The team has defined a joint research project called “Pervasive Computing and Agile Workflow for Assisted Home Living of Dependent Individuals”.

Faced with the increase in chronic degenerative diseases that requires monitoring and long-term patient management, and the growing desire of patients to be treated in a family environment in order to protect their social ties, and, finally, faced with a need to reduce costs, currently, in France, like other developed countries, we are seeing new strategic orientations in the structuring of the healthcare system's offer. In particular, this offer takes the form of a transfer of a large portion of care activities from the hospital to the patient’s residence. The hospital is therefore turning into a step in the treatment process and “proximity” structures (home hospitalization, home care, substitution of nursing care at home, etc.) are playing a major role in this global process. This issue relates to individuals who are losing their autonomy (aging, ill and disabled persons) who, in order to continue living alone, must be monitored and assisted in their daily environment. Emergency situations must be identified for the rapid attendance of outside support.

It is within this logic and according to the national (ANR, etc.) and European (“Ambient Assisted Living”) research program orientations related to healthcare, where information and communication technologies (ICT) are considered to be a crucial element to improve practices in this field, that this research project is positioned.

Objectives:

The objective is to create an integrated system that favours home living for individuals who are slightly dependent or losing their autonomy. In terms of deliverables, we are seeking to produce proof of the concept and the system architecture by deploying an operational prototype at the homes of a number of pilot patients and to provide mobile interaction devices to various actors in assisted home living (medical personnel, social assistants, friends and family …) so as to be able to evaluate in a real situation the relevance and usability of the solutions proposed. To this end, the solutions adopted must be financially and technically realistic, reusing proven surveillance devices for individuals living at home (home automation devices, portable equipment, physiological measurement devices) […] and using broadly available technologies, in particular in terms of data transmission networks (ADSL, wireless, Bluetooth …). The system includes equipment suited to the remote surveillance of assisted individuals and a platform to collect and analyze this data, which will be fed as information to a center for decision-making and the supervision of interventions.

In this new “decentralized care” context, the global management process must not be limited to a simple connecting of processes that are initially isolated. Indeed, the global management system must be able to:
•    measure as needed situations that may be dangerous for the patient,
•    have these alarms communicate with the most appropriate contact, whether an emergency service, a social assistant, a friend or family member, a neighbour, etc.,
•    ensure the continuity and integrity of the care provided,
•    structure coordinated care services by players who are geographically remote,
•    adapt to the variability of the patient’s environment.
It must therefore allow for end-to-end control of the outsourcing of patient follow-up with no interruption in the chain or incoherency and without affecting the existing structure. The system must take into account new requirements in terms of continuity, coordination and flexibility, defined here as the ability to adapt to frequent changes related to evolutions in the environment, and to provide healthcare professionals with an environment that supports their tasks and is adapted to their new operational methods.

Challenges:

To meet this objective, a number of scientific issues must be resolved, in particular the complexities related to:
•    The sharing and exchanging of heterogeneous flows by heterogeneous, distributed structures
•    Decisions broken down amongst various parties and decentralized management
•    Process dynamics and responsiveness in a changing and uncertain environment.
In summary, the present project will allow for the implementation and evaluation in a real situation of a distributed system:
•    At the patient’s home: integration of a home automation network with wireless sensors coupled with an intelligent alarm system that identifies situations that are potentially pathogenic.
•    For social services, a portable communication tool of the SmartPhone type that allows for the mobile reception of alarms, interaction with the home automation system upon their arrival at the patient’s home, and the disabling of the alarms once the causes of the situation that triggered the alarm have been resolved.
•    An inter-organizational workflow management system fed by the home automation system that allows for the coordination of the response to be given to the alarms by the various players in home assisted living (medical and related personnel, social assistants, friends and family members, neighbors …) and ensures the support process is followed up.

Financing:

The project’s financing is composed of the following:
•    A regional “Research Project” call for tenders: total amount - €74K, €24K co-financed by the Midi-Pyrénées region
•    PhD bursary request of €83,700 over three years, co-financed by the Midi-Pyrénées region, the municipality of Castres-Mazamet and the Jean-François Champollion University Center for Education and Research.