Communication every step of the way
Communication is key, so goes the well-worn phrase, and rarely is this truer than when it comes to the health and wellbeing of older adults and vulnerable tenants within individual homes or group living environments.
The onward march of digital and sensor-based technologies in social housing settings may well be delivering improved outcomes and cost efficiencies but communicating the benefits to residents will always be the vital first step in any installation.
Jargon-free messages
The tenants are the ones who need to be fully in the picture from day one, and getting the message across in a way that is free of technical jargon and consistent over time is essential.
The approach also needs to be flexible depending on the nature of the dwellings, as we’ve seen in recent schemes for individual homes in Fife and a retirement complex in the Scottish Borders; no one-size fits all and a bespoke approach often needs to be adopted.
In Fife, we arranged a number of meetings for tenants in community halls and council venues, supported by easy-to-read printed literature. Everyone had to know what the project involved and that included family members, health and care workers as well as housing and facility management staff.
At the Bield retirement complex in South Lanarkshire, we organised multiple coffee mornings, again supported by accessible printed materials. The ultimate outcome at the end of this project was that all of the initially reticent residents wanted to be involved; everyone could see the advantages with the downsides almost non-existent.
Personal dignity
The importance of personal dignity should be the central concern as we move rapidly from the disparate, reactive and bulky impositions of the past on people’s lives to unobtrusive and proactive digital technologies that operate virtually unnoticed.
Tenants have to know what they need to do and, in the vast majority of cases, this is absolutely nothing.
Hassle-free installation
The next step, the actual installation of IoT sensors around each home, also needs to be simple and hassle-free. The tiny sensors can each have numerous functions, depending on the room, and quietly do ‘their thing’ in the background.
Our own ambient assisted-living platform is being constantly adapted to ensure it operates in lock step with the latest advances, especially important in a world increasingly reliant on AI, as well as adhering to whatever changes take place within the regulatory environment.
There needs to be close co-ordination with the installation team, whether in-house in the case of our Bield project or sub-contracted to partner organisations. It takes just a few minutes to install and connect each sensor in a ‘plug and play’ manner, having already been configured with the platform.
When it comes to the connection of devices to the platform, we use Angelnet. Designed to support mission-critical applications across health, social care, facility management and incident response, Angelnet uses LoRoWAN, a low-power, wide-area (LPWAN) network protocol designed for connecting battery-powered IoT devices over long distances.
Evaluation & monitoring
Communication obviously forms the pivotal part of the third stage, namely evaluation. Any concerns and problems flagged by the sensors are identified by the constantly-monitored platform and relayed immediately to tenants, family members, health and care providers and FM professionals using a full range of media such as SMS, email, smart speakers and integrated TV messaging.
Changes detected in humidity and temperature, for example, can be instantly communicated to tenants with advice such as ‘open the bathroom window’.
The result? Better health and care outcomes, less imposition on external agencies and cost efficiencies that just get greater and greater over time. An independent assessment of the Bield scheme, for example, concluded that an annual saving of £18.5 million could be made across Scotland just for group-living retirement complexes as well as an impressive year-one return on investment.
Bield is now in the process of rolling out these technologies at a number of other venues across their estate.
This is about us all living longer, happier and safer lives in our own homes and who doesn’t want that?
Brian Brown is the director of business development at Archangel.
