User centred Independent Living: the freedom to roam

随着老年人口的增长，传统的护理模式正面临着前所未有的新挑战。我们的老年人寿命更长，因此要应付更多的长期疾病。这不可避免地给我们的保健和社会服务带来了更大的和不可持续的负担。此外，家庭成员往往被要求充当非专业的照顾者，导致更多的压力和照顾者疾病。人类-技术混合解决方案可以缓解这一问题，支持独立、预防、早期干预和个人健康管理以及参与社区和劳动力。如果我们能够改善个人对技术的参与，并利用技术更有效地获得传统服务，那么我们就可以改善老年人的生活方式和长期健康状况的管理。对于那些患有慢性疾病的人来说，改善信息和服务的获取可以促进患者和护理人员的独立性，使他们能够在需要时与健康和护理专业人员进行有效和及时的互动。我们的项目旨在开发一种直观的独立生活解决方案，利用现有技术，能够在家庭，社区或远离家庭的偏远地区工作。解决方案必须提供信息和宣传，必须支持用户的安全，同时保护隐私和个人选择。此外，解决方案必须是模块化的，以允许添加额外的功能，如安全监控，远程护理和远程医疗，社交网络和交易处理。我们相信我们的方法是真正的创新，因为我们正在寻找开发的服务和解决方案，将有效地为“担心好”和“不专业”的照顾者，以及前线机构，如社会服务。我们将寻求根据客户的需求和专业知识量身定制的解决方案，这些解决方案既具有优势，又具有技术领先优势。因此，我们将与宽带资本合作，利用电视的无处不在，但确保解决方案也将适用于PC和移动的设备，从而增加消费者的覆盖面。为了开发适用于消费者和机构的模块化和可扩展的解决方案，我们寻求领先技术组织的商业和技术专业知识。最后，为了确保我们“闭环”，我们正在利用苏格兰远程医疗中心（Scottish Centre for Telehealth）和苏格兰医疗中心（Scottish Centre for Telehealth）等合作伙伴的专业知识，专注于当事件触发器被激活并需要人为干预时会发生什么。

Traditional models of care are facing new and unprecedented challenges as our older population grows. Our elders are living longer lives and accordingly coping with more long-term illnesses. Inevitably this places an increased and unsustainable burden on our health and social services. In addition, family members are often required to act as unprofessional carers, resulting in more stress and carer illness. Hybrid human-technology solutions can alleviate this problem, supporting independence, prevention, early intervention and management of personal health as well as participation in the community and the workforce. If we can improve individual engagement with technology and use this to access traditional services more efficiently, then we can improve the lifestyle of older adults and the management of long-term health conditions. For those suffering chronic health conditions, improved access to information and services can promote independence for patients and carers; allowing them to interact in an efficient and timely manner with health and care professionals when required.Our project aims to develop an intuitive independent living solution that harnesses existing technologies and is capable of working in the home, the community or in remote locations away from home. The solution must provide both information and advocacy and must support the safety of the user whilst protecting privacy and personal choice. Further, the solution must be modular to allow additional functionality such as safety monitoring, telecare and telehealth, social networking and transaction processing to be added.We believe our approach is truly innovative as we are looking to develop services and solutions that will be effective for the 'worried well' and 'unprofessional' carers as well as front-line agencies such as social services. We will seek solutions that are tailored to the needs and expertise of the customer and that are benefit versus technology lead. We will, therefore, work with Broadband Capital to use the ubiquitousness of the TV, but ensure that the solution(s) will also work across PCs and mobile devices, thus increasing consumer reach. To develop modular and scaleable, anytime, anyplace, anywhere solutions applicable for consumers and agencies, we have sought the commercial and technical expertise of leading technology organisations. Finally, ensuring we 'close the loop' we are utilising the expertise of partners such as Scottish Centre for Telehealth and Essentia to focus on what happens when an event trigger is activated and human intervention is required.