How to Build Prevention for the Elderly and Disabled before Natural Disasters? The Added Social Value of Voluntary Organizations in Europe

In disaster situations, such as floods or earthquakes, the elderly and people with disabilities are particularly vulnerable and require additional attention. However, they are often neglected in existing municipal disaster emergency plans, particularly when such people live alone instead of in a care institution as their location is often undetermined in disaster situations or the information exists (e.g. if the people receive social services or if neighbours are aware of people in need in their vicinity) but is not structured in a way that is usable for civil protection emergencies. Up-to-date information for helpers and a community that is aware of this particular challenge for disaster relief can alleviate this problem. The paper presents the first results of the research action carried out by a joint partnership (universities/Italian, German and Danish voluntary organizations) highlighting: 1) which aspects are relevant for identifying the condition of vulnerability of the elderly and disabled; 2) how to develop a system for vulnerable people in integrated risk management mechanisms through local networks and volunteers; and 3) what is the added social value of volunteering in prevention and support for the elderly and disabled and the contribution to strengthening the resilience of local communities

ANGELAH: A Framework for Assisting Elders At Home

The ever growing percentage of elderly people within modern societies poses welfare systems under relevant stress. In fact, partial and progressive loss of motor, sensorial, and/or cognitive skills renders elders unable to live autonomously, eventually leading to their hospitalization. This results in both relevant emotional and economic costs. Ubiquitous computing technologies can offer interesting opportunities for in-house safety and autonomy. However, existing systems partially address in-house safety requirements and typically focus on only elder monitoring and emergency detection. The paper presents ANGELAH, a middleware-level solution integrating both ”elder monitoring and emergency detection” solutions and networking solutions. ANGELAH has two main features: i) it enables efficient integration between a variety of sensors and actuators deployed at home for emergency detection and ii) provides a solid framework for creating and managing rescue teams composed of individuals willing to promptly assist elders in case of emergency situations. A prototype of ANGELAH, designed for a case study for helping elders with vision impairments, is developed and interesting results are obtained from both computer simulations and a real-network testbed

First experiences with Personal Networks as an enabling platform for service providers

By developing demonstrators and performing small-scale user trials, we found various opportunities and pitfalls for deploying personal networks (PNs) on a commercial basis. The demonstrators were created using as many as possible legacy devices and proven technologies. They deal with applications in the health sector, home services, tourism, and the transportation sector. This paper describes the various architectures and our experiences with the end users and the technology. We conclude that context awareness, service discovery, and content management are very important in PNs and that a personal network provider role is necessary to realize these functions under the assumptions we made. The PNPay Travel demonstrator suggests that PN service platforms provide an opportunity to develop true trans-sector services

Physiology-Aware Rural Ambulance Routing

In emergency patient transport from rural medical facility to center tertiary hospital, real-time monitoring of the patient in the ambulance by a physician expert at the tertiary center is crucial. While telemetry healthcare services using mobile networks may enable remote real-time monitoring of transported patients, physiologic measures and tracking are at least as important and requires the existence of high-fidelity communication coverage. However, the wireless networks along the roads especially in rural areas can range from 4G to low-speed 2G, some parts with communication breakage. From a patient care perspective, transport during critical illness can make route selection patient state dependent. Prompt decisions with the relative advantage of a longer more secure bandwidth route versus a shorter, more rapid transport route but with less secure bandwidth must be made. The trade-off between route selection and the quality of wireless communication is an important optimization problem which unfortunately has remained unaddressed by prior work. In this paper, we propose a novel physiology-aware route scheduling approach for emergency ambulance transport of rural patients with acute, high risk diseases in need of continuous remote monitoring. We mathematically model the problem into an NP-hard graph theory problem, and approximate a solution based on a trade-off between communication coverage and shortest path. We profile communication along two major routes in a large rural hospital settings in Illinois, and use the traces to manifest the concept. Further, we design our algorithms and run preliminary experiments for scalability analysis. We believe that our scheduling techniques can become a compelling aid that enables an always-connected remote monitoring system in emergency patient transfer scenarios aimed to prevent morbidity and mortality with early diagnosis treatment.Comment: 6 pages, The Fifth IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI 2017), Park City, Utah, 201

