AAL Programme

Template for proposal description (Part B, Call 2018)

 

Application areas addressed:                Health&Care, Safety&Security, Information&Communication

Proposal full title:                                SAfety of elderly people and Vicinity Ensuring

Proposal acronym:                               SAVE

Name of the project coordinator:          Sorin-Aurel Moraru – Transilvania University of Brasov

Contact details of the coordinator:        B-dul Eroilor nr. 29, 500036 Brasov – Romania

Envisaged starting date:                        01/09/2019

List of participants:

Participant no* Participant organisation name Participant short name Organisation type Role in the project Country
1 (Coordinator) Transilvania University of Brasov UNITBV UNIVERSITY RESEARCH RO
2 Vision Systems SRL VS SME BUSINESS RO
3 Institute of Space Science – NILPRP Subsidiary ISS RESEARCH RESEARCH RO
4 Ikontent Digital Europe KFT. IKONTENT SME BUSINESS HU
5 EVA Vision R&D LLC EVA SME BUSINESS HU
6 Országos Orvosi Rehabilitációs Intézet NIMR END-USER USER HU
7 Laboratorio delle Idee S.r.l. Labidee SME BUSINESS IT
8 IRCCS-INRCA INRCA RESEARCH USER IT

 

Table of Contents

Cover Page……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1

Section 1: Relevance and scope…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5

1.1 Example scenario……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5

1.2 Essence and uniqueness of the project……………………………………………………………………………………………. 5

1.3 Comparative Advantage / Innovation………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8

Section 2: Implementation……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 10

2.1. Involvement of end-users (all levels)………………………………………………………………………………………………… 10

2.2 Business development plan…………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 12

2.3 Technology, standards and interoperability……………………………………………………………………………………… 12

2.4 Project organisation, consortium composition and quality, work plan…………………………………………………….. 15

Project organisation………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 15

2.5 Resources required for successful implementation……………………………………………………………………………. 19

2.6 Risk assessment and management plan………………………………………………………………………………………… 19

Gantt chart of the project phases (with main correlation among tasks)……………………………………………………….. 25

Section 3: Impact………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 26

3.1. Impact on end-users…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 26

3.1.1 Improving Quality of Life for primary and secondary end-users……………………………………………………….. 26

3.1.2 Effect on service models………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 26

3.1.3 Social and ethical impact……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27

3.1.4 Opt-out, exit strategies and drop-out management………………………………………………………………………. 27

3.2 Impact on market development…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27

3.2.1 Business components…………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 27

3.2.2 Sharing of project knowledge – dissemination……………………………………………………………………………… 30

3.2.3 Intellectual Property Rights management (IPR) and other legal issues……………………………………………… 31

 

Executive Summary

 

Objectives Approach of project
Specific challenge and end users’ involvement SAVE will best suit the elderly persons, suffering of age-related chronic illnesses, mild cognitive issues/disabilities, cognitive decline – after the age of 50 years, they are often observed memory difficulties, mobility difficulties. Preventing such issues, SAVE could avoid psychosocial exclusion of the enlarged end-users circle and optimises individual’s life, caregiving resources and preserving as much as possible the familiar environment in which the end-user can exercise his autonomy and self-management.

The SAVE project aims at moulding its services upon a profound knowledge of actual needs and related opportunity areas. To this respect, the involvement of end-user and stakeholders is a key resource, in co-creation and co-design session, in testing, validation and implementation at 3 pilot sites, In Romania, Hungary and Italy.

Unique selling proposition The SAVE system is an incorporated solution that main goal is to support end-users in staying in their familiar surroundings for as long as possible, while still be safe and optimally cared for. Secondarily SAVE supports informal caregivers, like relatives, in providing optimal care for their wards, while maintaining their professional and private life. Additionally, SAVE enables professional care-givers in the development of an optimal support planning and achievement, involving also volunteering associations.

The target market for these technical innovation are: (i) elderly people, age-related chronic illness, people with mild dementia or with disability, and other impairments, (ii) informal caregivers, like family members; (iii) formal caregivers, social-care organisations, nursing homes and volunteer organisations.

Commercialisation leader EVAand Ikontentwill take lead in the marketing and distribution activities after the project.Ikontentwill also be the main regional distribution partner in Hungary. Labidee  will be the main regional distribution partner in Italy. INRCA will contribute to present the system to relevant stakeholders in Italy and collaborate with Labidee.

VS will be the main regional distribution partner in Romania.

Route to market We expect 24 months to break even, thus the first two years existing funds of the business partner have to be used to support the road to market. Product exploitation and the contributing teams are outlined in Business model with the role of the partners. Ownership and existing and new intellectual property rights will be defined in the consortium agreement. External stakeholders are data protection agencies and medical device certification agencies who have to agree to our solution or declare non-jurisdiction. Also hardware manufacturers (who are often startups in this branch) have to be sufficiently prepared to be able to fulfil orders when necessary.

A first release of SAVE products is expected to reach the market shortly after project closure. Envisaged cooperation between the industry partners and contributors will be defined along project implementation. Licensing agreements are foreseen to allow for the integration of technologies into the joint system that are protected by IPR or forming the background knowledge of some of the partners.

Dissemination and target groups SAVE dissemination strategy will make use of different communication and dissemination means, implementing actions toward several target groups: scientific community, policy makers, public authorities, industrial interest groups working on dementia-related ICT solutions, as well as media and public at large:

·         The scientific community: experts, local scientific networks of each project partner; all those scientific institutions, research centres and European networks;All public and private Health stakeholders such as the project stakeholders, municipalities of Fabriano (IT), Ancona (IT), Budapest (HU), Brasov (RO), Bucharest (RO) as well as Brasov (RO), Marche (IT), and Central Hungary (HU) regions, public institutions and policy makers at local, national and European level interested in ICT solutions in health care;

·         Public at large such as (i) citizens of the country involved starting from end users and related relatives involved in the consortium; (ii) Internet communities and in general people reached by mass media (TV, radio, etc.) or social media by press coverage, web news publication, production of leaflets, videos and other specific means to raise awareness on SAVE results.

 

Section 1: Relevance and scope

Overview of “SAVE” (SAfety of elderly people and Vicinity Ensuring) project:

Fig. 1: SAVE – the technological context

1.1 Example scenario

Armand is a 67 years old man. Armand feels often lonely and spends much time at home watching TV. He started gaining some weight, and suffers from high blood pressure and prostatic hypertrophy. One day, he participates in the “Technology Club” within the social assistance service of the municipality, next to other two friends. Mihai is 69 years old and suffers from mild dementia and Beatrice, 66 years old, is suffering from a physical disability. They were engaged in a training course, held by the SAVE project team: they were shown how to use simple technology devices (e.g. wearable bracelets) to assess their fitness, how to make their home activities more safe (e.g. prevention of house fire), how to use intelligent furniture for safety (e.g. avoid falling) how to keep in touch with fellow groups and with local social and health authorities (e.g. with smartphones and tablets). At the course, they were given a few devices sponsored by the municipality (e.g. sensors kits), in order to test them at their home and while walking. At this course they all started also to learn how to use the location systems that will help them to come back safely at their home. During these sessions, supervised by the volunteers, they also completed behaviour questionnaires (personalised, for safety and ethical reasons). Then, Armand, Mihai and Beatrice installed the SAVE demo app on their smartphone and registered for SAVE services. Through the “To Do” section of the app, they will be also notified about next activities, synchronised in the “Personal cloud” of their relatives, friends and formal caregivers. In this group Armand also designated some “reference persons” (namely, Beatrice and his son Charlie) who may be informed in case of troubles and may provide further information if needed.  One day, Armand was going to the market and suddenly didn’t remind where is he living, where is his house. He invoked the SAVE system that noticed Armand is 2.5 km from home. He pushed the safety button and the application started to show him the road back to his house. Arriving at home, he realised that he is very tired and fell while trying to start the heating in the house. The app “Ping” interactive capability, suspecting another problem, prompted Armand with some signals – “emoticons”. Armand managed to push the Emergency button and the system alerted automatically the authorities (including the localisation info), asking for help. After this experience and talking with the doctors and his friends he realised that his physical condition is very low (with problems of balance, of legs or hands coordination). He decided to apply for the full SAVE service suite and smartphone apps, enrolling also to start physical exercises for improving well being – either at the club or at home, with the support from volunteering organisations.

1.2 Essence and uniqueness of the project

The essential of our proposal is “restoring the referential” – the unique goal of “orientation” is approached not only as location but also as “to do” shared goals, ensuring the “safety of the vicinity” (considered, in the title of our project, in a closer sense – the room, the garden – than the neighbourhood).

The proposal goes beyond two past stereotypes – “elderly people can be better assisted only if hospitalized” and  “elderly people dislike modern technologies” – and it does this for an extended range of “not-so-fit” persons.

The uniqueness of the project is “mediation” – leveraging on AAL services mediation capabilities both at interpersonal level (mediation between “physical and juridical persons”) and at the “middleware” level. The specific of SAVE is the aim to endorse volunteering – not only to disseminate its infrastructure, knowledge base and flexible services but with the promotion of social engagement and active participation: the volunteers may be elderly and/or disabled people themselves. Their “peer-to-peer” technology transfer (e.g. from more skilled elderly people to less skilled ones) would be also a “transfer of confidence” (in the evolving context of volunteering organizations). The other side of smart mediation role (in the integrative approach of SAVE) is the technological “middleware” (able to be integrated also by telecommunication service providers) – e.g. enhanced alerts treatment, pre-filtering ”spam” (that could be generated by people with cognitive problems) from real SOS that should reach the official emergency lines that are already merged in many countries (medical, police, fire etc).

From this technological point of view, SAVE aims to contribute to the future of ”Emergency calls” that should assist people at ”both sides of the line” – not only end-users in need (that cannot open apps like Google Maps, not only because of cognitive impairment or lack of technical knowledge but even because of momentary extreme distress) but even volunteers or care-giving bodies operators that cannot interpret complex GIS (Geographical Information Systems) data. A simple ”button to rule them all” can be pushed to alert those pre-configured ”to assist” – e.g. family members, medical assistants, private security companies or even the police and the fire brigade – the specific is the personalization of this pre-alerting, with the sending of coordinates and a link to Google Maps that marks the location where this button was pushed. A pre-set personalized message (about the condition of the sender – e.g. epileptic) should be attached. The SAVE services would provide also the reciprocal data – displayed by the smartphone of those end-users that can understand them: the location, map and route to the closest assistance point – e.g. dispensary or police office.

What is the rationale behind our proposal?

The rationale of SAVE is the re-orientation in a supportive environment for the end-user in terms of position – location (e.g. showing the way home or the way to the community centre closest to the actual position) and/or in terms of safety (e.g. in a sensor-equipped intelligent kitchen) but also in a broader cognitive and behavioural sense that is interpersonal and task-oriented. In such a general perspective, the role of the caregiver starts with the help for “re-integration” of those in need in their “personal cloud” (e.g. retrieving the… forgotten goals in the shared “to do” group objectives), enhancing safety (both of the person and of his/her vicinity). SAVE is aiming to living independently and safely for longer time at home (using a sensors kit for activity monitoring and safety assessment), and autonomously outside home (using locating systems for guidance back home or to the nearest point of support) with involvement in physical activities (a pro-active extension of the reorientation effort, monitored by wearable devices) with the goal of health improvement and social insertion/integration.

With this aim of integration SAVE will provide a “top-down” approach of: 1) location and identity (e.g. with the newest Location (from) Identity Separation Protocols – LISP and LBS – location based services) ; 2) role-driven (the capabilities are growing from the end-user to the volunteer, to the family member, to professional caregiver and even to the IT specialist) but being approached as “concentric”, in a unified way ; 3) safety of the person is integrated with the safety of the vicinity – compliant with the integrated (merged) emergency alerting (medical, police, fire etc) available in many countries (SAVE aims to prove the concept of smart mediation to enhance alerts treatment and, on the other side, to discriminate real SOS from pre-filtered ”spam” generated by people with cognitive problems or by malicious use-abuse) ; 4) well-being is supported by monitoring of the physical condition (with wearable devices) integrated with stimulation of physical exercise ; 5) “to-do” lists are shared with the trusted (pre-configured) group “friends & family” and forgotten tasks are reminded / updated-enhanced in the supervised care-giving community ;           6) last but not least, the elderly-people target group is extended with different kinds of other end-users (with mild dementia and other impairments or disabilities).

SAVE aims to combine different technologies in order to provide a service platform, centred around a holistic vision of end-user needs, and connecting different stakeholders (institutions, professional care providers, volunteering and third-sector associations, family members etc.) offering them a straightforward access to shared information, organization tools and connection to services, extending the concept of “community”. We expect to offer a consolidated solution able to ensure long-term, continuous monitoring and support of end-users’ health and wellness, in a more effective and reliable way, both at the individual and the community level.

What end-user challenges (needs and wishes) are being targeted?

SAVE will best suit the elderly persons, suffering (or being at risk of) age-related chronic illnesses (such as hypertension, heart diseases or diabetes), mild or moderate cognitive issues/disabilities (such as exhibiting BPSD – Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia, depression etc)[1].

We refer to these impairments as defined by the Mini-Mental State Examination[2] – MMSE and the Clinical Dementia Rating[3] – CDR tests, as assessed by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI scale)[4].

SAVE would also take into account the age-related cognitive decline – after the age of 50 years, they are often observed memory difficulties (e.g. working memory, episodic memory, reasoning abilities, processing speed etc.), mobility difficulties (e.g. Walking Difficulty, difficulty standing etc.), physiological difficulties (arthritis, osteoporosis, diabetes etc.). Preventing such issues, SAVE could avoid psychosocial exclusion of the enlarged end-users circle.[5]  With this integrated approach of taking part in the life of society, active ageing will be supported by SAVE in order to avoid social exclusion due to assistive technologies that would contribute on long term in enhancing of lifelong capacity and performance[6].

