Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research IGDThe coronavirus pandemic has underlined the key role of care staff, but this profession has been under pressure for a long time. To ease this burden, Fraunhofer IGD is investigating how the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence can be leveraged in care facilities and retirement homes.
In a globalized world, pandemics and demographic change (aging society) will continue to be key challenges—particularly when it comes to medical treatment and long-term care. The Federal German Ministry of Health has called for greater efforts to secure urgently needed “relief by medical and technological advances and digital transformation.”
To meet the complex requirements of the care sector, the institute is looking to use IoT technologies to overcome compatibility problems between diverse standards and products. But this task is also about considering people, and people within a specific environment—which includes processes in care and retirement homes, and the systematic integration of the systems deployed.
Stand-alone solutions, limited functionality, a lack of standardization
To offer care staff reliable support requires overcoming the hurdles presented by the siloed solutions currently on the market. Conventional local motion detectors and other sensors are often imprecise. They simply respond to heat or light, unable to detect whether a patient is genuinely struggling to get up from bed or simply wishes to retrieve a blanket that has slipped onto the floor. Plus, it is generally not possible to combine diverse systems. There are too many communication and wireless transmission standards. Frequent false alarms triggered by individual innocuous events that do not require action add to care professionals’ workload. The only way to recognize genuine anomalies at an early stage is to have integrated technologies and AI-assisted software.
When embedded into an open system, IoT technologies, such as smart flooring, motion detectors and other sensors, can already be employed to monitor circumstances in rooms. In the future, it will be possible for artificial intelligence to go a step further and to autonomously analyze the situation. An AI-supported system learns to recognize human habits and patterns of behavior; when there are anomalies, it can issue an alert.
Reduced workload for staff, patient involvement—care in the future
AI-supported software—and its combination with Internet of Things devices—is able to detect irregularities in a given room, eliminating the need for time-consuming in-person checks by staff. An alarm system with an intercom function allows the patient to cancel false alarms. And for medical checkups, patients can play an active role by means of user-friendly instruments, e.g., by entering their own blood pressure readings. The data are also automatically transferred to an electronic patient record. This meets the need for documentation, offers visibility into the care provided, and allows transparent external communications. And that eases the staff workload further, enabling them to spend more time on their core tasks—high-quality human interaction.