Solaria
SOLution for healthy Aging and ImpRoved wellbeing for elderly
by breaking down IsolAtion and empowering care providers.
Most people wish to live as long as possible an independent, self-determined and enjoyable life in the comfort of their homes. Nevertheless, often elderly people, even when they are still healthy and mobile, suffer from social exclusion and loneliness as they are not regularly in contact with their family and friends. At the same time their relatives worry about the seniors living alone. This has been accentuated across Europe with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Various solutions, like smartphones and tablets, already exist in the market to keep seniors connected with their environment. However, interviews and discussions with informal and formal care providers have shown that these solutions are not very successful with the elderly who are not digitally skilled because cognitive capabilities decrease with age.
Solaria’s innovation is based on the unique feature that informal (family, friends, houseworkers) and formal care givers (doctors, nursing staff, welfare workers) can come in contact with the person in need of care in the home environment via the TV, even without any required action from the care receiver breaking the seniors’ isolation and loneliness, and at the same time taking away any digital stress. Solaria’s proposed innovation development is also unique in the end-user service approach as it aims to assist primary end-users for a long time (20-30 years), from the time they still live independently at home (over 60 years old) to when they move to a serviced flat (over 70 years old) or when they eventually move to a care home (over 80 years old).
Solaria’s technology is based on UCast’s development of a communication system for residential care centres in Flanders (closed, controlled environment) which allows informal and formal care givers to communicate with the seniors via video-calling, messages and videos sent to their TV. This communication system includes hardware devices (a camera and a TV-integrated set-top-box) that convert the TV into a simple and accessible means of communication, as well as a software application that allows registered users to dial in directly to the TV, without any action from the receiver. This system has already been tested in different care homes in Flanders thanks to the support received for the VLAIO development project HBC.2019.2774 (1/11/2019-30/04/2021) and is currently being commercialised in Flanders as Pixee Tellie: https://www.pixee.be/en-gb/Tellie .
Solaria will be derived from the development of this technology and from the transition currently being carried out in Flanders from the closed, controlled environment of a residential care centre, with a dedicated on-premises server, to an open system in the cloud with a multilayer management system, to which various parties can be connected.
The Solaria project will scale up and adapt the technology to fit the open and decentralised system (cloud server) of the home care environment, as well as the three diverse scenarios (described above) and different set-top box configurations (e.g. external set-top box sitting between the TV and the decoder, decoder-integrated set-top box and TV-integrated set-top box) and different European countries rules and legislation. Also, the system will be adapted to a number of internet operators to guarantee network quality and system support, analysing and adopting GDPR, ethical and security rules, which are fundamental to guarantee access only to authorized users. Once the stability and security of the system at European level is optimised experimental new services will be added to the Solaria platform, including:
- Recording and monitoring of medical device measurements (blood pressure monitoring, etc.).
- Monitoring of sensors detections (lights on and off, smoke and CO2 detection).
- Purchases via the interactive television and the Solaria app store of medical applications, emergency centre support services, and home care and medical products.
The elderly will be able to grant access to healthcare professionals (caregivers and physicians) to view and analyse their data from the blood pressure device measurements, for example, on the Solaria platform. Variations from a typical pattern will help healthcare professionals to assess patients’ health and provide care for them.
Finally, Solaria’s proposed innovation development is unique in the end-user service approach as it aims to assist primary end-users for a long time (20-30 years), from the time they still live independently at home (over 60 years old) to when they move to a serviced flat (over 70 years old) or eventually move to a care home (over 80 years old). In fact, Solaria will be built and tested to fit different systems, different settings, and different needs: from the open and decentralised system of home care with a different proposition of technological features and services to the closed and centralised system of care homes. For all these reasons, the proposed development is unique in the European market.
Partners
LG Electronics
LG Electronics is a multinational company, with over 222,000 employees and 128 global operations. LGE actively participates in Home Entertainment, Home & Accessories, Vehicle Components and a wide range of B2B Solutions. LGE is leader in the manufacturing of information displays for TVs, public & corporate displays, mobile devices and OLED panels. In the B2B industry LGE is a major player in retail, corporate, public, hospitality and healthcare. LGE has a strong interest in participating in the Solaria technology because it can provide the scalability of the solution into the European market, increase the quality of life of the users and provide high quality display.