The SAVE project is addressing the challenge to improve end-users capacity for:

  • Living an active and meaningful life (social participation and well-being).
  • Living independently and safely for longer time at home (decision and control of daily activities) with support from their caregivers and community when necessary.
  • Involve in different types of physical activity that brings them the feeling of own safety and utility for that day.
  • Being independently and safely outside their home, due to LBS (via GPS / GIS).
  • Keeping permanent contact with the caregivers and/or friends – by smartphones or tablets.
  • Fostering healthy and active lifestyle pervasiveness through “peer to peer” and social-based approach
  • Empowering more persons in need to participate in volunteering activities, as a key to active social inclusion.

Which stakeholders (parts of the value chain/network) are integrate and in which way?

As the SAVE solutions are expected to sustain or improve the capacity of the above-mentioned primary users – elderly and/or people with mild dementia and/or with disabilities/or or other impairments – they will be involved the following organizations (secondary and tertiary users):

  • Municipalities and social services departments
  • Companies for elderly people care
  • Social & medical insurance services
  • Companies for supporting the app-s development
  • Volunteering organizations[7] for improving life style and well being
  • Organisations offering physical education programs for elderly
  • Medical centres and general practitioners (GP)
  • Distribution partners for the SAVE products

These stakeholders have different roles, considering:

  • the needed levels of customization for the services provided, related to the specific national regulations;
  • possible organizational attitude of social assistance services in relation to the adoption of new technologies.

Based on these premises, the SAVE project aims at involving and give value to the local municipalities, social service departments and companies for end-user care activities:

  • supporting the above mentioned organizations with management and organizational tools, helping in making their services more effective and rewarding;
  • connecting social- and health-care systems in a more straightforward and accessible fashion, fostering better integration of third-sector resources into the prevention and care provision policies.

 

What are our target groups for the final product?

The market segmentation for the SAVE products is the following:

  • Primary target groups – end-users (elderly and/or with mild dementia and/or with disabilities) and caregivers (at the family and volunteering level)
  • Secondary target groups – companies (solution providers and dealers)
  • Tertiary target groups – social / municipal organizations and community centres (caregivers at institutional level)

 

How will the proposal lead to an innovative, effective and coherent solution to the identified challenges?

The SAVE proposal has a two-fold approach:

  • integration of technology-based monitoring solutions into a flexible services package (personalized on specific and evolving user needs and wishes) with an innovative business model at the participative management level.
  • supporting exploitation and market penetration by engaging end-users and volunteering organizations in a “peer to peer” diffusion model, fostering end-user trust and providing an intermediate “buffer” level between end-users themselves and providers of care and technology.

The coherence of the solution will be based on a holistic approach endorsed by Systems Engineering (SE) user centred complex working methodology – as defined by the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE)[8] for complex systems developments coping with stringent stakeholder requirements and advanced technology[9]. SE methodology is distinguished from other user centric approaches, due to its interdisciplinary view with respect to continuous verification and validation processes such as the resulted system meeting stakeholder objectives in all its life cycle phases, from concept till disposal.

Leading to innovative products in the field of Assistive Technologies, two-stage Pilot phases would be used, assessing the positive impact of SAVE solutions on the targeted end-users on the Psychosocial Impact of Assistive Devices Scale (P-PIADS)[10]. The quality of life of the participants will be measured with ‘’Quality of Life Inventory”[11] and for measuring elderly physical activity, we will use the Physical activity scale for elderly (PASE)[12]. Mild dementia will be measured with questionnaires like QUALIDEM[13] (Dementia – specific quality of life instrument for persons) or General Activities of Daily Living Scale[14]. All these modern methodologies are expected to foster innovative solutions for a new cooperative integration of end-users and stakeholders/caregivers within a social assistive network.

1.3 Comparative Advantage / Innovation

Comparative advantage of our proposed solution over existing solutions

SAVE aims to contribute to the future of ”Emergency calls” based on evolved location-based services – the advantage of the proposed solution over the existing ones is the use of LISP – Location (from) Identity Separation Protocol, in order to assist people at ”both sides of the line”, as detailed above.

Another advantage is the Cloud-based communication approach, a secure web-service blend of RESTful (REpresentational State Transfer) APIs (Application Program Interfaces), Web RTC (Real Time Communications) and IoT (Internet of Things) compliant with the integrated charging/billing of tomorrow for human and machine communications. Compared with SAVE, traditional solutions lack efficient and transparent monetization that are discouraging not only individuals but also social and health insurance from using such services.

In-house elderly/disabled people monitoring will be integrated with intelligent-building security solutions – compared with commercial advanced “domotics”, SAVE aims to build an IoT Cloud exposing data in a unified event-driven way.

Most important innovative aspects of our project

The SAVE main purpose actually consists of integrating different solutions into a unique and accessible framework, supporting and innovating the activity of volunteering/ non-profit organizations already in the field.

The SAVE framework is largely built on existing sensing technology: we shall use both off-the-shelf, commercial devices (clinical sensors, fitness trackers) and devices already developed and thoroughly tested in previous AAL-JP projects (home devices and services, with the TRL mentioned in section 2.3). The infrastructure will be based on the emerging technology provided by commercial Cloud services, allowing for inherent interoperability and scalability.

The compliance with the “Intelligent Network” model (enabling not only Telecom network operators but also beneficiaries to develop and manage services) would grant our solutions with the future-proof advantage of enlarged partnership of stakeholders dealing with emergency calls, towards the evolved “Roaming” of tomorrow, with enhanced subscriber information including contracted services and serving priorities.

The LBS app will have a simple ”button to rule them all” that can be pushed to alert those pre-configured ”to assist” – this personalized pre-alerting will include the sending of coordinates and a link to Google Maps that marks the location where this button was pushed with the priority GPS > mobile comm Location Update > Last known position. A pre-set personalized message (about the condition of the sender – e.g. epileptic) should be attached. An innovative feature of the SAVE location-based services is the provision of reciprocal data – displayed by the smartphone of those end-users that can understand them or even those passing-by in case of falling on the street: the location, map and route to the closest “Point Of Assistance” (an extension of the POI – Point Of Interest concept).

Specific home sensors will be exploited to integrate the monitoring of fire/ flood/ gas leak detectors etc.) or “ambient” audio sensors.

An important innovative aspect of SAVE is the unified treatment of the “interrupts” – the service requests – in an unique “subscription model” using both MAC (Media Access Control) addresses of the intelligent sensors (as Cloud “tokens”) and mobile subscriber numbers (IMSI – International Mobile Subscriber Identities).

The audio sensors will be used also to recognize vocalization patterns – such sensors should not aim at actual voice recognition, but just at evaluating frequency and intensity of vocalization events (symptoms of dementia -forms of aphasia (speech and language disorders). It is worth underlining that all such components are readily available to the project partnership, either as commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) devices or as results from previous (AAL) projects, which have already been developed and extensively tested in relevant contexts. Such COTS devices can also monitor gait parameters (stride length and cadence), can identify basic activities (sitting, lying, standing, walking), can distinguish different types of locomotion (e.g. inclined walking and stairs climbing) and can integrate this monitoring with the incentive scheme of physical exercising[15]. As the SAVE project aims at a comprehensive and holistic “assistance for (re-)orientation”, functional specifications will be defined with reference to current caregiving practices.

As already mentioned, design and implementation of new components is planned mostly for user interaction (based on people-centric design) and for data analytics – for both of these, interfacing with open platforms is provided.

As shown above, the SAVE approach is built around existing end-user organizations, with the aim to leverage on volunteering and to endorse this with its innovative solutions.  Such organizations clearly represent an answer to expressed needs in their region already – SAVE aims at making their activity more effective and pervasive.

Also, by exploiting embedded monitoring functions, SAVE will account for early detection of changes in needs and opportunities, allowing for a future-proof dynamic tailoring of technology-based support. Regarding this regional specificity, if local regulations are clearly allowing this and the end-users and their caregivers want this, the wearable sensors system would integrate tools for assessment of common physiological indicators, such as blood pressure, blood sugar and oxygen concentration, or bodyweight. Standard medical devices will be used for this purpose, suitable for self-management or for home use. Besides medical devices, further objective indicators will be obtained from monitoring physical activity, either by exploiting smartphone embedded sensors (“pedometer” step counting apps etc.), dedicated wearable devices (commercial fitness bracelets etc) or outside home autonomy.

Regarding physical activity education endorsed by the SAVE solutions package, it is foreseen to take place both at the community centres, and at home by exercising assisted in real-time.

With these features, the SAVE system will offer the opportunity for elderly/ impaired people to feel more independently and to live safely for longer time at home (with sensor kits for activity and security monitoring), with outdoor autonomy and involvement in physical activities for improving their well being. In the same time, informal caregivers will be enabled for the remote monitoring of end-user’s daily activity – a daily status useful in creating comfort, a sense of security and privacy of the cared-of person and his/her peers. In the same view, step-by-step monitoring is expected to strengthen the relationship between the primary and secondary users as well as the responsibility of the latter. The SAVE solutions are non-invasive, can be quickly installed and are easy to use in any context (outside or inside). All the participants will be trained on how to use the SAVE system in different situations.

Direct monitoring is expected to reduce the role of intermediary prevention of institutionalization.

1.4 Key Performance Indicators

In the following table, a schedule of significant and verifiable issues is listed, which can be used to monitor project progresses. Three categories of key performance indicators are considered, consisting of project milestones achievements, of objective evaluation feedbacks from users and stakeholders, and of relevant dissemination figures.

Parameter Project month Goal/verification
User involvement – Number of end-users chosen for Pilots 5 30 Romania, 25 Hungary, 25 Italy
Service specification release 9  
Pilot start 13  
1st user survey (primary and secondary users) 19 Average satisfaction > 50%
Service 2nd release 24  
2nd user survey (primary and secondary users) 30 Average satisfaction > 50%
Number of peer-reviewed scientific publications 36 ≥ 5
Number of media citations 36 ≥ 10
Voluntary pilot user withdrawals 36 < 5%
Users willing to keep using the SAVE system after project’s end 36 > 25%
Measure of the social benefits reached by the end users 18 Average satisfaction > 50%
System requirements verification 18 Test-cases compliance
System requirements validation 18 End-users feedback
Service roll-out preparation 18 Business model
Pilot evaluation 15 User acceptance >80%

Section 2: Implementation

2.1. Involvement of end-users (all levels)

The SAVE project aims at moulding its services upon a profound knowledge of actual needs and related opportunity areas. To this respect, the involvement of end-user and stakeholders is a key resource, and will be exploited according to the following guidelines.

Primary end-users are 65+ elderly persons possibly suffering from mild dementia and/or with disabilities, whereas secondary end-users mostly include formal and informal caregivers (family and volunteering). It is to be stressed that the spectrum of needs of such users is evidently too broad to be realistically taken care of in its entirety within the framework of this project. This, on the one hand, implies that SAVE services will address a specific segment only within the larger picture, focusing on smart monitoring and caregiver support. On the other hand, it emphasizes further the need of framing the SAVE vision within a wider, holistic perspective, matching the overall social and health care strategies. Stakeholders’ role is hence to firmly hook the SAVE design at actual needs and features of social and health care systems and to look after pertinence and sustainability of the proposed solution. Stakeholders representing different view angles are hence involved, including private care providers, public social services, end-users organizations, medical and nursing researchers, family members. Even the user-profile is quite broad, and we define strict inclusion and exclusion criteria for making the proposal value more perceivable, as depicted below.

The proposal addresses almost-fit elderly people (both genders), suffering from moderate medical conditions or moderate impairments (movements; memory; communicating; hearing; mental health; social relationship) dealing with (or being at risk of) age-related issues, including frailty, mild mental health ailments and cognitive decline living alone and home dealing with intermediary prevention of institutionalization.

The end-users should be selected from Social Services for each country. Being in intermediary prevention of institutionalization, end-user are more familiar with these types of services for maintain their social and medical support. The SAVE system should allow end-users to become more independent, regardless of the actual context or the situation. Every partner will choose the number of end-users participants between 25 and 30 pilots for each country. This project should demonstrate the utility and benefits of the SAVE system in an European intercultural way.

Referring to the scenario –  Armand feels often lonely and spends much time at home watching TV. He started gaining some weight, and suffers from high blood pressure and prostatic hypertrophy. Mihai has 69 years old and suffers from mild dementia and Beatrice, 66 years old and suffering from a disability. End-users will contribute to all subsequent stages in the SAVE service development path: at first, design constraints will be jointly settled by matching technological offer and users’ and stakeholders’ demand. Then, envisioned solutions will be tested with users and refined upon their evaluation. Consistent time is allocated to allow such a feedback loop to properly develop. Eventually, users’ and stakeholder pilot experience will drive the design of market exploitation strategies. In particular,  the end-users will be involved, within pilot service implementation, in prototype service utilisation sessions and will consequently provide feedback on the developed system. Certain users (more keen on technology) will be also trained in order to handle in the best and fastest way the interfaces of the system components and will be involved in “peer-to-peer” training of fellow end-users. The users’ feedback will be gathered by the consortium developers in order to finalise/improve the pilot service, and as well to validate the service. Interactions/involvement of end users will be easily traceable along the project life cycle due to SE user centred methodology, namely from user identification continuing with their selected requirements, specifications, service implementation aspects, and backwards. The project will be supported through a structured user-centric design approach (WP2), implying a preliminary user study based on interviews in two phases:

Phase1: Co Design Session, via the following aspects:

End-user app through rapid prototyping and test the prototypes via use case scenarios and questionnaires: Quality of Life Inventory (Lazaroto et al., 2016); General Activities of Daily living scale (de Paula et al, 2014) and Mini Mental State Examination (Dodge et al., 2009); Dementia-Specific quality of life instruments for persons (Ettema, 2007). The Quality of Life Inventory has validity in all countries involved in this project, the other questionnaires should be translate in the specific of each country. We will use also in this project a physical activity scale for elderly (PASE)(Washburn et al., 1993) measuring physical functioning and self-report functioning. These approaches will should help and answer to our main topic about elderly wellbeing, using the benefits of physical activity for health, improving their ability to adapt to the environment (Garcia-Hermoso et al., 2018) and to decrease the level of falling (Rinaldi et al., 2017). Referring to the establish scenario: “During these sessions, supervised by the volunteers, they also completed behaviour questionnaires (personalised for safety and ethical reasons). Then, Armand, Mihai and Beatrice installed the SAVE demo app on their smartphone and registered for SAVE services”.

