcelona and 40 users in Ostende. The main goals have been the analysis of three areas:

1) Technology. The technology aspects covers end user terminal, installation and support processes, integration requirements for different network and operator environments and required quality of service.

2) Market and business model. This perspective provided a model for the different actors involved in the service deployment, the market segments that support the service deployment and the different constrains that can appear at regulation, organizational, legal and privacy levels.

3) End users. Finally the central view is on the end user. The project provided a first result on user acceptance and after it has to show the impact on users life, the right usability and protocols for assistance.

Technology solution

The project integrates end user devices (TV, STB, ADSL router and Mobile) with the Teleassistance Video Call Centre using a Network Server that manages all communication capabilities provided by the solution.

The solution includes:
- Remote terminal (STB, ADSL router and mobile) configuration, monitoring and problem resolution.
- Video Calls.
- Mobile emergency calls with location information.
- User location tracking.

End user devices have been selected based on cost and end user convenience: mobile with two buttons designed for elders, video conference based on TV with standard STB and ADSL router and all devices with remote configuration, monitoring and management capabilities.

Integration between devices, network servers and Teleassistance center is based on standards:
- SIP/H.263/H.264 for video conferencing.
- Web Services for interaction between network servers and teleassistance center.
- GSM standards for mobile calls.
- SMS for mobile terminal alarms, management and configuration.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

The benefits introduced by the service are:
- The Attentianet project provides an improved social attendance system accessible from home and on the move that allows to stay longer at home.
- It addresses specific assistance, social and security needs of people with disabilities, reduced mobility handicap or socially disadvantaged.
- It targets also the needs of caretakers and families because allows to have elders permanently on line when they are on the move and with visual capabilities when they are at home.
- It strengths the European social model giving an advanced new system to prevent and solve actual situation of elder people solitude, specially in the most disfavored social classes.
- It includes the capacity to know the location of the users, allowing the social attendance and emergency workers to know the exact position of the users in case of any alarm or critical situation.
- The service has a strong focus on usability. One of the majors outcomes of Attentianet is how terminals have to be designed and how attendance processes and service operations have to be performed.
- Prevents the â€œdigital exclusionâ€ thanks to the usage of new technologies: broadband and mobile that can be the platform for additional services, as for example, telemedicine, chat services, information, entertainment, etc...

This service has a sustainable business model based on the following factors:
- Today there are more than 60 M of people with more than 65 years old in Europe. In 2020 is expected to reach 80 M.
- Considering the portion of potential users with bigger needs of assistance, we have a potential market of 16 M users in Europe.
- Today, the average of GPD spend in Europe for retired people is 11%. This can increase dramatically in the coming years being social and health support systems one of the most impacted.
- The cost of opportunity for families providing the care support for their elders is not taken into account in above GPD percentage. This effort can not be sustained in the future due to the big decrease of children per family in Europe.
- Communications and IT have been the main factor of productivity improve in most of the industrial sectors in the last years. This is an enhancement still to be applied to the social and health care for elders and Attentianet is focusing in this type of enhancement.

Track record of sharing

The Attentianet project has been presented in several public demonstration and exhibitions along its execution. As main ones, the project has been presented in two major events, one done in Belgium, at mid project execution, and the other in Spain, when the market validation was finishing.

The first Attentianet major event constituted a press conference done in CMO premises, in Osteende, on September 22nd 2006. The press conference in CM Oostende was carried out together with the care centre St. Jozef, the Landsbond der Christelijke Mutualiteiten (LCM) and a number of external partners (under the leadership of Alcatel-Lucent and Belgacom).

In this event, Attentianet was exposed as an innovation project that started to be a reality. Also, the conference was related to the partner country Spain, where an equivalent validation was also ongoing. The press conference had a big impact, specially in the Oostende area, as it was demonstrated in the news appeared in the Focus TV Oostende local TV channel, which dedicated a news report about the project.

The second Attentianet major event was the Ambient assisting living (AAL) event in Barcelona in March 15th 2007: 'Ambient Assisting Living. Las TIC aplicadas a las personas con dependencia' (i.e. Ambient Assisting Living: The ICTs applied to people with disabilities) which included a detailed presentation of the Attentianet project and a real system demonstration. Representatives of the Barcelona Local and Catalonian Regional governments (Catalonian Health Ministry) where present in the event.

The event had a quite significant impact at Barcelona local and Catalonian Regional levels, thanks to the involvement of the local and regional governments representatives in the event.

Lessons learnt

Lesson 1 - The market validation of advanced technological solutions for elders constitutes an interesting challenge which can only be achieved with the implication of all the actors involved (technological partners, carriers, social assistance companies â€¦) in multidisciplinary teams which are able to manage the challenge from all the necessary perspectives.

Attentianet Consortium has been able to configure and rule such multidisciplinary teams. Each participant has provided his own know-how, in his respective expertise field, combining the technological knowledge with the social care expertise in validating a service solution that, for its own nature, implies a significant leap in the complexity of the user devices and equipment that the user has to manage. Therefore, as best practice recommendations, Attentianet has clearly shown that the team working of multidisciplinary teams is key in the deployment success of complex technological solutions in the telecare arena.

Moreover, the enhancement of the social care provided by the inclusion of new advanced technologies have a huge impact on the users, since the quality of the care provided is clearly upgraded. However, at the same time, the reliability levels of the solution have to be extremely good, since the user perspective is clearly impacted by it.

Lesson 2 - The Attentianet project has shown clearly that the deployment of such solutions have to put huge effort in the system reliability and robustness. In this sense, as best practice recommendation is that the technology used underneath has to be robust, easy to use (usability is key) and indeed fully transparent to the user, who has only to see the social care service and not the technology used to get it.

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