E-Health@Home: Evelopment of business models for a self-determined life in an ageing society / E-Health

Tasks

Based on innovative business models the project E-Health@Home identifies, evaluates, designs, and implements telemedicine services for the elderly.
The project contributes to the solution to problems resulting from an aging society. The objective is the development of alternatives for those who have been living in residential nursing homes due to health impairment.
The project creates conditions under which these people can live independently in their own homes longer than was previously the case. Starting points for E-Health@Home are current and future applications in telemedicine and ambient assisted living (AAL).
The success of E-Health@Home depends on a balanced consideration from medical, technological, economical and social factors. The team of the project is thus structured highly interdisciplinary manner. In the context of E-Health@Home, the social and economical protagonists of this evolving (third) health care market will be completely and innovatively linked.

Objective

The elderly look for new models for living in their third phase of life. In addition, an aging society needs new supply models.

• The private Home needs to be upgraded as a health site. An increasing interlocking of outpatient and nursing home care is emerging.
• Services in telemedicine and AAL will allow the home-centred treatment of a multitude of illnesses and complaints.
• Further critical success factors are the encouragement of independent and responsible behavior by the elderly, involvement of relatives and new forms of social initiatives such as the Mehrgenerationenhaus. (Multi-Generation-Home)
• This life and supply model requires a flexible network of business and intermediate organizations, which offer medical, nursing, practical household and cultural services.

Developing the home as a health site improves the life quality of the patient. At the same time, nursing and health-care costs can be reduced

Research Objects

• An architectural framework which supports the interoperability of devices and the integration of services in telemedicine andAAL will be developed.
• Telemedicine and AAL applications will be registered, reviewed, and classified, in order to optimise the methods in service engineering for future applications.
• A central task of the project is the analysis of innovative business models as well as business systems, which enable the facilitation of the home as a health site based on sustainable and valueadded architecture.
• Possible advantages in efficiency and effectiveness are analysed from an economic and operational point of view.
• The project develops solutions for safety and security of data due to special challenges in terms of data protection requirements.
• Telemedicine and AAL have to be easily accessible for the elderly so they can regard these services as socially beneficial.
• The perspective of telemedicine will be connected with innovation in nursing care, supply and social environment.