Phase2: Co-Creation Session

It will be exploited to bridge cultural differences among partners and stakeholder, this providing a common understanding and allowing to share the service specifications. Gain insights into elderly’s current concerns/issues in relation to living independent, as well as of the care professional.

  • Identify needs and expectations of elderly regarding smart technology and monitoring lifestyle.
  • Identify expectations of elderly regarding features and characteristics of home smart sensors and intelligent furniture
  • Identify expectations of elderly regarding characteristics of GPS app and his contributions.
  • Identify expectation of elderly about physical activity programs. Identify needs and expectations of care professionals regarding smart technology and monitoring lifestyle.
  • Validate with care professionals the concept of a home smart sensor connected with an app.
  • Identify expectations of care professionals regarding GPS app and physical activity.

Subsequently, iterative validation phases will be carried out based on objective assessments (through metering usage parameters) as well as subjective reports during the pilot experiments. Co-creation and stakeholder-centric design processes will also be exploited in the business planning phases, through dedicated stakeholder workshops. Users’ knowledge and sensitivity will also provide guidance with ethical regards, beyond obvious compliance with all relevant ethical regulations and guidelines (i.e. GDPR – General Data Protection Regulations). The SAVE system will inherently deal with sensitive data, belonging to persons with mild cognitive capabilities. In this case, formal regulations (e.g., informed consent) may be not sufficient to ensure respect of privacy and dignity rights. Nevertheless, the SAVE approach inherently involves family members as well, already participating in the care provision to their beloved one, and thus already participating in the decision process. Hence, the project will implement tools to foster caregivers’ full understanding and control of the additional care features enabled by SAVE. Referring to the established user-scenario: “The app “Ping” interactive capability, suspecting another problem, prompted Armand with some signals – “emoticons”! Armand pushed the Emergency button and the system alerted automatically the authorities (including localisation info), asking for help. After this experience and talking with the doctors and his friends he realised that his physical condition is very low (with problems of balance, of legs or hands). A set of well-differentiated pilot experiments are planned, aiming at a comprehensive account of aimed SAVE business target. The work plan allocates consistent timing to pilot execution, in order to allow settling down technical development and exploiting at most the users’ feedback loop. 3 pilot venues are currently planned, exploring different view angles: in Romania, it will be considered 1 pilot site counting 30 individual end-users; In Hungary, it will be considered 1 pilot site with 25 individual end-users; In Italy, it will be considered 1 pilot site with 25 individual end-users.

Such varied panel of sites represent indeed a valuable asset for the project, contributing with transnational and cross-cultural (challenging) elements to the system service design. Each pilot “unit” will include, besides the primary end-user, at least one formal caregiver (possibly shared with pilot mates) and possibly an informal one, besides a reference care center. I.e., all pilots will experience the whole service chain, allowing for testing consistency and compliance with local care practices. Each site will avail itself of a pilot support team, managed by local project partners and involving key figures in both the care and the technical fields. The team will care about technical installation and maintenance, as well as supporting users in daily use of SAVE features and managing evaluation processes. To this purpose, users will be constantly followed and periodically interviewed, to assess their satisfaction about system behaviour and its perceived impact. Also, gathering events involving all local users will be held, to stimulate discussion and to maximize feedback impact on service design. A remote technical support desk will be implemented within the project, to help pilot teams in diagnosing possible problem and in monitoring proper functioning of the local- and cloud-based services (i.e., the complete service supply chain will be mimicked, involving the service distribution, installation, maintenance and support, this contributing to the assessment of the business SAVE profile).

Targeted Primary End-users and inclusion criteria:

The primary end-user:

  • is more than 65 years old (both genders in similar proportions);
  • does not suffer from major chronic diseases or severe disabilities;
  • may suffer from mild-moderate medical conditions/disabilities or other impairments;
  • lives alone at home (or with non self-sufficient relatives) ;
  • retains sufficient mobility (moving and maintaining body positions, handling and moving objects, moving around in the environment, moving around using transportation);
  • is within the local Social Care services scope;
  • receives occasional care from relatives or professional caregivers;
  • have at home a smart phone and internet access.
  • is able to:
    • manage tasks and demands
    • learn and apply knowledge;
    • manage self-care tasks and daily living activities;
    • establish and manage interpersonal relationships;
    • engage in community, social, and civic life.

Secondary End-users are formal and informal caregivers. The SAVE project particularly stresses the involvement of volunteering elderly persons (either participating in a volunteering organization or through the SAVE project itself). Volunteers may play different roles in fostering engagement of primary end-users: acting as “peer” technology trainers, complementing technology monitoring with human observation, enriching the social user involvement.

This inherently yields a multiple-win vision, with volunteering activities benefitting not only persons to whom services are offered. Volunteer-based services may unburden public care-systems and relieve them from part of related costs. And, most important, volunteering benefits the volunteer himself: especially with reference to older adults, positive effects of volunteering activity has been studied and demonstrated.

2.2 Business development plan

Research and development

The professional caregivers NIMR, UnitBv and INRCA will also represent end-user interests during the testing and evaluation process. In this process UnitBv will colaborate with the Direction of Social Assistance from the Brasov City Council (DSA). UnitBv, ISS and VS will initiate partnerships with hardware manufacturers during research and development.

Testing and evaluation

The professional caregivers NIMR, UnitBv+DSA and INRCA will provide initial access to potential end-users of the primary target group of elderly people with, and without, mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

UnitBv, ISS and VS (with support of the regional partners) will check with data security agencies and medical product certifiers to gain positive certifications or declarations of non-jurisdiction.

Business model development

EVA, IKONTENT, Labidee and VS will negotiate with hardware manufacturers to set up a supply chain management.

EVA, IKONTENT, Labdee and VS will negotiate with local tradespersons to set up a list of local providers and also invite them to join the training and distribution network SAVE-TDN (described below).

IKONTENTwith help from EVA, Labidee and VS will set up an interest group of potential members of the training and distribution network SAVE-TDN.

Market introduction: EVA, IKONTENT, INRCA and VS will plan a kick-off event for the start of the training and distribution network SAVE-TDN.

Product distribution: EVA, IKONTENT, Labidee and VS will involve local hardware distributors, the SAVE-TDN, local tradespersons and of course postal services and logistics companies for distribution and installation. INRCA will involve relevant local stakeholders both from the end users and from the industrial side.

After-sale support: EVA, IKONTENT, INRCA and VS will inform and train the SAVE-TDN, which will be the first level support for SAVE solutions. UnitBv, ISS and VS will set up a suitable second and third level support.

NIMR, UnitBv+DSA and INRCA will provide their experience to adapt to individual requirements not yet solved by SAVE solutions.

2.3 Technology, standards and interoperability

As stated in Section 1, the main goal of SAVE is to integrate different technology-based monitoring solutions into a comprehensive and flexible platform to ensure inherent openness and interoperability, built around a cloud infrastructure, with different functional modules connected, in a standardized fashion. For simplicity’s sake, we may summarize modules as follows:

SAVE distinctive features are oriented towards leveraging evolved location-based services for assisting people (end-users and volunteers) and in-house elderly/disabled people monitoring to be integrated with intelligent-building security solutions – compared with commercial advanced “domotics”.

Sensing technologies

This includes a wide spectrum of devices (physical as well as virtual) the aim of which is to provide data about the end-user and his activity. We may refer to a set of “monitoring technology plugins” which are independent of each other and can be assembled in different combinations, according to specific service needs. We may consider:

Clinical sensors, suitable for home use and user self-management. Physiological parameters such as heartbeat rate, blood pressure, blood sugar concentration, blood oxygen concentration may enter the picture, depending on the specific user health and needs. All devices need to be connected to the cloud infrastructure, allowing the user to upload new measurements to the cloud in a simple fashion.

We’ll use commercial devices and exploit built-in connectivity: however, currently available medical devices (aimed at home use) usually exploits PAN (Personal Area Network; most notably, Bluetooth) or, still to a limited extent, WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network: Wi-Fi) protocols, which are not suitable for straightforwardly hooking to a generic cloud. We therefore shall introduce specific “adapters” (consisting of smart phone-based app and services) to bridge the local connection toward the cloud infrastructure. At this stage, virtualization of sensor data will be also taken care of, making the information (as seen from the cloud side) independent of the actual device manufacturer and features.

Sleeping disturbances are common for people with mild dementia. Carefully monitoring the sleeping patterns can therefore contribute to health assessment and possibly support prediction of incipient dysfunctional behaviours. Bed occupancy sensors (pressure pads) may provide hints about the wake/sleep cycles, whereas further technologies can be used to check in finer details for sleep disturbances: several approaches will be compared for assessing restlessness while in bed, including commercial devices, and simpler and/or less intrusive approaches, based, for instance, on motion/vibration sensors, on microphones or on infrared computer vision sensors. Such technology has been already developed and tested in the framework of the “ENSAFE” (AAL-JP-2014-1-112) (TRL 5) Project. within the SAVE activity, new adapter features will be introduced, in order to connect to different cloud backbones and to integrate with further specific SAVE apps (see below) dealing with user interaction

Home sensors and intelligent devices. Over the years, many kinds of home monitoring systems have been reported featuring different AAL-oriented objectives.  Such systems exploit a number of different sensors to track features of daily living activities. Such sensors may have manifold purposes, safety and security (e.g. sensors detecting house burning, flood, gas leak), support and compensation for mobility and sensory impairments.

Irrespective of the actual goal, deploying a sensor network into a user’s home is a demanding design task, due to the stringent non-intrusiveness, usability and acceptability concerns. Wireless technologies are predominantly exploited, to reduce installation intrusiveness and costs related to a wired approach. Most diffused wireless sensor network (WSN) include, for instance, Z-wave and ZigBee protocols, among many others. Such WSN-dedicated technologies are effective and efficient indeed; nevertheless, deploying a WSN is still a delicate design issue, which requires to deal with propagation of radio signals within the built environment. Based on previous project experiences (e.g., in the HELICOPTER [AAL-2012 5-150] project the ZigBee protocol was exploited) reliability and performance of the WSN connectivity are quite sensible to network physical topology and thus require a careful placement and management of networking gear. In order to connect to the cloud, a home gateway is needed, which gathers data from the WSN and forward them through a home internet router.

Within SAVE, we shall adopt a much simpler and effective approach, based on native exploitation of WLAN/Wi-Fi protocol. Wi-Fi infrastructures are, in fact, becoming more and more diffused in every home, with a growing number of devices requiring Internet connection (e.g., smartphones, smart TV, etc.). Wi-Fi networking is therefore increasingly likely to be already present in the user’s home. Moreover, deploying a Wi-Fi network is much easier than a dedicated WSN, requiring no (or fewer) range-extenders and availing itself of a much larger market choice. This will reduce greatly the perceived intrusiveness of the sensor network. Also, by straightforwardly connecting smart sensors to the internet cloud, a home gateway (apart from the Wi-Fi router) is no longer strictly necessary, this adding to the system scalability and interoperability. We therefore match the Internet of Things paradigm, with each sensor becoming an IoT node capable of sensing and transmitting data over the Internet, independently from each other. This approach too is currently being implemented and tested in the framework of NOAH (AAL-JP: AAL-2015-2-115) (TRL 5) project.

In planned pilot experiments, we shall exploit a set of custom-designed Wi-Fi devices, chosen for their expressiveness within a behavioural (physiological and motor) analysis perspective: in particular, a bed/chair occupancy sensor, a toilet sensor, a room motion (PIR) sensor and a door opening sensor will be made available. Wi-Fi-enabled home sensors have also recently entered the consumer market; for instance, motion sensors, video cameras, power meters, temperature sensors/thermostats are readily available. Within the SAVE activity, based on user-centred assessment, we’ll look at integrating further selected commercial Wi-Fi devices into the SAVE plugin catalogue. In terms of intelligent devices, we highlight hereby the intelligent furniture and smart kitchen – FOOD smart kitchen (TRL 6-7).

Also, Wi-Fi voice-control devices (such as the Amazon Echo (Dot) or the Google Home technology) are quickly pervading consumer market: the SAVE approach therefore plans to explore opportunities offered by existing “ambient” audio technologies. In fact, vocal tics and outburst are frequent and meaningful symptoms of dementia and frequency and intensity of such events could be an expressive assessment indicator and a predictor for specific care needs. Models could be developed, able to capture such symptoms. Most relevant, in this case, is the ability of identifying relevant events within the continuous, noisy audio stream coming from living environment. Also, vocalization events features are much dependent on the actual involved person. Data analytic and machine-learning techniques will therefore be exploited to recognize meaningful vocalization patterns, automatically adapting audio signal post-processing to the environmental and personal features at hand. No actual speech recognition is involved (since vocalization events do not necessarily involve verbal meaning), thus making the approach independent of the actual mother tongue too.

Wearable devices, aimed at introducing into the general picture information about user’s health status, physical activity, location etc. This will come either from sensors embedded in a smartphone, or by further dedicated and commercial devices. Simple sensor-based monitoring services, such as GPS localization or step counting will be introduced into the SAVE app, whereas more comprehensive assessment of physical activity will be allowed by introducing low-cost fitness tracking devices, featuring activity and heartbeat monitoring, among many functions. Suitable adapters will be developed to connect such commercial devices to the SAVE cloud, based on official API (application programming interfaces) released from the device manufacturer. Other sensors will be oriented on motor dysfunctions, user motion and localisation.