Connectify
Connectify is an ICT integrator (voice, data, security, video) company with years of experience in marketing new products and services and developing solutions for the health sector (mainly care homes and hospitals). Connectify will be key in testing, validating on a large scale and commercialise the developed solution leading on the business development and route to market activities. They also brought the product to the operator in Belgium and won the IF design award 2021 for the best design innovation in Belgium https://ifworlddesignguide.com/search?q=tellie&search=tellie#/page/entry/314234-tellie
UCast
Founded in 2013, UCast is a young and innovative multimedia integration company with a strong focus on IPTV and Digital Signage in the Business-2-Business market. The software platform development evolved to a versatile solution called Pixee that combines both product pillars. Extensive integrations with external solutions from the home automation, “Industry 4.0” and IOT world add an extra dimension to the possibilities for visualization of data and interaction of users with their surroundings.
Senior Living Group (now Korian)
Senior Living Group is a large Belgian association that provides residential care and home care services through its brands Senior Living Group and OTV Home Care. For over 15 years, Senior Living Group (7,500 employees) has been providing professional care services to over 12,500 residents in more than 120 facilities spread throughout Belgium. OTV Home Care (800 employees) provides home care services for approximately 8,500 customers. It should be noted that Senior Living Group belongs to the Korian Group.
As SLG is interested in new services, processes and business models they will be responsible for the planning and carrying out of co-creation focus groups and field trial tests.
Bonacasa
Bonacasa (BONA) is a first mover and pioneer in the area “living with services”. The company is a subsidiary of Bonainvest Holding AG, a real-estate company based in Solothurn, CH. Bonainvest has built barrier-free apartments according to the Bonacasa building- and safety standards for 20 years. BONA offers “service living” in over 1000 apartments that were built by Bonainvest. Another 500 apartments are either in the construction process or being planned at the moment. BONA is also a leader in Switzerland in deploying and providing home automation as part of their service offer. Today, BONA organises and operates service living also for B2B partners like third real estate companies, tourist regions, municipalities and others. In total, BONA serves more than 9500 apartments. BONA will provide access to their customers living independently in an apartment already equipped with the Bonacasa service platform. The PA might be an ideal extension to the existing user interface of the service platform. That is why BONA has a strong interest in participating in the business development processes of Solaria technology and plans, if the project is successful, to integrate it into its solutions.
Opposite
AContrario is a law firm focussing on commercial, IP, IT and data protection and data security law. AContrario offers innovative, specialized and personalized legal advice. Although AContrario was only founded 4 years ago, the lawyers and data security experts of AContrario accumulate more than 40 years of experience in IP, IT and data protection & data security. AContrario has been involved in a number of H2020 projects. In addition, AContrario has co-authored a number of legislative proposals concerning the GDPR on the Belgian as well as European level (Belgian cooperation agreement on the manual and digital contact tracing, Code of Conduct of mobile health applications). AContrario will guarantee that the Solaria project complies with GDPR regulation, data security rules and ethical requirements as well as with other applicable healthcare legislation. In addition, AContrario will make sure that IPR are protected all throughout the project implementation and the market launch and market penetration of the Solaria project.
Helan
Partena en OZ Gezinszorg is part of Partena Ziekenfonds.
Partena Ziekenfonds wants to offer qualitative solutions in terms of health and personal comfort. We do this by doing business in health insurance, family and home care services, health-promoting services, and products.
Partena en OZ Gezinszorg provides home care services and strives to ensure that everyone can live life as healthy, comfortably, and independently as possible with specific attention to those in need of care, people with disabilities and the elderly. We offer care in the form of personal care (no nursing tasks), housekeeping and psychosocial support. Partena en OZ Gezinszorg provides home care in East Flanders, West Flanders and Flemish Brabant with its 180 employees. From 1st January 2022 Partena en OZ Gezinszorg’ will be called ‘Helan Thuiszorg’ due to a merger between the organizations Partena Ziekenfonds en OZ. This is the reason for choosing HLN as an acronym for the project.
Santa Lucia Foundation
Fondazione IRCCS Santa Lucia (FSL) is the first Italian Institute for Research in the neuroscience field for hospitalization and treatment, specialized in neurology, neurorehabilitation and neuropsychiatry. The hospital has about 300 inpatient beds, as well as extensive facilities for day patients. Approximately 2500 patients are treated yearly as inpatients in the hospital, and about 500 are treated as outpatients and Day Hospital patients. The Laboratory of Neuropsychiatry has a strong background in investigating neurobiological underpinnings of major mental illness and to study the possible connection with outcome, neuropsychological and biological measures, using a multidimensional approach. It is at the front line of research on early detection of neuropsychiatric disorders from childhood to adulthood to improve treatment strategies and prevent illness chronicity. Currently, it’s involved in three AAL projects (2018 POSITIVE, 2019 ReMember-Me and 2020 CleverGuard).