MOSAIC vision and scenarios for mobile collaborative work related to health and wellbeing

The main objective of the MOSAIC project is to accelerate innovation in Mobile Worker Support Environments by shaping future research and innovation activities in Europe. The modus operandi of MOSAIC is to develop visions and illustrative scenarios for future collaborative workspaces involving mobile and location-aware working. Analysis of the scenarios is input to the process of road mapping with the purpose of developing strategies for R&D leading to deployment of innovative mobile work technologies and applications across different domains. This paper relates to one specific domain, that of Health and Wellbeing. The focus is therefore is on mobile working environments which enable mobile collaborative working related to the domain of healthcare and wellbeing services for citizens. This paper reports the work of MOSAIC T2.2 on the vision and scenarios for mobile collaborative work related to this domain. This work was also an input to the activity of developing the MOSAIC roadmap for future research and development targeted at realization of the future Health and Wellbeing vision. The MOSAIC validation process for the Health and Wellbeing scenarios is described and one scenario – the Major Incident Scenario - is presented in detail

Smart Signs: Showing the way in Smart Surroundings

This paper presents a context-aware guidance and messaging system for large buildings and surrounding venues. Smart Signs are a new type of electronic door- and way-sign based on wireless sensor networks. Smart Signs present in-situ personalized guidance and messages, are ubiquitous, and easy to understand. They combine the easiness of use of traditional static signs with the flexibility and reactiveness of navigation systems. The Smart Signs system uses context information such as user’s mobility limitations, the weather, and possible emergency situations to improve guidance and messaging. Minimal infrastructure requirements and a simple deployment tool make it feasible to easily deploy a Smart Signs system on demand. An important design issue of the Smart Signs system is privacy: the system secures communication links, does not track users, allow almost complete anonymous use, and prevent the system to be used as a tool for spying on users

Patient Safety Applications for Improving Health Care Quality

Patient safety is the fundamental thing that needs to be taken care of by medical staff when giving healthcare to patient especially in the Emergency Installation. PKU Muhammadiyah Public Hospital at Bantul has implemented Patient safety well in providing services for patients. Expected to be a reference for other hospitals to implement Patient safety as well as efforts to improve the quality of health services, but do not close the possibility there were still some deficiencies that could be made a suggestion for the PKU Muhammadiyah Bantul Hospital. There for researchers interested to review more detail how application of Patient safetyin Emergency Installation PKU Muhammadiyah Bantul Public Hospital in 2014. This research was qualitative observational study, using research subjects: The Head of the medical service, 1 Officer of Emergency Installation, the head of disaster management, 1 medical doctor, 1 nurse, and 4 patients that were taken with inclusion criteria: getting inpatient class III Hospitals in Yogyakarta, have inpatient more than 1 day. All the input items on the application of patient safety which include facilities, equipment, drugs, procedures, and activities of officers at Emergency Installation at PKU Muhammadiyah Bantul Hospital, as well as the application process is in compliance with the Guidelines of Observation Guidelines Patient Safety 2008 Survey and Guidelines for Accreditation of Hospital Emergency Services Specific Guidelines (revised edition 2007), ACT No. 44 Hospital in 2009, and patient safety procedures 2008. Patient perceived output includes five dimensions of quality (Tangible, Reliable, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy) all have the same perception of good and satisfying. Application on standard input, process and output is suit with Observation Guidelines for Patient Safety 2008 Survey and Guidelines for Accreditation of Hospital Emergency Services Specific Guidelines (revised edition 2007), ACT No. 44 Hospital in 2009, and patient safety procedures 2008

The National Criteria for Evacuation Decision-Making in Nursing Homes

Explains the key factors nursing home administrators and healthcare workers must consider in deciding whether to evacuate patients or to shelter them in place during natural disasters. Includes guidelines for drawing up emergency management plans