Although personal activity monitors are being widely used in the consumer market for “quantify yourself” purposes, such devices are scarcely suitable for the SAVE target population, due to accessibility/usability, openness and accuracy issues. The development of a dedicated wearable device is therefore foreseen in the aimed framework: based on previous experiences of the partnership, a SAVE-customized device might have be designed. From the technical perspective, mostly relevant features could include:

  • Fully automated management, requiring virtually no interaction (besides wearing) from the end-user.
  • Efficient power management, to preserve rechargeable battery lifetime and to reduce caregiver maintenance tasks.
  • Advanced 32bit embedded processor and multiple sensors (linear and angular acceleration, magnetometer), suitable for implementing basic recognition and inertial navigation tasks. By processing streams of raw sensors data directly on board the need of frequent and intense radio communication is reduced, beneficing the battery lifetime and making the sensor more interoperable and less dependent on the network availability.
  • Self-localization features, based on radio communication protocol signals (strength, time of flight, etc.).

Besides technical issue, the most relevant issue is addressing design for usability. Devices should allow for being used all day long, causing no burden, stigma or fear to the user. They should by tiny enough to comfortably fit, and sturdy enough to bear careless use (such as being hit or getting soaked). Their management should not require to the caregiver any technical skill. Also, personalization features should be taken into account (wearing position, appearance, colour etc.) to maximize acceptance. This calls for implementing a specific design process, within the more general user-centric service design approach, involving a multidisciplinary design team and allowing for testing prototype solutions (mockups) well before actual deployment of the complete device.

Data Analytics

This section accounts for converting raw data coming from sensing technologies above into understandable information, to be casted, depending on the intended audience, in meaningful and accessible formats. To this purpose, cloud-enabled technologies will be exploited. This allows to adopt a flexible and modular approach, where the cloud can simultaneously perform the following tasks:

Supervision. Incoming data can be checked for gross anomalies (e.g. out-of-range values) or sensor failures (e.g. lack of communication within a given time interval). This can help in delivering a more robust and pro-active system, triggering messages to end-users (subjects or caregivers) with appropriate suggestions (e.g. replace batteries on sensor X, or possible failure of sensor Y, replace it).

Data aggregation and storage. Data can be gathered and aggregated at cloud level by means of specific asynchronous routines. Data is then stored in permanent database structures: for highly structured data, SQL architectures can be exploited. Nonetheless, no-SQL architectures may be leveraged as well, in order to be able to handle unstructured data or to allow a more flexible approach (e.g. storage of future/new types of data, which do not meet the SQL specifications): for example, a Mongo DB engine can be exploited.

Analysis engine. Analytics services will be carried out on stored data, trying to look for historical patterns and trends. Cloud technologies allow off-loading of end users’ device from computation duties, extending battery life and achieving better performance. More on this topic will be addressed in the following.

Unified status and messaging. At all times, the system status is synchronized in the cloud, thus providing a unique view across all end-users’ devices. Also, any potential messaging is handled centrally, avoiding overheads in device-to-device communication definitions. This also allows to improve reliability and resilience.

A major part of the project will be the analytics service design. Based on the inputs of user-centred design specifications, suitable analytics tasks can be conceived. Some examples may include:

Trends and patterns detection. Multivariate data coming from all sensors may be fused to make patterns and regularities in the users’ behaviour emerge. At the same time, the power of explanatory models may be leveraged to understand behaviours: for example, the interaction with a given sensor may be explained in terms of time of the day, day of the week, external factors (e.g. rainy day), and many other factors. This also allows to spot incipient trends. Model selection techniques will be exploited to select the best fitting models with the least complexity and more statistical significance.

Anomaly detection. Multivariate time series data are usually affected by anomalies. In order to achieve precise results, anomaly detection algorithms will be designed, based on automatically derived statistical properties.

Clustering approaches [P4] may be leveraged to look for similarities between data and between users, providing new and useful insights.

Many other approaches may be designed leveraging automated machine-learning approaches. Services will also be flexible enough to account for different data availability, i.e. by tailoring the approach on the effective data a given user is able to generate (due to different sensor kits).

User interaction devices, allowing primary and secondary End-user to effectively interact with the SAVE system, and to get a rewarding and motivating experience from this. Interfaces will be inherently based on co-design approaches and will include:

  • Primary end-user UI: dealing mostly with motivation, engagement, social participation. Monitoring outcome will be casted in such a way to keep the user aware and motivated, avoiding to induce anxiety and stress.
  • Caregiver UI: providing a more expressive and care-oriented information set, personalized and tailored to the actual (primary and secondary) end-user needs;
  • Volunteers: including mostly tools for fostering “peer-to-peer” caregiving, technical training, and management of “Technology Club”.
  • Care providers: dashboard panels, suitable (besides continuous monitoring) for organization, scheduling and management purposes.

In summary, the SAVE “hardware” technology layer will mostly rely on available technologies, with development work mainly devoted to integration and interoperability. Innovation will come from the multiple interaction strategy devised: a platform for sharing information and practices will be developed, easing interaction between all stakeholders and providing the service implementation environment. Relevant goals of the interaction strategy include: accounting for “subjective” parameters into the monitoring framework, the involvement of active older users on both sides of service supply and demand, streamlining and networking of volunteering and third-sector resources, linking to care providers and policy-makers. With respect to the envisioned project user centred methodology, the adopted Systems Engineering (SE) methodology will support SAVE platform development in embracing all the components’ interactions and interfaces, subsequently in achieving the foreseen sustainability among its stakeholders. By means of SE, SAVE project life cycle will be well defined with specific SE procedures traceable throughout the project. Hence, in the methodological context, it has to be noted specific activities (non-exhaustive and may vary throughout the project life cycle) whose items shall be traceable within the project (incorporated in the main Work Packages stated in Work Plan), as: Requirements ample literature review, use case scenarios; User Requirements consolidation and trade-off; System Requirements as testable and measurable statements; System (logical/physical) architectures; System implementation/integration; pilot service implementation. These activities are subject to continuous verification and validation processes in-house and in fully interactions with end-users, seeking for their acceptances and feedbacks. In this SE paradigm, all mentioned activities shall be undertaken while considering all the foreseen stages of SAVE platform, namely from concept definition till its disposal. The starting TRL is TRL5 (FOOD, HELICOPTER, NOAH), whereas the final TRL is TRL7 demonstrating SAVE prototype platform in the in users’ operational environment.

Standards and Interoperability

Communication protocols to be considered in developing the system architecture must comply to energy, security and range requirements. The IoT perspective on end-user’s monitoring is already enabling networking solutions to address the exact demands of this class of applications. Different protocols, such as IEEE 802.15.4, IEEE 802.15.6, IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks represent viable choices with respect to the aforementioned constraints. The SAVE infrastructural view is inherently based on most diffused standards and on mainstream technologies. The SAVE approach springs from the integration of different technologies indeed, so that ensuring openness and scalability is an intrinsic constraint for SAVE functionalities themselves. Besides communication protocols already mentioned, data gathering and storage will avail themselves of commercial cloud product, thus inheriting their data protection mechanisms. The IoT (Internet of Things) implementations will include M2M (Machine-to-Machine) communications in the pervasive networking compliant with recent recommendations of IETF (the Internet Engineering Task Force) – e.g. the RFC of 2014 RFC describing the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP – specifically aimed for usage within resource/performance constrained nodes and low power networks) or of OASIS (Open Standards for the Information Society consortium. Similarly, when implementing user apps and web apps, a secure platform will be implemented on SAVE server(s), allowing access to authenticated users only, granting differentiated access rights based on the user’s role. Dedicated communication protocols (e.g. HTTPS, OpenSSH) and mechanisms (e.g. AES cryptography) will be used in such communication. Openness toward third-party additions on the input side (e.g., a new sensor) will be facilitated by publishing an XML (Extensible Markup Language)-based syntax for declaring abstract device properties. Similarly, ontological and semantic description of the SAVE knowledge base will be made public to allow for development of third party applications.

 

2.4 Project organisation, consortium composition and quality, work plan

Project organisation

SAVE is an elaborate project from several point of view such as the various fields of expertise covered, different type of institutions from different EU countries involved, a high variety of regulations to meet, parallel fulfilment of both Programme and country specific expectations, etc., requiring tailored project management approach. When planning efficient management processes, the following factors need to be taken into consideration:

– The product and service development foreseen in the project leads to a high number of uncertainties from the project start, requiring constant reconsideration throughout the entire implementation. This calls for an adaptive and flexible project management approach.

– Working methods / processes applied in the technical work packages need to be underpinned by the applied project management tools: iterative processes and co-working are key to high quality project management.

Matching a fixed project structure with a flexible/adaptive approach will be achieved through the following SAVE project management structure:

The Project Management Board

The overall management structure will consist of the Project Management Board (PMB) as the ultimate decision-making body of the partnership. Each member of the partnership will delegate one representative and one deputy. The Board will be chaired by the Project Coordinator’s representative. The PMB will monitor the implementation of the project, evaluate it at its half-yearly meetings and take strategic decisions to ensure that the objectives of the project are fulfilled, foreseen results are achieved and the project is duly implemented. Its work will be supported by Work Package Leaders. In particular, it is the PMB members’ responsibility to approve the allocation of budget and sufficient human resources to ensure the implementation of the work packages. Particular attention will be laid on exploitation/ dissemination issues, knowledge management, IPR, continuous monitoring and evaluation. PMB will be responsible for decisions related to quality assurance, risk management and deviations in implementation. The work of the PMB will be supported by the IPR manager appointed to develop IPR-related guidelines and continuously feed in IPR related knowledge.

The project coordinator

The Project Coordinator (PC) is responsible for the general administrative, financial and legal management of the project, as well as for the communication between the consortium and the Programme. Its duties include administrative management, such as setting up the legal basis (negotiation phase with the AAL Programme, management of Grant Agreements, the Consortium Agreement and the Non-Disclosure Agreement with partners). It holds the main responsibility for monitoring project progress and ensuring compliance with contractual obligations and project schedule (deliverables, milestones set in the detailed implementation plan), preparation and presentation of the annual progress and financial reports, the mid-term and final review report (with the contribution of WP Leaders). The PC prepares and chairs the half-yearly PMB meetings (prepared through elaboration of PMB reports, Agenda and minutes of PMB meetings including the decisions made), and ensures internal quality assurance and communication with the PMB.

Guidelines

In order to ensure proper operation and smooth decision making process, a Rules of Procedures for the PMB will be developed by the PC. Key principles: each Party shall have a vote in voting; possibility for distant vote; constitute quorum on the PMB meetings; seeking for consensus decisions; initiation of conflict resolution procedure in case of unacceptable decision managed by a group of three arbiters. An innovation management plan will be elaborated to address the challenges in developing successful innovations, from testing environment towards the real-world.

Day-to-day management of the project

In order to ensure the co-working method and make the most update version of documents available to all partners, tele-working tools will be used for day to day management and communication with the consortium including file sharing through Dropbox/Google drive, file transfers, virtual meetings.

The project coordinator will also be responsible for the proper financial management of the project including the establishment of an internal controlling system and provision of relevant internal quarterly templates to be used by partners. The internal reports of partners will give update information on project implementation and will also feed into the annual progress and financial reports as well as into the mid-term and final review.

WP leaders shall be responsible for the overall coordination, management and proper execution of tasks of their respective WPs (reaching of milestones and achieving adequate quality of the deliverables). They regularly report on the status of deliverables to the Project Coordinator and to the PMB. WP leaders maintain clear and constant communication with the partners contributing to their WPs and are responsible for interactions with other WPs. Each WP leader will hold regular virtual meetings and six monthly WP meetings. The conclusions and key findings of each WP meeting will also be summarized in written form.

Project meetings

A kick-off meeting will be organised immediately after project start to clarify roles and responsibilities of partners, update and agree on the detailed implementation plan and on the project structure. Dedicated WP thematic meetings shall be convened before the six monthly PMB meetings to be able to forward all the necessary information to the PMB in due time. The calendar of events (considered the most efficient type of dissemination action) will be laid down in the Dissemination plan in which the partnership will participate (particularly in the AAL Annual Event). Online meetings may be convened whenever relevant.

Innovation management

An innovation management plan will be elaborated to address the challenges in developing successful innovations, from testing environment towards the real world. The innovation management plan will largely be based on the more complex “open innovation” approach, where the partner SMEs/Business collaborate extensively in their innovation process, allowing for shared knowledge. It helps them to control costs and provides them access to important complementary knowledge. The plan will comprise a logframe with targets through which the partners can track innovation elements and results. It will require continuous feedback from the SMEs/Business involved on the value and commercialisation of the tested and validated components of the product service system.

The consortium counts 8 partners from 3 different EU countries The partnership is balanced, comprising Research partners (UnitBv and ISS), Business partners (EVA, IKONTENT, Labidee, VS) and End-user partners, one from each country (UNITBV+DSA-RO, NIMR-HU, INRCA-IT), all of them with great experience in their field.

The project aims European dimension product and services. Therefore are involeved pilots from diferents countries/regions of Europe, targeting the diversity (East-West) for co-creation, co-design, and calibration, and finally having an integrative role within the European space. This approach could be not done at the national level.

Expertise and role of each partner are briefly described in the following.

