Applications
NUADU will focus on selected healthcare and wellbeing applications
according to the interests of the consortium partners. The applications
will be developed using a ‘usage centred design strategy’. This will
include considering the ‘value chain’ in each case and the associated
business models. The applications and the enabling technologies will be
integrated into working prototypes and evaluated under realistic
circumstances at various pilot sites by end users. Two major iterations
are foreseen as indicated in the figure outlining the workflow. The
applications of interest include:
* Lifestyle monitoring to enable independent living for elderly and
handicapped people; France, Italy, Netherlands and Spain
* Weight management, activity monitoring and healthy eating;
Netherlands, Italy and Spain,
* Heart failure management and cardio-vascular system monitoring;
Belgium, Italy and Spain,
* Managing work related stress; Finland
It is expected that pilot sites will be located in each country;
Belgium, Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands and Spain.
Technologies
NUADU will focus on selected technologies that are critical to the
successful deployment of the applications. The main areas of interest
are:
* Sensor and actuator networks. This will include (i) body area
network and sensor data processing via wireless links, (ii) computer
vision based monitoring of people and environmental activity, (iii)
sensor and actuator network interoperability, (iv) interaction concepts
for manual data entry and appropriate user feedback.
* Mobile and Home Hubs. This will include (i) mobile and stationary
gateways that link sensors networks to services (ii) middleware
architectures that cater for secure data protocols and formats (iii)
user system interaction
* Services platform. This will include (i) modular and scalable
service elements such as databases, billing, authorisation,
authentication etc, (ii) catalogue of service templates to support rapid
service initiation, (iii) service provision environments.
Expected results
The project will target mid term (<3 year) solutions as well as
longer-term solutions (5-8 year time frame). The emphasis will be on
demonstrating solutions for the mid term time frame and documenting
possible approaches for the long term. The major results are expected to
include:
* Report on the stakeholder roles within the value chains for the
selected applications as defined in the work packages,
* A portal based web services framework to enable the rapid
implementation of back-end information services that provides for
resource-aware service delivery, dependable service discovery and
interoperable protocols,
* Data exchange protocols and formats that ensure easy data exchange
between devices, patients/consumers, and professionals,
* Evaluation reports based on application use at the pilot sites,
* Prototype applications demonstrated at the pilot sites.
The figure above shows a full blown
end-to-end system, which indicates that we are talking about distributed
systems with many dynamics in it. This does not mean that all
applications will need the full end-to-end approach.
·
Some of them will be based
on a person and on-body sensors and also actuators with direct feedback
(e.g. for fitness and sport),
·
Other applications might
extend this with other sensors and actuators or extend the application
with a home or mobile hub to process, store and present information,
·
In addition, applications
might be extended with back-end services to provide educational or
informational content, access to managed communities, or include support
by professional caregivers etc.
·
There might also be
applications that concentrate on educational and informational services,
based on patient/consumer profiles that might relate to information
prescription from professional actors.
The project will investigate
complementary applications, in the well-being as well as in the
healthcare domain, to be used by patients/participants, care
professionals doctors, nurses at care centres, home visiting nurses,
home care personnel, informal care providers, dieticians, trainers,
coaches, etc that ensure:
·
Satisfactory
self-management by patients or participants
·
Maintain the motivation of
patients or participants and give them adequate (medical) guidance for
their training or exercise program or treatment
·
Allow flexible sharing of
data amongst the concerned professionals, e.g. by aggregating
telemedicine content with related clinical information systems and EPR
(Electronic Patient Records)
·
Facilitate effective and
efficient patient/participant-professional care giver communication,
bearing in mind the likely need for variety of media, person to person,
data transmission, real-time, time shifted communication, etc.
·
Applications and
environments that are easily used and configured by non technical
persons, using as much as possible existing technology from the consumer
electronics and telecom world
·
Quality of Service
requirements are met
This is very
ambitious and appears to have a very broad scope. The project however
will focus on a limited set of healthcare and wellness applications and
relevant enabling technologies. Pilots will be created in France, Spain,
Netherlands, Finland and Italy.
