EAGER: An In-Home Health Alert System with Remote Care Coordination

用家庭传感器对个人进行不显眼的监测，为发现早期健康问题提供了巨大的潜力——在它们成为大问题之前——因此可以提供及时的干预措施来改善健康轨迹。其结果是持续的高功能能力、独立性和更好的健康结果。早期发现健康变化是这一方法的关键。该项目利用密苏里大学正在进行的健康警报系统传感器技术工作。一个放大版的健康警报系统正在爱荷华州锡达福尔斯的老年住房中进行测试，使用家庭传感器和远程视频会议来协调护士护理。光纤网络为项目提供了必要的带宽和延迟。健康警报系统包括用于活动监测的运动传感器和用于步态分析的Kinect深度图像，并集成了一个新的液压床传感器，用于捕获定量脉搏、呼吸和躁动。模式识别算法用于寻找传感器数据模式的变化，并向临床医生发出健康警报，由临床医生提供进一步诊断并确定适当的干预措施。将评估远程卫生警报系统在管理慢性疾病方面的可用性和有效性。在医疗保健提供者的远程站点测试健康警报系统将提供有关该方法如何扩展到具有高速视频会议和传感器数据传输的其他设置的重要信息。这将为老年人想要的独立住房提供重要的下一步，并提供潜在的医疗成本节约。

The unobtrusive monitoring of individuals with in-home sensors offers enormous potential for detecting early health problems-before they become big problems--so timely interventions can be provided to improve the health trajectory. The result is continued high functional ability, independence, and better health outcomes. Early detection of health changes is the key to this approach. This project leverages ongoing work at the University of Missouri in Health Alert Systems with sensor technology. A scaled-up version of the Health Alert System is being tested in senior housing in Cedar Falls, Iowa, using in-home sensors and remote video conferencing for nurse care coordination. Fiber networking provides the bandwidth and latency essential for the project. The Health Alert System includes motion sensors for activity monitoring and Kinect depth images for gait analysis, and integrates a new hydraulic bed sensor that captures quantitative pulse, respiration, and restlessness. Pattern recognition algorithms are used to look for changes in the sensor data patterns and generate health alerts to clinicians, who provide further diagnosis and determine appropriate interventions. The usability and effectiveness of the remote Health Alert System will be evaluated for managing chronic health conditions. Testing the Health Alert System at a remote site from the healthcare providers will provide important information about how the approach scales up into other settings with high speed video conferencing and transfer of sensor data. This will provide an important next step towards moving the approach into independent housing where seniors want to be and offers potential healthcare cost savings.