Partner 1 – UNITBV, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania

UNITBV is a state university having more than 23000 students at full-time programs at license, master and doctorate level. It has a “full-confidence” rate at national evaluation and ranked among the firsts at national level for Research of Excellence. The University has wide range cooperation with European universities, leading companies and research institutions. UNITBV developed a Green ENergy Independent University CampuS – GENIUS aiming at creating a Scientific Research Institute. University has proven experience in designing and implementing Large Distributed Systems with Wireless Sensor Networks, Virtualization, Monitoring and Smart Resource Allocations with Private Cloud Support – as a task to be fulfilled also in the current project. The Faculty of Medicine and the County Emergency Clinic Hospital, affiliated to Transilvania University offers, facilities as proper site for enrolling geriatric and mental disease of end-users and follow-up them. The team of UNITBV to be involved in the actual project has also ICT & Health proven experience in international cooperation projects such as Using IBM CloudBurst and Rational Application Developer to Develop Mobile Applications for Remote Healthcare Monitoring with Feedback Functions, the Virtual ElectroLab project and the Virtual and remote laboratories. UNITBV has a long-standing cooperation with Vision Systems (the Romanian ICT SME involved in the project) in various fields, in particular in software development and in jointly implementing international projects (NAOH, Not Alone at Home – AAL project, VetTrend – Development of a transnational experiment-based learning environment in the Leonardo da Vinci Programme).

Role in the project: The University will do the general coordination of the project. Also the WP5 – Mangement and dissemination. It will bring also its scientific expertise to the research activities of the project with several respects. It will develops cloud services, data analysis process and cloud technology. It will provide medical knowledge in the conceptualization phase and, later, in the development of the behavioural analysis module. Volunteering organisations will be involved next to the UNITBV for social peer-to-peer integration. The Faculty of Physical Education and Mountain Sports will conduct the physical activity programs. It will colaborate in the other WPs. UnitBv will collaborate for the Romanian pilot with the Direction of Social Services from the Brasov City Council – DAS – in hosting the Romanian pilot site (mostly WP2 and WP3), with 30 end-users, contributing to the psycho-social aspects of the project and, also, at testing scenarios and campaigns on the specific pilot from Romania.

Partner 2 – VS, Vision Systems, Brasov, Romania

VS is a software company based in Brasov, Romania. On top of its core activity of software development, the company offers also consulting, training and project planning for software solutions. Vision Systems offers a wide variety of multimedia services, ranging from the classic presentations and creative entertainment to high-end design, and consulting in industrial and technical fields. Vision Systems built advanced, modular, scalable, multi-user, multi-profile, safe and reliable web platforms useful for a wide range of applications (from e-learning to industrial applications). Vision Systems developed platforms and tools for several activity domains, concentrating on ease of use and accessibility. Vision Systems has extensive experience in managing web-based services and in computer applications for automation, control and data management. Vision System participated in several European projects such as VIM, Molecole, Vet Prof.E.S.S.Ion.A.L, VET TREND, ORSA MINORE, TIP TOE. In addition, Vision Systems is involved in the implementation of AAL projects such as FOOD, HELICOPTER and NOAH projects, since 2011.

Role in the project: Vision Systems will lead WP3, testing and validation, and will collaborate with Labidee, GEMA, and UNITBV, in designing the software and overall architecture of the system and the database for storing the data; development of cloud services for social interaction; programming/developing of software-based user interfaces for desktops, tablets, smartphones. Some of such tasks will also involve external collaborations managed through VSRO, to effectively incorporate outcomes and competences from other related projects University of Parma – UNIPR[16]. VS will contribute also at the Romania pilot.

Partner 3 – ISS, The Institute of Space Science, Bucharest, Romania

Institute of Space Science (ISS) is a Research and Development Institute based in Măgurele, Romania. ISS has experience in developing space-based projects according to European Space Agency (ESA) standards in the context of human health and security IT&C applications, as telemedicine, disaster management, physiological and psychological countermeasures for diminishing deleterious effects given by microgravity, isolation, confinement on astronauts etc. From the point of view of current experience, ISS has been performing projects through the national financed mechanisms (e.g. National Research Development and Innovation Program – PNCDI, Space Technology and Advanced Research – STAR etc.), but also international projects through ESA-PECS (European Space Agency-Plan for European Cooperating States), and in combination with international co-operators (ESA, FP7 etc.). ISS has also proper experience in identifying and dealing with different opportunities, standards and regulations, as well in projects implementation approach through Systems Engineering (SE). The team competences cover a large area of research, as software development, hardware integration and connectivity, Systems Engineering working standards, 3D CAD modelling etc. Relevant for the herein proposal, SAHHSD  performed an ESA-PECS telemedicine project, specifying and developing a Portable Telemedicine Workstation from TRL 2 to TRL5, and other main activities concerning impairments that occur during spaceflight missions.

Role in the project: ISS will ensure the Systems Engineering (SE) user centered methodology for guiding the entire project in the user driven perspective and contribute accordingly to: WP1 – T1.5 Sensor Networking (clinical sensors subassembly), and implementing proper methodology/ies within T1.8 Integration and implementation of “Technology Club” well-being aspect; WP2, WP3 – assisting the consortium partners within the expressed tasks to attain the logical information flow with respect to SE procedures; WP5-scientific dissemination.

Partner 4 –IKONTENT, Ikontent Digital Europe KFT., Budapest, Hungary

IKONTENT feels fortunate for having had the possibility to create hundreds of successful digital projects and campaigns in cooperation with our customers in 15 countries within Europe and Australia during the last nine years.

Ikontent is a digital agency with developing value increased digital services as main focus, covering the following areas so far:

Web development e.g.: webshop, banner, microsite, application, portal

Design and development of IT tools

UX consultancy

Graphic design (on- and offline), UI design

Digital marketing strategies and services

Online service development

Application development for mobile devices

Planning and management of campaigns, creative concepts, landing page optimisation

Content development

Virus- and guerrilla marketing, viral films

Social marketing, Facebook, Linkedin etc. application development

Role in the project: IKONTENT will lead WP4 Business Exploitation, develop the deployment strategy and build the commercial service infrastructure. Also, will participate in WP 2, End-user involvement and Service Feasibility, covering research and development in defining services through a strictly user-driven design process, to conceptualize the aimed service and to verify and validate it. They will be responsible, together with other three developing partners, with specifying service requirements, designing and validating system architecture and, accordingly, system development and testing.

Partner 5 –EVA, EVA Vision R&D LLC, Budapest, Hungary

EVA Vision Research and Development LLC is a private founded for-profit SME based in Budapest, Hungary.

The company’s flagship project – the multiple award winner “Extended Visual Assistant” – is a wearable assistive tool for the blind and visually impaired. The voice commanded talking smart-glasses can assist it’s user in everyday situations, focusing on mobility related issues.

EVA Vision employs experts from various areas. The four founders (one of them with a reverse vesting agreement at the time) are:

Krisztian Imre, CEO, Lead Product Designer. His main competences are product design, marketing communication with a strong technological background.

Szilvia Walter, CFO brings her experience of two decades in finance and commercial strategy development.

Ildikó Ágnes Tisljár, COO has a ten-year-old experience in sales, in the field of assistive technologies.

Gergő Balás, CFO strenghtens the company with his deep software and hardware engineering knowledge.

At EVA Vision sales and marketing, thus creating complete commercial strategies, are in-house competences. As blindness is also an age related condition, our targeted market has an intersection with the project SAVE, SAfety of elderly people and Vicinity Ensuring.

Role in the project: EVA will contribute to WP4 Business Exploitation, developing the distribution network, the education and compliance systems for distributors and provide necessary ICT infrastructure for the distribution network. Also, EVA will participate in WP 1, Technology framework, covering research and development in sensing, reasoning, interacting and communication technologies. They will be responsible, together with other four partners, with researching, developing, integrating and testing existing technologies to ensure compliance with requirements.

Partner 6 –NIMR, Országos Orvosi Rehabilitációs Intézet, Budapest, Hungary

The Országos Orvosi Rehabilitációs Intézet (OORI) – in English the National Institute for Medical Rehabilitation (NIMR) – is the leading rehabilitation institute in Hungary. It was established in 1975. It has appr. 400 beds for in-patients, a day-time hospital and several out-patient services. The main rehabilitation activities in the Institute are as follows: rehabilitation post-stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, other post-traumatic conditions, orthopaedic surgery and amputation. The Institute has an own chronic care department and cooperates with several nursing homes and home-care services.

In Hungary the rehabilitation training of physicians and other professionals (physiotherapists, occupational therapists, nurses etc.) is based on NIMR. The Department of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine (PRM) of Semmelweis University is located here. NIMR is an international training centre for PRM residents certified by the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS). The Institute has a new central building, the conditions for patient care and research are really excellent. It has a research programme for using advanced technologies in rehabilitation. In the scope of this programme NIMR took part at several European and other projects on the field of robotics and assistive technologies, among others at the DOMEO-project (development and field test of a home-care robot), the iTOILET-project (development and testing of an intelligent toilet for people with disabilities), both supported by the AAL programme.

Role in the project: NIMR will contribute to WP3 Test and validation, will host the Hungarian pilot with 25 end-users, ensuring proper recruitment of end-users and pilot evaluation, will provide service specifications and quality assurance, will contribute to end-user design and experience development (WP2), and will provide nursing service and quality care and its insights as care organisation. Also, NIMR will help, together with other 4 partners, to set up an interest group of potential members of the training and distribution network SAVE-TDN.

Partner 7 – Labidee, Laboratorio delle Idee, Fabriano AN, Italy, was found its calling in the field of professional training, with a strong orientation towards the use of effective multimedia products to support this endeavor. Company has a large experincies in international projects. In the last years, in the framework of domotic district of “Regione Marche”, the company is investing in research and development of adaptive tools in ambient assisted living domain; a particular mention on the projects: “ELderly CARE” that is addressing new types of integrated services for Home Elderly Care; HicMO Hic Manebimus Optime: Regional project “an AAL integration platform”; HELICOPTER (AAL project) Healthy Life support through Comprehensive Tracking of individual and Environmental Behaviors. Laboratorio delle Idee has achieved UNI EN ISO 9001:2015 (BVQI certification n. 143392) certification for: Design and production of on-line and off-line multimedia products, design and production of multimedia contents and e-learning systems. Design and management of learning and e-learning activities.

Role in the project: The activities of Labidee will be splitted in two main  tasks : (i) the technical coordination of project services in term of architecture design of the pilots and services adaptivities (WP1); (ii) the design & delivering of learning  content  for the operators and the end users of project (WP2). Labidee will research and implement the adaptivity strategies on the base of semantic information that will be gathered inside the end user home and available on cloud center.

Partner 8 – INRCA, IRCCS-INRCA, Ancona, Italy

INRCA (www.inrca.it) is the Italian leading public Institute in gerontology and geriatrics, devoted to improve quality of life of older persons. The objectives of the Institute are focused on successful ageing and the promotion of health of the older person and prevention. INRCA pursues its goal mainly in an interdisciplinary way, through clinical and translational research, training in the bio-medical field as well as in the organization and management of health care services, in particular by means of highly specialized hospitalization and health care. The national dimension of INRCA and its international network of contacts represent an “added value” and a point of reference in the study of ageing and of long-term care related issues, as recently confirmed by the fact that INRCA has been recently acknowledged as the coordinator of the National Longevity Network on behalf of the Italian Ministry of Health. The institute has gained substantial experience in large scale European and international projects on ageing. INRCA has participated in several European projects.

Role in the project: Within the SAVE project, the scope of INRCA will be to organize and orchestrate the Italian pilot with 25 end-users, together with training, and the support of the Project Management.

 2.5 Resources required for successful implementation

Resources needed to implement the SAVE envisioned system include a widespread range of interdisciplinary competences to be harmonised into a convergent and stakeholder- participated design scheme. From the technical point of view, expertise is needed in many fields: design of IOT nodes, cloud system integration, software development for app design. At the SAVE system’s core, the cloud architecture and the data analytics engine will call for knowledgeable specialists. For openness’ sake, cloud solutions will rely on commercial products, so that specific infrastructures needed to support the project execution just include a centralized web server, running services needed to feed  app and web dashboard. Data analytics will implement artificial reasoning and machine-learning models, aimed at inferring health- and wellness-relevant information from wearable sensors monitoring and analysis. In addition, expertise on country-specific municipality organization of care services, but also caregivers and volunteering organizations. Training, calibration and validation of such models, in turn, calls for testing environment involving primary, secondary and tertiary end users, so that a large enough set of pilot sites needs to be available, suitable for representing variability among individual needs and among different management strategies. Besides models, choral participation of stakeholders is of the utmost importance for designing the interaction strategy, this encompassing a broad conception of user experience, not limited to software-based user interfaces, but accounting for social, ergonomics, usability and acceptability concerns as well.

Finally, designing the SAVE approach for sustainability implies the co-design of the technical, service and business vision. Hence, competence on social and health-oriented service management and market are needed, as well as knowledge about no-profit organization. Finally, the whole project, involving vulnerable human beings, need to refer to a clear ethical vision, aiming (besides complying with National and European regulations) at preserving dignity and quality of life of involved users. Accounting for related expertise is therefore of the utmost importance. In short, most valuable resource needed for project implementation is the effective cooperation within a broad stakeholder ecosystem, interacting since earliest design to provide SAVE platform with an approach and a viable road to market.

