Industry Insights: How IoT Devices Support Care in the Community

over 5 years ago

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CareZapp transforms care and support at home in many ways and is a perfect fit with Vidatec’s purpose: to improve people’s experience of life through technology.

The CareZapp platform offers an IoT-based night-time monitoring service. Up to now, if a client of a care agency needed overnight support, the options were to move them to a care facility, thereby removing their independence, or to have a dedicated carer stay overnight in their home. A lot of the time, thankfully, no intervention is required – but this leads to under-utilised resources and increased costs in a sector where it’s notoriously difficult to recruit suitable staff.

Our partner agency, Cornerstone, is well established in the Care sector. Working closely with Cornerstone staff, CareZapp can provide a suite of IoT sensors, with specific Alert triggers (defined in our rules engine) to suit individual client’s needs. The sensors are unobtrusive and wireless, so can be installed with no inconvenience to anyone. The platform focuses on multi-modal sensor data acquisition, aggregation, pattern recognition in real-time. This data is supplied to the night support team in a meaningful way. The team can then respond within seconds if intervention is required. The data gathered by CareZapp can also be of value to Social Workers and Healthcare staff.

Using CareZapp’s data, Cornerstone support staff can tell if someone is moving around (e.g. they might be restless), or if a door or window has been opened uncharacteristically (this might be a ‘red flag’ for certain clients). Carbon Monoxide and Smoke levels can also be measured, and more specialized sensors can be fitted if necessary. ‘Urgent Assistance’ Buttons can be fitted in multiple locations in the Client’s home as appropriate.

Depending on individual circumstances, a Tablet can be added to the system to provide direct support services, such as immediate audio/video communication between Client and Carer. This allows the Carer to provide immediate re-assurance if necessary (sometimes Clients just need to hear a caring voice) – or to help ascertain the Client’s safety level.

There is no substitute for the Human Touch, but sometimes all that’s required is a chat, or just to know that someone is nearby if you need them. CareZapp delivers on the promise of IoT to provide real and meaningful improvement to the lives of both the Cared-for and the Carers. It also provides data at an unprecedented level of detail. This data can be used by a care network to manage resources and supports predictive and preventative services into the future at a level that would not otherwise be possible.

Anna Browne

Customer Success Manager, CareZapp

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