Research into reducing costs for the NHS is paramount.
In England in December 2019 there were:
- 23,309,384 GP appointments
- 1,844,804 calls offered to the NHS 111 service
- 560,613 emergency hospital admissions
- 1,844,804 calls offered to the NHS 111 service
- 560,613 emergency hospital admissions
The research being conducted aims to reduce GP visits, hospital admissions, 111 and 999 calls by conducting preventative monitoring in the homes of the elderly in Assisted Living situations. There are nearly 12 million people (18% of the population) aged 65 and above in the UK many of which can benefit from preventative monitoring. The monitoring will be done using a range of cost-effective ubiquitous sensors to give the ability to detect signs of potential issues and enable the right interventions (end user behaviour changes, family response/intervention/support) to be made.
The research is for trials that are in place with councils and health trusts which aim to deploy a solution into Assisted Living residences. The solution will be constructed based on research into: Gateways, Edge devices, Smart Home ecosystems, device management, connectivity, and more! To reduce cost to the NHS, interventions by parties such as family members, carers, and resident workers will be enabled by them having access to specific data from the person being monitored. The data may come in the form of an alerting system whereby required parties are informed when the person being monitored has an issue or is predicted to have an issue. Predictive analysis is also an area that is being investigated to see if issues can be captured in their early stages.