2.6 Risk assessment and management plan

Possible risks can be classified into the following categories:

 

Possible risk Counteraction
Financial uncertainties resulting from the complex AAL financing structure (national and EC), i.e. no budget on the national level remaining for one of more partners The Coordinator – in agreement with partners – will try to involve other partner(s) with the same skills and competences bearing sufficient budget – in line with the Programme rules.
Changes in the consortium: drop out or withdrawal of a partner (except for the Project Coordinator) The Project Management Board will try to find a proper solution to reallocate the withdrawing partner’s tasks to the remaining consortium. If not possible, revision of the project will be managed and communicated to the Program.
Unforeseen costs arising during the implementation of the project (not planned in the original budget framework) The Project Management Board will try to ensure the financial stability through the reallocation of costs within the budget with a joint agreement of partners.
Technical problems (key technologies or technology components are not available in the expected times; problems occurring during testing phase) Continuous monitoring of technical progress and the user testing; regular feedbacks from the partners; test users will allow timely intervention by the technology partners.
Risks in project execution (a milestone event is out of date) Project Management Board informed; analysis and decisions.
User complaints arising during the testing phase related to security or ethical issues Joint guidelines including ethical and security issues will be prepared at the project outset and accompanied by suitable insurance policy that will be activated prior to the pilot start.
A user wishes to quit the real life testing

 

An “early exit” procedure will be put in place and if feasible in terms of time and resources the user will be replaced from the user pool.
Market-related risks (market change)

 

Businees parteners monitoring of the market; Project Management Board reaction and decisions.
Competence risks (a key person with a specific skill is about to leave the project) Project Management Board informed; reaction and decisions; take over procedures.

 

These risks can be assessed on their probability and impact level (negative). Risks with a high probability and a serious impact will be treated with particular caution during the project. For medium-high probability and high impact contingency measures and emergency plans will be discussed, and will be reported throughout the execution of the project. This ensures that the project takes these cases with special attention at all levels. It is expected that risks with low probability or low impact and the risks that are anticipated at this stage will be identified at the initial stage of the program and that the necessary countermeasures will be taken.

Project management involves continuous monitoring of the plan including the tracking of critical activity and steps, which ensures continuous awareness of potential problems by project managers, allowing countermeasures to be initiated before the problem becomes critic. Rigorous control of WP’s will ensure that solutions can be found on time.

Management Plan:

WP number 1 WP duration: M01-M18, M24-M29
WP title Technology framework
Partic. no. 1(CO) 2 3 4 5 6 7(WPL) 8    
Participant name UnitBv VS ISS IKONTENT EVA NIMR Labidee INRCA    
Person-months 10 16 7 14 10 0 23 0    
Objectives of the WP: WP1 will provide the infrastructural support to SAVE services. It covers sensing, reasoning, interacting and communication technologies.
Description of Work:

T1.1 Technology base assessment – Available technology will be assessed in order to maximize the use of commercial solutions. Concepts for specific sensors suitable for behavioural analysis will be defined.

T1.2 Wearable and clinical device integration – Wearable sensor will be conceived by involving an interdisciplinary team including ergonomics specialists, psychologists and interaction designers. Moreover, off-the-shelf commercial devices and sensing solutions for physiological parameters will be evaluated such that the clinical sensors can be integrated within the system.

T1.3 Sleep and audio sensor integration – Commercial (hardware) audio and sleep monitoring techn will be evaluated. On top of these, signal processing and machine learning techniques will be exploited, aiming at the recognition of recurring vocalization patterns.

T1.4 Home sensor integration – The task will be concerned with the evaluation of viable home sensing solutions and their integration. Home sensing is used to address the safety and security of the living environment, as well as eventual support in case of mobility and sensory impairments.

T1.5  Sensor networking – IoT-oriented communication protocols will considered for further extensions. A specific task will regard the integration of clinical sensors subassembly. Sensor interoperability will also constitute a criteria in adopting a protocol and designing the communication architecture.

T1.6 Cloud infrastructure – In this task, the SAVE cloud-based infrastructure needed to manage information coming from field homes will be designed. The adoption of mainstream technologies is foreseen (after proper evaluation), inherently inheriting openness and security features from such environments.

T1.7  App development and UX design – Interface will be designed to meet the needs of: the care centre manager, the professional assistant, the informal caregivers. ANDROID APPs will be developed, upon recommendations coming from WP2.

T 1.8 Integration and implementation of “Technology Club” well-being aspect – Technology Club development by: integration on existing fitness devices (COTS-Commercial Off The Shelf) and implementation of relevant existing methodologies for improving/maintaining well-being, via informational assisted exercises.

Main involved partners: Labidee (WP Leader), VS, Unitbv, ISS and EVA will be responsible for developing and integrating existing technologies as to insure compliance with requirements. UnitBv and ISS will ensure the Systems Engineering (SE) methodology, contributing also in tasks as T1.5 and T1.8.

Deliverables of the WP:

D1.1 (M04): Tech Assessment and Research Plan;

D1.2 (M15): Sensors and Sensors Networking Description;

D1.3 (M18): Cloud Infrastructure;

D1.4 (M18): Users Interfaces: APP and UX design;

D1.5 (M30): “Technology Club” methodologies for physical well-being aspect-Report;

D1.6 (M30): Final Technology Report.

 

WP number 2 WP duration: M01-M29
WP title End-user involvement and Service Feasibility
Partic. no. 1(CO) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8(WPL)    
Participant name UnitBv VS ISS IKONTENT EVA NIMR Labidee INRCA    
Person-months 16 14 6 10 3 8 7 7,5    
Objectives of the WP: defining services through a strictly user-driven design process. All partners and stakeholders will be involved, to conceptualize the aimed service and the means to verify and validate it.
Description of Work:

T2.1 Service base assessment – A preliminary research is needed to assess what type of services are offered by home-care provider (public/private) to people within the established target, taking into account specific differences among involved European countries. Also,  the research state-of-the-art will be assessed.

T2.2 User research –This task deals with methodologies exploited to effectively involve users into the service design. Suitable tools (questionnaires, focus groups, workshops) will be devised and implemented.

T2.3 Service concept and validation – Concept definition envisages: review on the existent and relevant user requirements for herein proposed project (elicited during AAL prior projects and other relevant programmes); use-cases and scenarios, upon which service conceptualization will be carried out, including detailed descriptions of the aimed user experience; User Requirements consolidation and trade-off. Co-creation session will be exploited to this purpose, involving partners, users and stakeholders.

T2.4 Service definition and design – System definition envisages the following activities: System Requirements (specifications) as testable and measurable statements; System (logical/physical) architectures; System analysis in order to prioritise and select the features to be implemented within the pilot service. This task will actually define service specifications, by matching concept coming from T2.3 and technology awareness coming from T1.1. Main outcome of T2.4 is the definition of all references needed for technical implementation.

T2.5 Testing Plan and User-centric technology validation – Testing Plan will describe the user utilisation sessions in terms of individual Test Cases encompassing test inputs, execution conditions, expected results. User-centric methodologies will be used for the validation of technologies, mostly focusing at formal and informal caregivers, and indirectly involving people with dementia in acceptability and usability assessment.

T2.6 User-centric service tuning and refinement – In this task, results coming from pilots will be evaluated, in order to provide design-oriented feedback to iteratively refine both the the service and the infrastructure visions. Users will be deeply involved in this phase too.

Main involved partners: INRCA leads, UnitBv providing also medical knowledge, along with DSA. NIMR and UnitBv will  bring expertise on user-centric design, and all partners contributing to specification and conceptualization. IKONTENT, EVA, VS and Labidee will be responsible with specifying service requirmens, designing and validating system architecture. ISS will ensure the Systems Engineering (SE) user centred methodology within the current WP, assisting the consortium partners within the expressed tasks to attain the logical information flow with respect to SE procedures.

Deliverables of the WP:

D2.1 (M09): User Research Report

D2.2 (M12): Service Concept Report

D2.3 (M15): Test Case Report

D2.4 (M15): Technology validation actions

D2.5 (M18): Services Description

D2.6 (M29): Services validation actions

 

WP number 3 WP duration: M01-M36
WP title Test and validation
Partic. no. 1(CO) 2(WPL) 3 4 5 6 7 8    
Participant name UnitBv VS ISS IKONTENT EVA NIMR Labidee INRCA    
Person-months 14 16 8 1 2 9 9 8    
Objectives of the WP: implementation and management of pilots experiences, focusing at the validation of the envisaged service model and dealing with field deployment of SAVE system.
Description of Work:

T3.1  Pilot base assessment – A preliminary assessment phase is needed to assess different National models (laws, policies, home care services) and further local constraints (e.g., need of ethical application) possibly impacting on pilot implementation.

T3.2  Pilot user profile – Based on outcomes from T1.1, T2.2 and T3.1, criteria for the recruitment of pilot users will be specified. Also, tools supporting recruitment actions will be developed (questionnaires, information sheets, agreement letters).

T3.3  Pilot Start-up – T3.3 will deal with actual recruitment of end users, identifying suitable canditates through T3.2 guidelines. Candidates will be given information about the project goals and technologies. Upon acceptance, technical installation will be carried out by pilot partners at end-user living environment. Then, a first “silent” phase will start, allowing for validating the installation and for acquiring initial data to feed machine-learning algorithms. Finally, services will be activated.

T3.4  Pilot execution – T3.4 will ensure smooth execution of pilot test. Pilot support teams will be created at each pilot site, including both an ICT and a caregiving specialist, in order to provide real-time support to end-user. They will periodically visit installation sites, to provide on-site support (with remote help from technical partners) and to foster users’ motivation and trust. Performing service demonstration activities in user utilization sessions.

T3.5  Pilot Service Validation and Pilot evaluation – During pilot run-time, a continuous evaluation procedure will be implemented, based on pilot teams insights. At the end of the pilot period, a more thorough assessment will be carried out. Feedbacks from end-users and caregivers will be collected and analysed, to assess performance of SAVE services. These information will provide feedback to WP1 and WP2, and will support T4.5 for the final definition of the Business Plan.

Main involved partners: Leader of the testing and validation will be VS, working closely with partners EVA, Labidee and Unitbv that will provide technical support during pilot execution and with partners NIMR, INRCA and UnitBv (together with DAS) that will ensure proper recruitment of end-users and pilot evaluation. ISS will ensure the Systems Engineering (SE) user centred methodology within the current WP, assisting the consortium partners within the expressed tasks to attain the logical information flow with respect to SE, especially in implementing, executing and validating the pilot service.

Deliverables of the WP:

D3.1 (M04): Requirements for pilot sites

D3.2 (M10): Pilot users profile description

D3.3 (M15): Preliminary pilots results

D3.4 (M36): Final pilots experimentation outcomes

 

WP number 4 WP duration: M01 – M36
WP title Business Exploitation
Partic. no. 1(CO) 2 3 4(WPL) 5 6 7 8    
Participant name UnitBv VS ISS IKONTENT EVA NIMR Labidee INRCA    
Person-months 6 14 2 8 10 0 4 1    
Objectives of the WP: developing marketing strategies, fostering deployment of SAVE services into the European business scenario. Based on preliminary analyses and on WP2 and WP3 outcomes, common lines will be devised, upon which specialized, nation-wise strategies will be focused.
Description of Work:

T4.1  Business base assessment – This task will identify the “state of art” of home-care services (public and  private) operating in involved countries, in order to assess at best business opportunity areas there.

T4.2  Definition of a draft BP – This task will define an innovative business model, oriented to both private and public home-care services, related to people with dementia. By matching preliminary outcomes from WP1 and WP2, a preliminary cost-benefit balance will be drawn, allowing to address a preliminary business plan.

T4.3  Model refinement – A first iteration of the Business Planning action will be carried out, based on results coming from the service  conceptualization phase in WP2, and on first results coming from pilot environment.

T4.4  Marketing strategies – Marketing and communication strategies will developed, based on the service concept and on the awareness of different transnational targets. New communication strategies, making extensive use of modern marketing techniques (based, e.g., on social media) will be accounted for.

T4.5  Business planning – The final business plan will be released, taking into account outcomes from pilot execution and from evaluation activities in WP3. Such plan will also account for branding strategy, list of stakeholders to be addressed and promotional strategies.

Main involved partners: IKONTENT leads this work package with major support from EVA. UnitBv, VS and ISS will collaborate in refining models and marketing actions. NIMR, UnitBv+DSA, INRCA will provide their insights as care  organisations.

Deliverables of the WP:

D4.1 (M06): Business assessment and opportunities analysis

D4.2 (M17): Intermediate Business Plan/Model

D4.3 (M29): Exploitation plan

D4.4 (M36): Final Business Plan/Model

 

WP number 5 WP duration: M01-M36
WP title Management and dissemination
Partic. no. 1(CO+WPL) 2 3 4 5 6 7 8    
Participant name UnitBv VS ISS IKONTENT EVA NIMR Labidee INRCA    
Person-months 9 7 8 1 2 3 3 0,5    
Objectives of the WP: to effectively manage SAVE to maximise the production of results in the most cost-effective manner and to the proposed timescales, ensuring the correct execution of the project’s work plan, including its updating during the project’s lifetime (if needed); to facilitate communication and integration between the partners and stakeholders; to ensure timely interaction and delivering of reports to AAL and the national authorities; managing innovation, stimulating exploitation and ensuring dissemination of the project results.
Description of Work:

T5.1  Project coordination – The coordination of the project activities includes: setting up management structures and the appointment of coordinators partners; ensure internal monitoring according to quality management criteria; periodic checks of the status of the progress of the project. All partners will be closely involved in every phase of monitoring in order to improve awareness on the entire project. Support to partners in the administrative management of the project will be guaranteed.

T5.2  Communication – Coordination of communication activities. Efficient communication among partners is an important prerequisite for a smooth running of the project activities. This task is aimed to: (i) Guarantee of an efficient communication environment for the management of the project; (ii) Support of a reliable communication flow among activities and participants, (iii) Coordinate all interactions between the AAL Europe and the project; (iv) Collaborate with international networks to ensure valorisation of results throughout the project. Facilities for efficient communication will be evaluated.

T5.3  Innovation Management – Elaboration of Rules of Procedures for the PMB tackling decision making procedures and conflict resolution issues. Development of a management plan to support partners in their innovation process helping them to control costs and providing access to important complementary knowledge. Also, guidelines on ethical issues and security will be prepared by the appointed responsible defined during the kick-off meeting.

