DREAMING – elDeRly-friEndly Alarm handling and MonitorING
The main concept of DREAMING project is keeping elderly people in their home environment as long as their physical and mental conditions allow this. The participation of social and health authorities are focused as well as the technology application, offering thus non-technology based services. Dreaming project considers a better combination between technical and non-technical services is essential for supporting the autonomy of elderly people.
- Taking this into account, the concrete objectives of DREAMING are:
1. Enabling elderly people to continue to live in their home.
2. Providing elderly people with the simple though effective way of staying in touch.
3. Increasing the appropriateness and the timeliness of interventions by health and social care professionals.
4. Containment of health and social care expenditure. - One of the particularities of the project is a real life trial which will be realized in several countries:
• Denmark – Region Syddanmark
• Estonia – Tallinn
• Italy – Friuli-Venezia Giulia
• Spain – Aragon
• Sweden – UppsalaEach trial will be composed of 30 users, and local partners will collect a feedback from all the categories of users participating in the trials (end users, i.e. the elders, Contact Centre operators, social workers, caregivers, nurses, emergency service, etc.) required to further refine the service.
For further information, please contact Ilenia Gheno and Nena Georgantzi
Project number: 225023
Project acronym: DREAMING
Project full title: DREAMING – Elderly-Friendly Alarm Handling and Monitoring
Starting date: 1 May 2008
Duration: 36 months
DREAMING is the new project funded by the EU CIP-PSP (Competitiveness and Innovation Program-Policy Support Program).
DREAMING Final Conference and Advisory Board visit in Trieste
The DREAMING project hold its final conference in Trieste on the 14th June, presenting the results and perspectives of a multicenter trial telemonitoring in support of home care. After 4 years of experience in 6 European countries, DREAMING concluded that eHealth solutions can at the same time improve the health and wellbeing of users and also be a sustainable solution for public finances. In particular, positive effects in health related quality of life and level of depression of the DREAMING users were measured using two internationally accepted tools, the SF-36 and the HADS. Additionally, these results were achieved while reducing almost without exceptions the costs of care for the intervention group to a degree which more than compensates for the cost of AAL intervention all included (depreciation, installation and maintenance of equipment, call centre services, staff training, etc) thanks to a sizeable reduction in the demand for the most expensive care services (hospital, emergency rooms, GP and specialist consultations). All the calculations on the economic return on investment have been done based on the cost of technology of 3 years ago when the trials started. With today’s cost of technology, this would be over 40% cheaper and will keep reducing, while cost of the workforce (which will anyway be increasingly insufficient to care for the ageing European population) will keep increasing.
Besides the outcomes of the pilot sites and their future plans, the conference was an opportunity to discuss similar projects in other parts of Europe and address what telemedicine can offer to older people, but also which are the bottlenecks to wide deployment of such solutions.
Ms, Angela Cluzel and Ms. Heidrun Mollenkopf, AGE experts and members of the DREAMING Advisory Board gave a presentation on the users feedback from the trials. The Advisory Board has visited all pilot sites during the lifetime of the project and has concluded that the technology is accessible and not intrusive; that users of telehealth are satisfied, more aware of their own situation and feel secure using the DREAMING services; and in some cases telemonitoring has proved not only to reduce medical visits and hospitalisation but also to save lives. Additionally, the Advisory Board has agreed that to ensure positive outcomes, the services should not pay attention just to the health aspect but also to social care, and this is what DREAMING has tried to do focusing both on eHealth and on eInclusion. The experts also noticed that good results go hand in hand with challenges, including the change of roles of health professionals and the possible resistance to change, the importance of training and involving users and their immediate environment (family, caregivers) and the need for reliable technology as well as technical support. The presentation of the Advisory Board can be found here.
Additionally, on the 13thJune, six members of the DREAMING Advisory Board and AGE Experts who took part in the Universal Accessibility and Independent Living expert group meeting in Trieste had the opportunity to experience the pilot site in Trieste, visiting the health district that participates in the trials and manages the health data, the contact center who deals with the alarms and is an additional chain in the care provision and three different users of DREAMING in their home environment. The experts met with the professionals and discussed with the patients their view on the use of technology.
You may read the AGE Projects newsflash on the results of DREAMING here.
The presentations made during the conference can be seen below and can be found in the DREAMING website following this link.
