Digital home health has been ‘imminent’ for quite a while, but it has finally arrived and integrators should be incorporating the technology in their business offering. Paul Skelton investigates.

A study based at Georgetown University in the United States has found that most people (91%) want to live in their own homes as they get older.

But the research, conducted by Philips and the Global Social Enterprise Initiative, also revealed that most are not planning the steps necessary for maintaining the desired lifestyle.

Ageing Well: Creating Connected Communities for Ageing Well found that 96% of respondents believe it is important to be as independent as possible as they get older, but only 21% plan to incorporate technology solutions or remodel and retrofit their homes.

The results indicate a perceived lack of value in new technologies for the home:

• 59% are not interested in upgrading their dwelling;
• 33% say upgrades are too costly;
• 42% say upgrading existing in-home technology is too expensive; and
• 25% of respondents do not care about technology upgrades at all.

It would be easy for some integrators to see this as a negative. However, savvier members of the connected home industry will realise that they are, in fact, in the best position to capitalise on what market analytics company IHS suggests will be a $5.8 billion industry in the US alone by the end of 2018.

For this reason, custom integrators could be the arbiters of ‘ageing in place’.

Some statistics

When it comes to the elderly in Australia, some of the statistics are rather concerning.

About 3.1 million people in Australia are aged over 65. The trend suggests that some time after 2032 we will have 7.1 million aged over 65, or 30% of the population.

Each year, one-third of the people aged over 65 have a fall, and half of those over 75.

Also, half of those in a residential aged care facility will fall each year – the fifth highest reason the elderly go to hospital.

That said, people over 65 with access to an emergency response system won’t push a response button or call someone in 82% of instances involving a fall.

And, for those who stay on the ground for more than an hour there is a 60% chance of dying within 12 months and a 60% chance of going into permanent residential care in the same period.

Hospital to home

Perhaps the largest distributor tackling the Australian home health technologies market is Hills.

“A lot of research shows that if people can stay in their own home for a couple more years, there’s a better outcome for the individual as well as the wider health system,” Hills general manager of product management Tom Sykes says.

“People who stay in their own home remain much more active and connected to other people.

“For this reason, we are looking at how to take the best technologies that health facilities have access to and bring them into homes around the country.

“So, we are effectively transplanting hospital technology into the home, as well as developing a few new things.”

Tom believes the driving force of the home health technologies market will be prevention rather than response.

“Perhaps one of the biggest challenges today is that a lot of this technology is based on response – that is, once the emergency has arisen.

“Our focus is on using technology to prevent incidents. How do we use technology to determine that someone is about to fall? It’s about predicting, and alerting people.”

Lively is just one of the products Hills distributes to help prevent incidents.

“Lively is built around a network of passive sensors, which are placed around a home to collect information about people’s daily routines and activities.

“For example, there could be a sensor on the fridge door or a pill box. Based on usage patterns you can start to see whether people are deviating from their routines.

“Lively will let you know if your loved ones haven’t opened the fridge for a while, which could mean they aren’t eating properly, or they have had a fall.

“Response-based systems often have a pendant or necklace device with a panic button on it. Typically, when people shower or sleep they don’t wear the device – it’s too clunky.”

To combat this, Hills is repurposing the popular security technology Xandem, which can “see through walls” to determine whether people are moving or stationary.

“Xandem technology is completely passive and uses sensors in the home, not on the person, which is a key difference.”

Home-grown health heroes

Several local suppliers are working on solutions designed to help elderly or disabled people to properly interact with their homes.

Semantrix specialises in the development, sales and support of semantic web and knowledge-based systems.

“A passive infra-red sensor tells me there’s a presence in the room, but that could be a person or a dog,” Semantrix managing director and chief technology officer Michael McGrath says.

“A smarter sensor can offer facial, biometric or even skeletal recognition. We can ‘map’ a skeleton then track everything that skeleton does.

“We’ll continue developing our basic behaviour-monitoring software, which offers fall detection. We have a trial running with Melbourne University at one of the larger aged-care facilities on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria.”

Also working in this space is Melbourne-based start-up Environexus, which found that its existing system required only minor adjustments to be ideal for the home health market.

“Once we transitioned to Android software, it opened up a lot more capability in our system than we had before,” chief executive and co-founder Chris Hall says.

“Android, being open source, let us explore new features such as voice control and geo-tracking.

“Once that was up and running, it was no longer a gimmick – you could talk to your home and your home could talk to you.

“This opened us up to the assisted living market, in which people don’t necessarily have the ability to touch a screen. This offers them a natural way to interact with their system.”

By combining its control system with wearable technology, Environexus gives people with disabilities greater freedom in their homes.

“The initial response to technology in this space has been cautious,” Chris says.

“The industry is introducing technology and saying ‘here’s something that will suit your needs’, but industry people have no idea what those needs are.”

Futurists have long insisted that digital home health is imminent. Well it’s here now, and integrators need to investigate incorporating the technology in their businesses.