T5.4  Reporting  – Preparation and presentation of annual progress and financial reports by the Project Coordinator summarizing the thematic and financial performance of the project. Elaboration and submission of the mid-term review report and final review report of the project.

T5.5  Dissemination Plan and Actions  – A plan for the dissemination of project results will be developed in details and its implementation will be monitored. Dissemination actions include: participation in events (e.g. AAL Annual Event, eHealth Forum, Scientific Conference); cooperation with local administrations, in the country involved in pilots; website, professional/scientific publications, short videos, presence in social-media (as Facebook or Twitter).

Main involved partners: UnitBv leads and all the other partners will be involved.

Deliverables of the WP:

D5.1 (M03): Plan of activities and guidelines

D5.2 (M06): Website creation and web-platform activation

D5.3 (M12): Calendar year-1 report*

D5.4 (M15): Dissemination plan

D5.5 (M18): Mid-term review questionnaire*

D5.6 (M24): Calendar year-2 report*

D5.7 (M36): Final report*

 

Work package (WP) overview list

WP no. WP title Lead

partic. no.

Lead partic.

short name

Person months Start

Month

End

month

1 Technology framework 7 Labidee 80 M01 M29
2 End-user involvement and Service Feasibility 8 INRCA 61,5 M01 M29
3 Test and validation 2 VS 67 M01 M36
4 Business Exploitation 4 IKONTENT 45 M01 M36
5 Management and dissemination 1 UnitBv 33,5 M01 M36
TOTAL     297 M01 M36

 

Deliverables overview list

Del. no. Deliverable name from WP type of deliverable Dissemination

level

Deliv. date
D1.1 Technology Assessment and Research Plan 1 Document Public M04
D1.2 Sensors and Sensors Networking Description 1 Document Public M15
D1.3 Cloud Infrastructure 1 Document Public M18
D1.4 Users Interfaces: APP and UX design 1 Document Public M18
D1.5 “Technology Club” methodologies for physical well-being 1 Document Public M30
D1.6 Final Technology Report 1 Document Public M30
D2.1 User Research Report 2 Document Public M09
D2.2 Service Concept Report 2 Document Public M12
D2.3 Test Case Report 2 Document Public M15
D2.4 Technology validation actions 2 Document Public M15
D2.5 Services Description 2 Document Public M18
D2.6 Services validation actions 2 Document Public M29
D3.1 Requirements for pilot sites 3 Document Public M04
D3.2 Pilot users profile description 3 Document Public M10
D3.3 Preliminary pilots results 3 Document Public M15
D3.4 Final pilots experimentation outcomes 3 Document Public M36
D4.1 Business assessment and opportunities analysis 4 Document Public M06
D4.2 Intermediate Business Plan/Model* 4 Document Restricted M17
D4.3 Exploitation plan* 4 Document Public M29
D4.4 Final Business Plan/Model* 4 Document Restricted M36
D5.1 Plan of activities and guidelines 5 Document Public M03
D5.2 Website creation and web-platform activation 5 Set of tools Public M06
D5.3 Calendar year-1 report* 5 Document Public M12
D5.4 Dissemination plan 5 Document Public M15
D5.5 Mid-term review questionnaire* 5 Document Public M18
D5.6 Calendar year-2 report* 5 Document Public M24
D5.7 Final report* 5 Document Public M36

 

Milestones overview list

No. Milestone name WP involved Expected date Means of verification
MS1 Setup phase completed WP1,WP2,WP3,WP4 M6 D1.1,D3.1,D4.1
MS2 Pilot system WP1,WP2, WP3 M12 D2.2,D3.2
MS3 Technology validation WP1,WP2,WP3 M18 D1.3,D2.3
MS4 Pilot feedback WP3,WP4 M24 D3.3
MS5 Service refinement WP4, WP2 M30 D2.5

 

Summary overview of staff effort in person months (PM)

Partic. no Participant short name WP1 WP2 WP3 WP4 WP5 Total pm
1 UNITBV 10 16 14 6 9 55
2 VS 16 14 16 14 7 67
3  ISS 7 6 8 2 8 31
4 IKONTENT 14 10 1 8 1 34
5 EVA 10 3 2 10 2 27
6 NIMR 0 8 9 0 3 20
7 Labidee 23 7 9 4 3 46
8 INRCA 0 7,5 8 1 0,5 17
Total 80 71,5 67 45 33,5 297

Gantt chart of the project phases (with main correlation among tasks)

 

Section 3: Impact

3.1. Impact on end-users

3.1.1 Improving Quality of Life for primary and secondary end-users

As of the statutory declaration of objectives in AAL programme, main improvement in quality of life may come from “extending the time people can live in their preferred environment, by increasing their autonomy, self-confidence and mobility”. Such a statement holds particularly true when dealing with elderly people:

  • An end-users house, if effectively managed, represents a well-known and positive environment;
  • Accurate monitoring of end-users activities within the friendly confines of his house and environment may prove useful in providing assistance only when truly needed. In this way: (i) the end-users life will improve thanks to a sense of true self-efficacy (also reducing the risk of depression); (ii) the caregiver is supported in his decisions and get relieved from time to time from his duty, thus improving his quality of life as well.

More generally speaking, caregiver and end-users are often closely tied in a familiar link or friendship, so that improving one’s quality of life is likely to positively reflect on the companion’s QOL.

Main benefits relates to the quality of life therefore include:

  • Concerning the end-user’s quality of life: (i) being supported in leading an active life, according to his residual skills (end-user provided all safety provisions are complied with, will be able to choose personally what to do); (ii) preserving some autonomy space and times, while being constantly monitored for his own safety; (iii) taking advantage of a responsive and adaptive care strategy, suitable for possibly identifying early symptoms and enabling “softer” preventive interventions; (iv) as already hinted at by the scenario, a “peer-to-peer” technology transfer mechanism, exploiting more skilled elderly people to involve less skilled one could be quite effective.
  • Concerning the informal caregiver’s quality of life: (i) Increased peace of mind, thanks to safety and monitoring functions; (ii) feeling supported in the care provision and in related decisions; (iii) recovering a more rewarding relationship with the beloved caretaker; (iv) involvement in physical activity programs.
  • Concerning the formal caregiver: (i) availing himself of more insights about the end-users lifestyle and habits, thus being supported in his decisions; (ii) getting a closer link with informal caregivers, in the unified SAVE environment; (iii) organising  at best his workday, availing himself of the global remote monitoring capabilities offered by SAVE tools; (iv) easing collaboration with colleague caregivers, caring after the same people.

The above advantages result in a triple “win” approach, with very little drawbacks, being the SAVE services explicitly conceived to perturb as less as possible the end-users lifestyle and the caregiving practices. Material costs for introducing SAVE services are expected to be fairly low, in comparison with expenses usually involved in such a complex care framework and could be largely compensated by the savings related to mitigated access to formal care services.

3.1.2 Effect on service models

As stated, SAVE service aims at integrating smoothly and effectively within the care framework. The spectrum of care practices is too wide to be analytically explored within the scope of the present document. Therefore, in the following, we shall limit ourselves to a few examples, with a more thorough review of potential SAVE support to the broad, transnational scope we address to being among the main goals of the user- and stakeholder – participated design from that the project will pursue.

The “prosthetic” step (referring to the caregiver as the “prosthesis”) is based on three main pillars:

Intelligent environment, which should grant total freedom of movement and complete accessibility/usability as well as safe environment (characterised by intelligent furniture);

Physical activities, giving a proper meaning to the end-user day and improve his/her physical activity and wellbeing.

Caregivers, which should be able to understand the disease as a complex of cognitive and non-cognitive symptoms.

The SAVE approach will provide full support to all of them, making the living environment safer and more cooperative, supporting caregiver perceptiveness and helping in identifying end-users habits and preferences. SAVE services may allow better scheduling of persons program (“To-Do” list), at the same time providing an objective assessment evolution. We exemplified in the scenario the relation among Beatrice, Charlie and SAVE system, which may regard the informal caregiver support, worldwide diffused to support and facilitate gathering of elderly people and their companions, giving them an opportunity to share experiences, feeling, solidarity and fun. Similarly, support and self-help groups involving caregivers exist in many flavours and many internet resources are available (accessibility however may be an issue). Hence, SAVE will vehicle some social and collaborative features into its caregiver app: this is not intended, of course, to replace human interaction, but may prove useful to sustain information and social engagement of the caregiver, overcoming any impending sense of subjective isolation (i.e., the caregiver is helped to acknowledge the non-uniqueness of his particular situation).

Formal caregivers may also enjoy some organizational support: in general, the care service involve one caregiver with many end-users; the global, homogeneous picture the caregiver may avail himself of could be much useful in planning (at the individual or the caregiver team level) the daily priorities. Conversely, the same caretaker may be watched over by multiple caregivers in different time shifts. The SAVE environment, acting as a care and (automatic) observation diary, provides a common reference to different professionals caring after a given person, thus making the care process more safe and effective.

The cost/benefits analysis was done in chapter 3.2.1.

In summary, SAVE will provide innovative solution to known needs, and will map quite smoothly over existing service frames, this facilitating a seamless introduction in the caregiver toolboxes.

3.1.3 Social and ethical impact

Opposite to the usual cliché of ICT technology dehumanizing the care relationship, the SAVE project (besides its inherent care effectiveness goals) aims at exploiting such technology to improve the human relation between the caregiver and the caretaker. By removing some burden from the latter and allowing the former more room for self-management, it will be possible a more relaxed and enjoyable relationship. To family members, this would allow to preserve as much as possible a love-driven relationship, instead than shifting toward a frustrated, control-driven one. Further mention of social engagement opportunities have been given in the previous section, concerning the access to shared resources and to support group through the SAVE app.

More generally speaking, SAVE will allow optimizing the care strategy, and will possibly result in decreasing to some extent the institutionalization rates, this yielding sensible benefits for the care system and the society at large. A further indirect impact on global society (and economy) could come from freeing some caregiver resources, allowing the informal caregiver to keep working (more), and the formal one to make his work more effective. Given the large (and increasing) number of involved persons, even a small relative shift in such figures, may result in valuable overall impact.

Main ethical issues arise about the need of acquiring, storing and managing sensitive data: from the technical point of view, state of-the-art technologies will be exploited to ensure full control of data ownership and security. Besides, the ethical approach implies full awareness and understanding of involved actors, about the system purpose and function. However, this may result difficult due to cognitive issues of the caretaker, and to limited skill and understanding of technical details from the caregivers. The Consortium will provide adequate guidance to the users, by accounting for explanatory material built on purpose, and organising specific user-oriented dissemination sessions, volunteering “peer to peer” aiming at associating to each country and generally EC regulations (GDPR – General Data Protection Regulations), the mandatory “informed consent” the actual uptake of all relevant implications.

Although most sensing technology devised so far can be considered scarcely intrusive, this is a personal matter, depending more on individual perception than on technical features. Should the user, at any moment, show any intolerance to the system, or should the family wish to preserve some intimacy, the end-user or a designated family member will be granted the possibility of switching off the system at any moment, making self-determination and dignity prevail with respect to any further technical concern.

3.1.4 Opt-out, exit strategies and drop-out management

The SAVE services need to be properly framed in the general care strategy, as a supporting tool and they are not intended to introduce any critical change in the life habits of the primary end-user, such to induce any dependence. Nevertheless, by supporting safety and preserving self-management margins, SAVE adoption may hopefully result in reducing to some extent needs for institutionalization.

The consortium and each partner roles, both within the project’s life and after, are specified in the chapter 3.2.1. referring to the Business model, the partners assuming formal responsibilities for SAVE service continuity.

Physical devices included in the SAVE home kit will remain the property of the end user, unless the user asks for having them removed by the pilot team.

Business partner within the consortium or the support stakeholders offers the possibility of keeping the SAVE service alive beyond the project termination, as a further step toward market deployment. Possibly, users or care centres will be required a limited subscription fee, to cover ongoing expenses related to service provision such as, for instance, cloud storage. It is regarded as an additional opportunity given by the project to avoid user discomfort and to further test market sustainability.

Should unforeseen circumstances not make this possible, shutdown of SAVE services will be planned and communicated to users with due notice, with the pilot team support evaluating, on a case-by-case basis, a personalized path for migration toward alternative care options.

3.2 Impact on market development

3.2.1 Business components

Product/Solution

The SAVE system is an incorporated solution that main goal is to support end-users in staying in their familiar surroundings for as long as possible, while still be safe and optimally cared for. Secondarily SAVE supports informal caregivers, like relatives, in providing optimal care for their wards, while maintaining their professional and private life. Additionally, SAVE enables professional care-givers in the development of an optimal support planning and achievement, involving also volunteering associations.

Target Group & Market

In the European Union about 10 million elderly suffer from mild cognitive impairment (MCI), these people and their next of kin require adequate support during daily activities. The technical solutions in SAVE will be selected to ease the tasks involved in caregiving, improve the quality of care and most importantly support self-reliability of elderly.

The target market for these technical innovation are: (i) elderly people, age-related chronic illness, people with mild dementia or with disability, and other impairments, (ii) informal caregivers, like family members; (iii) formal caregivers, social-care organisations, nursing homes and volunteer organisations. The technical innovation will become a supportive part of the individual’s life optimising caregiving resources and preserving as much as possible the familiar environment in which the end-user can exercise his autonomy and self-management.

A thorough understanding of the existing and emerging competition is key to the successful development and positioning of innovative products. These will be an integral part of the business plan for SAVE that will take into account of: the numerous similar products and services competing on the market; their specific characteristics, stage of development and market penetration in comparison to SAVE; new competitors emerging during the course of the project; scalability being the key deficiency. A first release of SAVE products is expected to reach the market shortly after project closure. Envisaged cooperation between the industry partners and contributors will be defined along project implementation. Licensing agreements are foreseen to allow for the integration of technologies into the joint system that are protected by IPR or forming the background knowledge of some of the partners.