- Project overview (by Marco d’Angelantonio)
- The new organization model of the South Karelia Social and Health Care District (Eksote) (by Tuula Karhula)
- Trieste—from research to innovation (by Diego Bravar)
- The role of private operator in homecare (by Michela Flaborea)
- The pioneer European Innovation Partnership for active and healthy ageing (by Carla Sofia Rafael Duarte)
- 3 Million Lives campaign (by Charles Lowe)
- Technical contribution of Pilot Sites in Italy (by Paolo Da Col, Sara Koterle and Barbara Dodi)
- Technical contribution of Pilot Sites in Spain (by Juan I. Coll Clavero & Rosana Angles)
- Technical contribution of Pilot Sites in Sweden (by Benny Eklund)
- Technical contribution of Pilot Sites in Estonia (by Peeter Ross, Marko Parve & Katrin Davodova)
- Technical contribution of Pilot Sites in Germany (by Marius Greuel & Andrea Croci)
- Presentation of the final results of the project (by Wouter A. Keijser)
- Lessons learned, challenges and opportunities from an older user perspective (by Angela Cluzel & Heidrun Mollenkopf)
- Beyond DREAMING? – Future prospects; strategic and operational choices and decisions (by Marco d’Angelantonio)
Sample videos on the pilot sites presented by the DREAMING partners at the Final Conference can be seen through the following links:
- Impressions of the Italian Pilot site
- Impressions of the Spanish Pilot site
- Impressions of the German Pilot site
- Impressions of the Danish Pilot site
For more information you may contact Nena Georgantzi.
Visit of the Dreaming Advisory Board in Barbastro and Regional Conference in the frame of the Telemedicine Forum
On Thursday October 27th, in parallel with the Telemedicine Forum, a meeting of the Dreaming Advisory Board was organized in Barbastro. This meeting was an opportunity for three members of the Advisory Board, Ms. Angela Cluzel (EDE, AGE), Ms. Marja Pijl (Eurocarers, AGE) and Mr. Philippe Swennen(AIM), to experience the application of the Dreaming technology in Spain, to engage in discussions with the local partners and relevant stakeholders and participate in the programme of the Telemedicine Forum.
The meeting was organized by the Spanish team of the Dreaming project with the collaboration of AGE Platform Europe. Besides the three experts of the Advisory Board, the following people attended the meeting: Juan I Coll Clavero, Dionisia Romero Marco and Rosana Angles from the Health Care area of Barbastro, Mayte Hurtado, Miguel Angel Sarasa Lopez and Antonio Bemeko Perez from TB Solutions, Marco d’Angelantonio from HIM SA, coordinator of the Dreaming project and Nena Georgantzi from AGE Platform Europe, the organization which manages the Dreaming Advisory Board.
Unlike what the Advisory Board had seen in other pilot site visits, the three experts did not visit a user at his own home; instead they were connected to the user through video conference. Thus, they were able to witness how the contact centre in Barbastro Hospital works, how the nurse communicates with the patients from a distance, how the user takes the measurements alone and how the data are transferred to the hospital portal creating different types of alarms.
During the visit the members of the Advisory Board were able to interview the patient and investigate the impact of the technology for the professionals involved in the project. A detailed description on the Spanish pilot site was given by the partners involved, which allowed participants to have a thorough look on the technical, economic, health and social aspects of the Dreaming solutions.
The discussions focused on the benefit of the technology for the user, the change of roles of the health professionals, in particular of the nurse which engaged in a long-term relationship with the patient who is telemonitored and the expected economical advantages by the use of technology.
The three experts were very satisfied that the pilot site was functioning successfully due to a devoted team of partners who are fully convinced of the benefits the Dreaming system can bring.
AGE platform Europe will compile a report, including the discussions and recommendation brought up during the meeting as well as the individual impressions of the experts on the Spanish pilot site.
The Website of the DREAMING Project includes images and videos from the Barbastro IX Tele-Medicine Forum & DREAMING Project Regional Conference. You can see them by clicking the following links:
- Images: https://www.dreaming-project.org/dreaming_news.html.This link also contains some additional contents as an update for the Danish dissemination activities.
- Videos: https://www.dreaming-project.org/inthemedia.html
Visit of the DREAMING Advisory Board to Langeland
AGE organized the DREAMING Advisory Board meeting in Langeland, Denmark on August 31st together with the municipality of Langeland (Langeland Kommune) and the region of Southern Denmark (Region Syddanmark). This was an opportunity for the Advisory Board members to experience the DREAMING technology and witness its use by an older person who participates in the real life trials that take place in Denmark. They also had the opportunity to interact with professionals engaged in the project as well as with politicians of the region during a meeting on nationwide deployment of the DREAMING applications after the lifetime of the project.
The comments made by the Advisory Board during and after this visit will feed into the project as the views of this board are an integral part of evaluating the impact of the use of technology in the DREAMING pilot sites.
The following people attended this visit:
Ms. Judy TRIANTAFILLOU, Hellas 50+ – Greece
Ms. Heidrun MOLLENKOPF, BAGSO – Germany
Ms. Marja PIJL, Eurocarers – Netherlands
Mr. Philippe SWENNEN, AIM – EU
Mr. Claus NIELSEN, Delta Business – Denmark
For more information you may contact Nena Georgantzi and Ilenia Gheno.
DREAMING mid-term workshop during the AAL FORUM 2010
AGE will be following the above mentioned event during theAAL Forum 2010 in Odense – Denmark, on September 2010.
