Home Safe: AI-enabled personalized care for older adults

Most seniors and people in need of care wish to continue living in their own homes for as long as possible. However, this makes it difficult to check their health status. For older adults, a fall often means the end of living an independent life. To facilitate early detection of these and other critical scenarios and to prevent hospital stays, Philips has developed an AI-based medical alert system.

At MEDICA 2019 we met up with Dr. Andreas Landgraf of Philips, who told us more about the "Sicher Zuhause" (English: Home Safe) collaborative project with the Techniker Krankenkasse (Technicians' Health Insurance Fund).

Dr. Landgraf, what exactly is the "Home Safe" project?

Dr. Andreas Landgraf: "Home Safe" is a collaboration between Techniker Krankenkasse and Philips that aims to help seniors age at home despite their need for health and personal care. The project is based on the well-known medical alert system, which is used by nearly one million people in Germany, but we take it one step further. "Home Safe" has integrated sensors in the radio transmitter that detect falls and automatically place a call for help. This is such an important feature as studies have shown that only about 20 percent of seniors actually press the alert button to summon help in the event of a fall. The other 80 percent are unable to or don't want to draw attention. These adults then remain helpless on the floor for hours and sometimes for days - with serious consequences. Fall-related injuries often require hospitalization or might even prove fatal. What's more, seniors then fear that they might fall again. That's when older adults tend to avoid physical activity, thus triggering a vicious cycle. After all, the more you lose muscle control or neglect to train your sense of balance, the more likely you are to fall again.

But "Home Safe" offers even more benefits: By using the data generated by the system - age, gender, chronic illnesses, falls - a self-learning algorithm calculates the probability of hospitalization within the next 30 days. If there is an increased risk, a medical consultant contacts the involved party. The goal is to detect a deterioration in health early to initiate countermeasures and thus avoid hospitalizations.

Why is this type of care support not extensively available today?

Landgraf: Today we have a shortage of caregivers to assist the elderly. There are simply not enough people who want to pursue this career given the current conditions. What’s more, there is never enough time. What those in need of care need most are attention and affection. However, caregivers have to look after many patients, which doesn't allow much time for personalized care. Family caregivers often don't have basic medical knowledge and information about available services and support options. Another major challenge pertains to flexibility and adaptability in healthcare to address the changing needs. The "Home Safe" project aims to tackle this big deficit. By detecting drastic changes early, artificial intelligence drives more personalized health care.

How do you generally size the potential value of AI and other advanced digital care options?

Landgraf: Artificial intelligence and digitization open up new opportunities to relieve caregiver burden, both on the professional and the family side. Both aspects can also help improve safety in healthcare and support older adults in living a self-determined life. Having said that, AI will never be able to replace flesh-and-blood humans. I believe it is not an either/or question. It is rather about using digital innovations wisely to guarantee great healthcare in times of demographic shifts and a shortage of health professionals.