Business model

A Business Model will be developed to describe how the product service will create, deliver and capture the value of the innovation and will consider the market, economic, social, and other contextual factors across Europe.

The preliminary title for this goals are the SAVE infrastructure system and the SAVE training and distribution network.

The SAVE infrastructure system (SAVE-IS) encompasses multiple active and passive user interfaces like terminals and sensors, combined with a processing unit, allowing analysis and support of the elderly end-users.

The SAVE training and distribution network (SAVE-TDN, see below) is the set of external partners who initiate business and provide first level support.

Key partners Key activities Value propositions Customer relationships Customer segments
Members of the SAVE-TDN

Partners of the SAVE project

Hardware distributors

Public partners, especially social security partners

Maintenance and improvement of SAVE solutions.

(Re-)Evaluation of the system with potential end-users

Marketing

Improved self-management and self-reliability of the elderly users

Information for quality assurance and improvement of care

Indicators for the assessment of the user’s health status.

Personal customer care via SAVE-TDN

Second level support if necessary

Elderly end-users

Caregivers

Key resources Channels
SAVE solutions developed in the project.

Resources of business partner for the first 24mo

Access to end-users via care-giving partners

SAVE-TDN

Awareness: Conferences, fairs, online marketing

Cost structure Revenue streams
Investment for 1,650 installations:

Hardware: EUR 2,475,000

SAVE-TDN: EUR 618,750

 

Running cost per year for 1,650 installations:

Total personnel costs: EUR 388,000

SAVE-TDN: EUR 99,000

Budget for evaluation expenses and additional marketing efforts: EUR 19,000

One-time investment: EUR 1,875 (net)

Monthly subscription: EUR 25 (net)

ROI: 1,650 installations, planned after 24 months

 

(Regional pricing will be considered)

SAVE infrastructure system (SAVE-IS) Business Model Canvas May 26th 2018

The SAVE training and distribution network (SAVE-TDN) aims at caregivers, care-centres, general practitioners (GP), volunteer associations, resellers, tradespersons and private experts who initiate new business and provide first level support.

Key partners Key activities Value propositions Customer relationships Customer segments
PBN: Hungarian regional distribution partner

Labidee: Italian regional distribution partner

VS: Romanian regional distribution partnerEVA+IKONTENT: Platform provider, billing, contract management, online training

Training and education

Accounting service

Contract services

20% participation on net-turnover

Reselling a trustworthy, well-maintained product

Collective marketing efforts

Second level support

Passive income

Billing and contracting services

Direct personal contact with the regional distribution partners

Information, training and events

Business partners and resellers

Professional caregivers

Volunteer associations and private experts

Key resources Channels
EVA+IKONTENT plattform solution

Legal experts

Accounting experts

EVA+IKONTENT platform solution for distribution networks.

Second level support

Monthly newsletter

Cost structure Revenue streams
20% of all SAVE-IS related net-turnover will be paid to the distributors in a suitable manner, this also includes monthly subscription (=passive income).

All monetary costs have to be covered by SAVE-IS sales and subscriptions and are included there.

The SAVE-TDN is responsible for generating the SAVE-IS turnover and also provides first level support and training of end-users.
SAVE training and distribution network (SAVE-TDN) Business Model Canvas May 26th 2018

 

The following SWOT-analysis describes external and internal influences which will support the goal of the SAVE solutions, or might hinder our goals.

 

Helpful Harmful
Internal SAVE consortium: experienced interdisciplinary team After the end of the project the individual consortium members will drift apart

As we try to provide SAVE-IS at cost 20% of the net-turnover might not generate enough passive income to raise interest in the SAVE-TDN

External Socio-economic changes increase the amount of potential customers in the coming years

 

 

Hardware distributors might not be able to fulfil orders when the distribution network starts to become active

SAVE-IS solutions will probably have to be paid by the elderly and their relatives themselves

Data security laws and medical product laws might require massive changes in the provided solution

SWOT-Analysis May 26th 2018

The business canvas models and SWOT analysis will be reevaluated frequently during the project and when assumptions can be replaced by facts or new opportunities and threats arise.

Business model: Analysis of the market size

In 2016 Europe (EU 28) 30,337,149 elderly over 65 lived in a single household. About 20% or 6,000,000 of these suffer from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and could greatly benefit from SAVE solutions and are thus considered the primary target group for this analysis. The most comparable market is the smart home market where the household penetration in Europe is 9.4% and is expected to hit 21.7% in 2022. Assuming an uniform distribution only 1,302,000 of the 6,000,000 are already supplied with smart home solutions in 2022. Therefore we have 4,698,000 potential customers just in the primary target group of this analysis.

Business model: Self-sustainability

SAVE requires about 2,000 active installations (0,04% of the potential customers or 0,15% of the expected market share just in the primary target group) to break even (see SAVE infrastructure system (SAVE-IS) Business Model Canvas May 26th 2018 above). Our goal is to add 100 new installations per month thus we expect the SAVE partnership to become a self-sustaining business after 24 months.

Business model: Competitors

While big players like Amazon arrived in the smart home market for regular consumers, in the smart health segment of smart homes startup companies yet dominate the market. Thus we have multiple competitors, or even potential partners, without the reach to displace the SAVE partnership before it enters the market.

Business model: Role of the partners

EVA and IKONTENT will take lead in the marketing and distribution activities after the project.

IKONTENT will also be the main regional distribution partner in Hungary.

Labidee will be the main regional distribution partner in Italy. INRCA will contribute to present the system to relevant stakeholders in Italy and collaborate with Labidee.

VS will be the main regional distribution partner in Romania.

EVA+IKONTENT will also contribute its existing platform solution for training and distribution networks and help setting up such a network.

ISS and UNITBV will be regional partners in Romania, supporting VS’s efforts.

INRCA will be a regional partner in Italy, supporting Labidee’s efforts.

NIMR, UNITBV (together with DSA) and INRCA are caregiving partners, who will provide SAVE with access to potential end-users and their requirements.

ISS, UNITBV and VS will lead technical innovation follow-up projects in order to expand SAVE’s capabilities.

Resources

The resources during the project are outlined in this grant proposal. The resources after the project are outlined in the SAVE infrastructure system (SAVE-IS) Business Model Canvas May 26th 2018 (above). We expect 24 months to break even, thus the first two years existing funds of the business partner have to be used to support the road to market. Product exploitation and the contributing teams are outlined in Business model: Role of the partners (above). Ownership and existing and new intellectual property rights will be defined in the consortium agreement as outlined in 3.2.3. External stakeholders are data protection agencies and medical device certification agencies who have to agree to our solution or declare non-jurisdiction. Also hardware manufacturers (who are often startups in this branch) have to be sufficiently prepared to be able to fulfil orders when necessary.

The estimated costs are outlined in SAVE infrastructure system (SAVE-IS) Business Model Canvas May 26th 2018 (above). Hardware-costs and the costs of the SAVE-TDN are mainly pass-through costs, the remaining 388,000 EUR are mainly personnel costs, which have to be born by the business partners until we reach break even after 24 months.

3.2.2 Sharing of project knowledge – dissemination

A wide dissemination activity is certainly crucial for the success of the project, in order to draw attention on the social and economic impact that the system can bring to local and regional communities and on the related business opportunities. The dissemination of SAVE achievements will contribute to raise interest in the technologies involved in the system and in the scientific and social results. SAVE dissemination strategy will therefore make use of different communication and dissemination means, implementing actions toward several target groups: scientific community, policy makers, public authorities, industrial interest groups working on dementia-related ICT solutions, as well as media and public at large.

Examples could be:

  • The scientific community: (i) experts in the field of ICT-based solution for people with cognitive impairments; (ii) local scientific networks of each project partner; (iii) all those scientific institutions, research centres and European networks who should be made aware of the progress in knowledge that SAVE will provide by its execution.
  • All public and private Health stakeholders such as (i) the project stakeholders through the exchange of experiences among the groups involved (ii) the municipality of Brasov, which has expressed strong interest in the proposal; Partners are in close relations with municipalities of Ancona (IT), Fabriano (IT), Budapest (HU), Bucharest (RO), as well as Brasov (RO), Marche (IT), and Central Hungary (HU) regions, and (iii) Public institutions and policy makers at local, national and European level interested in ICT solutions in health care;
  • Public at large such as (i) citizens of the country involved starting from end users and related relatives involved in the consortium; (ii) Internet communities and in general people reached by mass media (TV, radio, etc.) or social media by press coverage, web news publication, production of leaflets, videos and other specific means to raise awareness on SAVE results.

A detailed dissemination plan will be defined during the project. It will clearly define and identify: (i) the target groups per partner country as well as their interests in the SAVE project; (i) the dissemination channels; (iii) the dissemination materials and tools; (iv) the key dissemination actions.

The following dissemination channels and activities have been identified:

An interactive and multimedia website will be set up as: (i) a portal for project partners (websites, shared tools for communication and research); (ii) a community for end-users (including connections to popular social media) – sharing experience, questions, advice, feedbacks; (iii) a section for the “product and service” presentation to end-users; (iv) case histories presentation.

Digital Press: to increase attention on the opportunity of SAVE system a targeted production of contents will be set to be delivered to the press – digital and traditional, national and European.

– Existing AAL Programme initiatives and networks by connecting to their relevant events and thus reaching to larger professional and business audiences;

End-user organizations and their networks

The materials and tools for dissemination will be as following:

– Graphical identity of SAVE project to be used consistently by the consortium throughout implementation. The logo & templates (letterhead, PPT etc.) produced by the Coordinator will be visible on all dissemination materials and the website already during the launching phase.

– Brochures will be used by partners at conferences & events they participate in.

– Videos: an internal process for the quick and effective production and publishing of video materials will be established. Videos will be uploaded on Youtube or similar platforms.

– General presentations: some generic presentations will be delivered at the beginning of the project to be adapted to the different occasions.

– Publications: scientific partners will use of project results to publish scientific and professional publications.

Key dissemination actions

Events are a main dissemination and engagement method both at local and international level. A calendar of events will be developed to give an overview of targeted venues and events (local & international events, including participation on the AAL Annual Event) for dissemination and demonstration purposes.

Regarding local events, partners will assess the suitability of attending and the scope of the participation based on timing, budget, technical, other constraints, general participation and impact of the event, etc.

Connect and cooperate with other European networks besides AAL could give rise to a larger network of actors and stakeholders that effectively disseminate and communicates project results. Therefore, sharing best practices through the European Union can be achieved by approaching existing transnational networks and programmes such as: Alzheimer Europe; International Longevity Centre (UK), etc. Individual engagement by project partners involving their own contacts and networks will also be managed.

3.2.3 Intellectual Property Rights management (IPR) and other legal issues

Participants of the SAVE consortium intend to manage IPR ownership and user rights among themselves in their own best interest. Ownership and protection of information and IP will be adequately protected. The full details will be laid out in the Consortium Agreement (CA), including: Provisions related to background and foreground; Protection of confidential information from unauthorized disclosure during and following the project; Ownership of IP created out of the project by the creating party or jointly by two or more parties; Access to IPR needed for the execution of the project and to utilize its results; Access to a party’s background or side ground IPR.; Licensing terms for Intellectual Property created out of the project; General scope for the parties to mutually agree on specific provisions during the project; Approval procedure to be followed before dissemination, publication, standards submissions of project results. This will allow partners to do an IPR check before public release. The project coordinator and project IPR manager will assist in a conflicts resolution procedure.

Core IPR related issues will be managed as follows:

End-user/Patents: Each new patent developed under the project will be disseminated to the partners. The access to intellectual property rights will be discussed during the meetings of the Project Management Board (PMB). Patents resulting from common foreground of the project will conduct to common patents.

Non-Disclosure Agreement: Partners will work together in the project using some tools and knowledge belonging to the background of one or more partners. To protect this knowledge, additionally to the CA, a Non-Disclosure agreement will be signed between the involved partners.

Management of IPRs and knowledge: IPR issues and knowledge sharing will be managed by the PMB, supported by an appointed Project IPR manager, in line with the guidelines and processes defined by the EC, the IPR helpdesk, and other bodies. The PMB and the IPR manager will provide recommendations to improve the processes or to solve concrete problems linked to e.g. use of knowledge, IPR and access rights. If necessary, other project participants will also participate in IPR related interventions through small ad-hoc IPR working group. Finally, IPR exploitation will be considered in detail by the business plan developed by the end of the project.

Annex: Ethical “declaration” table

The ethical declaration table below gives an overview of the information required to meet the needs of the Active Assisted Living Programme in this regard (see also chapter 9 in Guide for Applicants).

Ethics declaration of proposals in the AAL Programme Described on page (x) or “not relevant”
·         How is the issue of informed consent handled? How is it handled in case of users with cognitive impairments? 10
·         What procedures does the proposal have to preserve the dignity, autonomy and values (human and professional) of the end-users? x
·         If the proposal includes informal carers (e.g. relatives, friends or volunteers) in the project or in the planned service-model – what procedures exist for dealing with ethical issues in this relationship? x
·         If the proposal includes technology-enabled concepts for confidential communication between the older person and informal and formal carers, service providers and authorities – what procedures are planned for safeguarding the right to privacy, self-determination and other ethical issues in this communication? x
·         What “exit” strategy for the end-users involved in the project does the proposal have? 25
·         How are the ethical dimensions of the solution targeted in the proposal taken into account? (Brief description of distributive ethics, sustainability etc.) x

 

 

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[16] https://en.unipr.it/ UNIPR participates in the project with his research group at the “Assistive Technology and Domotics” lab, active in the field since 2004. It has strong connections with public and private care providers in the Parma regions and cooperates with many of them in the framework of local projects and trials. UNIPR has thus developed specific expertise in the user-centred design of AAL-oriented solutions. UNIPR is active in several AAL-related projects, bearing also scientific coordination responsibilities in some of them