Online registration for the DREAMING Project Midterm Workshop is already available. Please Register Now! For more information, please click the Midterm Workshop Draft Programme.
AGE President, LIz Mestheneos and AGE Independent Living expert, Angela Cluzel, have been invited to follow and interact during the panel discussion, proving AGE point of view about the critical issue of moving from successful pilots to widespread deplyoment.
DREAMING Final Conference and Advisory Board visit in Trieste
The DREAMING project hold its final conference in Trieste on the 14th June, presenting the results and perspectives of a multicenter trial telemonitoring in support of home care. After 4 years of experience in 6 European countries, DREAMING concluded that eHealth solutions can at the same time improve the health and wellbeing of users and also be a sustainable solution for public finances. In particular, positive effects in health related quality of life and level of depression of the DREAMING users were measured using two internationally accepted tools, the SF-36 and the HADS. Additionally, these results were achieved while reducing almost without exceptions the costs of care for the intervention group to a degree which more than compensates for the cost of AAL intervention all included (depreciation, installation and maintenance of equipment, call centre services, staff training, etc) thanks to a sizeable reduction in the demand for the most expensive care services (hospital, emergency rooms, GP and specialist consultations). All the calculations on the economic return on investment have been done based on the cost of technology of 3 years ago when the trials started. With today’s cost of technology, this would be over 40% cheaper and will keep reducing, while cost of the workforce (which will anyway be increasingly insufficient to care for the ageing European population) will keep increasing.
Besides the outcomes of the pilot sites and their future plans, the conference was an opportunity to discuss similar projects in other parts of Europe and address what telemedicine can offer to older people, but also which are the bottlenecks to wide deployment of such solutions.
Ms, Angela Cluzel and Ms. Heidrun Mollenkopf, AGE experts and members of the DREAMING Advisory Board gave a presentation on the users feedback from the trials. The Advisory Board has visited all pilot sites during the lifetime of the project and has concluded that the technology is accessible and not intrusive; that users of telehealth are satisfied, more aware of their own situation and feel secure using the DREAMING services; and in some cases telemonitoring has proved not only to reduce medical visits and hospitalisation but also to save lives. Additionally, the Advisory Board has agreed that to ensure positive outcomes, the services should not pay attention just to the health aspect but also to social care, and this is what DREAMING has tried to do focusing both on eHealth and on eInclusion. The experts also noticed that good results go hand in hand with challenges, including the change of roles of health professionals and the possible resistance to change, the importance of training and involving users and their immediate environment (family, caregivers) and the need for reliable technology as well as technical support. The presentation of the Advisory Board can be found here.
Additionally, on the 13thJune, six members of the DREAMING Advisory Board and AGE Experts who took part in the Universal Accessibility and Independent Living expert group meeting in Trieste had the opportunity to experience the pilot site in Trieste, visiting the health district that participates in the trials and manages the health data, the contact center who deals with the alarms and is an additional chain in the care provision and three different users of DREAMING in their home environment. The experts met with the professionals and discussed with the patients their view on the use of technology.
You may read the AGE Projects newsflash on the results of DREAMING here.
The presentations made during the conference can be found in the DREAMING website following this link.
Sample videos on the pilot sites presented by the DREAMING partners at the Final Conference can be seen through the following links:
- Impressions of the Italian Pilot site
- Impressions of the Spanish Pilot site
- Impressions of the German Pilot site
- Impressions of the Danish Pilot site
For more information you may contact Nena Georgantzi.
In addition to the final conference, other events will indeed take place in Trieste during the week: a meeting of the AGE UAIL Expert Group, a visit on the Italian pilot site of the project to witness the use of devices and the interactions with the user, and a meeting with the partners to discuss final feedbacks and recommendations.
Outcomes of the DREAMING project
The achievements of the DREAMING project have been summarized in a publication entitled: ‘Is Ambient Assisted Living a Panacea for Ageing Population?’, published by IoS Press.
This book addresses one of the most important health and social care issues affecting older adults: namely monitoring chronic diseases as a preventative measure, to reduce exacerbations requiring intensive medical treatments, slow down the progression of these diseases, improve opportunities for social inclusion and optimise the effectiveness of care professionals in supporting these people, all in a cost effective way.
We at AGE are proud of this book, highlighting effectively the impressions, outcomes and progresses of almost 4 years of activities. This important achievement is the fruit of the cooperation of a very committed and active Consortium, led by Marco d’Angelantonio from HiM sa, his team and the Tesan Televita, with the valuable support of external stakeholders and of AGE experts within the DREAMING Advisory Board.
In addition, to take advantage of the conclusions and recommendations of the DREAMING Advisory Board and highlight the added value of the involvement of external experts representing the users’ and professionals’ views, AGE has prepared a document that puts together the main comments of the experts throughout the project activities in a synthetised way. You may read this report online here.
