FIGURe 1
ICT4Life platform testing scenarios
Rehabilitation scenario
Home scenario
Patient & Caregiver support
• Information
• Training
• Communication Calendar
• Medication
• Social Support Patient & Caregiver support
• Information
• Training
• Communication Calendar
• Medication
• Social Support
Sensor deployment
• Security
• Abnormal behaviour
• Symptoms
• 3D Cams
• Binary sensors
• Wearables Sensor deployment
• Rehabilitation exercise evolution
• 3D Cameras
• Wearables
Shared Information
• Health & Social Professionals
• Knowledge acquired from sensors
Shared Information
• Health & Social Professionals
• Patient therapy evolution
new functionalities. Implementing improvements
takes into consideration the required adjustments
due to cultural or regional contexts.
The scenarios
A summary of the scenarios are shown in
Figure 1: patients’ homes, day care centres and
rehabilitation rooms.
In the home scenario, personalised training,
reminder, communication and rehabilitation
services support patients’ empowerment and
independent living. The patient is monitored
through several sensors that gather real-time
data simultaneously and to detect abnormal
behaviours. Thus, the patient and his/her health
status are constantly monitored while ensuring
independent living. When a risky situation is
detected, the platform connects the patient with
his/her family, care-givers and professionals
through friendly tools. This approach contributes
to increasing not only the quality of life of the
patients but also of care-givers, who are often
patients themselves. The platform fi nally aims
to support the decision-making process of the
health professionals who use ICT4Life services to
monitor the evolution of the patient’s symptoms
and medication intake.
The rehabilitation scenario supports the
analysis of the patients’ evolution during therapies
and while performing exercises. The continuous
monitoring helps professionals from the health
and social sectors to assess the effectiveness of
the recommended therapies and, eventually,
to improve the integrated approach to care for
people affected by these neurological diseases.
Day-care centre scenario
Care Professionals
Patient specifi c data and reminders
Patient symptom information
Sensor deployment
Security
Symptom data
Socialization
3D Cameras
Wearables
Shared Information
Health & Social Professionals
The day-care centre is the scenario in which
several patients will be monitored simultaneously
over the pilot phase. The system will support
care-givers to obtain specifi c information on the
patients’ status. The project technologies will
allow collection of patients’ specifi c data related
to their specifi c symptoms and to establish an
exchange of information with professionals, in
turn connected to the platform with specifi c tools.
A continuous process of iterative testing has
been designed and the platform functionalities
experienced by end-users (patients, care-givers
and professionals), combining several social
research techniques (including formal testing
protocols). The goal, as in previous phases of the
co-design process, has been to identify usability
improvements and adapting the technology to
the users’ needs. The co-creation process has
involved most of the ICT4Life multi-disciplinary
team, including both users and developers.
This process is taking place simultaneously in
three countries (France, Hungary and Spain),
in order to address cultural differences through
country comparison, and also allowing
comparison of patients suffering different disease
needs and demands (Parkinson’s disease at
different stages and Alzheimer’s disease patients).
The research will also contribute to the
analysis of scenarios supported through
a method developed by another EU-funded
project (SCIROCCO) 2 aimed at determinating the
strengths and weaknesses of a given geographical
region in terms of integration of care. The
objective is to ensure the successful and effective
scaling-up of the developed platform.
11
HHE 2018 | hospitalhealthcare.com
This project has received
funding from the European
Union’s Horizon 2020 Research
and Innovation Programme
under Grant Agreement n°
690090.
This article expresses the
authors’ view and the
European Commission is
not responsible for any use
that may be made of the
information it contains.
References
1 Simon Stevens – Chief
Executive of NHS England.
www.kingsfund.org.uk/audio-
video/simon-stevens-nhs-fi ve-
year-forward-view (accessed
April 2018)
2 www.scirocco-project.eu/
(accessed April 2018)