Who Takes Care?

The Development of an Intelligent Healthcare Environment that Supports Healthcare Professionals

CAUSE
The problem addressed by this research project is the high workload of care professionals in dementia care. Due to an increase in the number of elderly people with dementia, the demand for care is increasing, while the shortage of care professionals is growing. This workload can be greatly reduced by using smart technological innovations such as an Intelligent Care Environment.

HOW DOES AN INTELLIGENT CARE ENVIRONMENT WORK?
An Intelligent Care Environment uses sensor techniques and uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to deliver personalized care by identifying and responding to care needs. The Intelligent Care Environment works together with the care professional. This solution direction is further elaborated in this project together with four healthcare parties and three innovative SME organisations.

Just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAI) are developed based on the case ‘Support with food and drink’, so that the healthcare professional is supported in performing certain care tasks.
An example of an intervention is giving the person-adjusted sensory stimuli (sounds, lights and projections) at the right time that stimulate seniors to eat. Such interventions reduce the pressure on the healthcare professional and improve the quality of care.

ATTENTION TO HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
Not only the integration of the AI modules is important, but also how the AI is ‘shown’ to the healthcare professional. That is why this project also pays extra attention to the interaction between healthcare professionals and the Intelligent Healthcare Environment, which increases ease of use and allows both client and healthcare professional to experience a higher degree of autonomy.

By further developing the prototype of the Intelligent Care Environment in healthcare institutions in collaboration with various healthcare professionals and paying attention to the development of AI and Interaction with the system, the wishes and needs of the healthcare professionals can be integrated into the Intelligent Care Environment. This is done in three iterations, with the three successive available living labs becoming increasingly complex and realistic.