On 20 of September the real-life trials have started in Norway and will kick-off in Switzerland at the end of September. The objective is to evaluate the 1st version of the integrated H2HCare prototype that integrates the 2nd version of the support services.

In September the 2nd version of the developed services is planned to be released by the H2HCare consortium. The services have been refined and improved considering the valuable feedback received from the controlled environment trials.

Also the real-life trials are planned to start in September in both end-users sites in Norway and Switzerland. The goal is to evaluate the 1st version of the integrated H2HCare prototype that uses the latest version of the services.

On 29 June HUG partner has represented the H2HCare consortium at the online event “Ethics and privacy in the age of digital transformation” an interactive workshop organised by AALProgramme and R2M Solution (http://www.aal-europe.eu/join-online-seminar-ethics-and-privacy-in-aal/).

The workshop participants collaborated and discussed for 90 minutes the possibilities of properly addressing ethics and privacy in AAL projects to obtain high quality in R&D related to human-technology interactions.

At the event the AAL Guidelines for Ethics, Data Privacy and Security, released in 2020 were discussed and initial lessons learnt from discussions with solutions developers, health and care providers, user organisations were presented.

Moreover, the participants discussed the opportunity for developing a formal ‘ethical excellence’ recognition system for Active & Healthy Ageing (AHA) digital solutions.

On 30th May 2021, H2HCare team was invited to the MIE2021 (Medical Information Europe Congress) to present a an accepted peer-reviewed paper dedicated to the process of searching, gathering and determining end-user requirements, used as basis for the co-creation of a social robot.

This technological tool has to ensure and support home cardiac care and has to take into account the needs of seniors suffering from heart failure and their caregivers, either nurses or relatives. To demonstrate how these needs are subsequently translated into requirements, H2HCare consortium represented by HUG has presented the research and prioritisation methods of requirements and their categorisation used in the project.

Sorbonne’s University team, which is working on a breast cancer project, reacted to those requirements asking whether these could be cross-cutting to other projects. HUG answered and explained that the requirements could be transferable and applied to other audiences, such as younger people with similar issues or people with health problems requiring post-hospital follow-up and home care support to improve their treatment and rehabilitation.

The open-acess article can be accessed here: https://ebooks.iospress.nl/doi/10.3233/SHTI210227

On 4th of June H2HCare cas participated to an online collaborative workshop organized by the AAL Remember-Me project (https://www.rememberme-aal.eu/)  in collaboration with IOANNA and iCan AAL Projects: https://www.rememberme-aal.eu/remember-me-project-organizes-its-first-open-worshop-in-the-framework-of-the-virtual-interactive-workshop-assistive-technologies-for-older-adults-experiences-and-prospects/

TUC has presented the work done in H2HCare and participated to the discussions sessions together with other AAL projects attending the meeting. The workshop was focused on presenting the aspects ICT can help older adults with specific instruments and systems, as well as the benefits and older adults experiences. Also the participants discussed and elaborated on the concerns and ‘catches’ related to the use of new technology.

H2HCare consortium has participated to the online event “Health & Care ecosystems as drivers for transforming European welfare” (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/health-care-ecosystems-as-drivers-for-transforming-european-welfare-tickets-153951227265?keep_tld=1#).

It was organised by the AAL CMU together with the Universities of Tampere and Vaasa in Finland, the German Health Regions, Health Valley Netherlands and the ScanBalt Bio Network.

The event took place on 31 of May on Zoom platform and had as main objectives: (I) Exploring ways to deal with complexity in health & care eco-systems to enable the transformation of European welfare in the 2020s, (ii) learn about the crucial role of agency and collaboration of the key actors involved and (iii) contribute to the development of a strategic innovation agenda for the upcoming European partnership on health & care systems transformation.

The first prototypes for the H2HCare individual services are available:

• Pre-discharge Comprehensive Elders Risk Assessment Service

• Older Adult Post-Discharge Monitoring and Follow-up Service

• Digital assistant-based Coaching and Intervention Service

H2HCare consortium released the 2nd and final version for the H2HCare platform architecture as deliverable D1.4 (see Library section)

The refined version of the H2HCare conceptual architecture comprises three customizable services that take advantage of various techniques and technologies such as IoT sensors, artificial intelligence and social digital assistants to improve post-discharge follow-up and adherence to treatment plan and to reduce communication gaps for an optimal transition of care journey for the patients with heart failure: Pre-discharge Comprehensive Elders Risk Assessment Service, Older Adult Post-Discharge Monitoring and Follow-up Service and Digital assistant-based Coaching and Intervention Service. For each service the high-level interfaces are added in D1.4 together with the envisioned interaction flow inside the architecture to better highlight the integration process that will be used in H2HCare.

The selected technologies for building the H2HCare system comprise of: TelluCloud IoT monitoring infrastructure that will be adapted and enhanced for H2HCare specific needs; Machine Learning (ML) and Big Data Analytics techniques to process the heterogeneous and distributed streams of monitored data to establish the baseline Daily Life Activities of older adult and to detect changes in patients’ activity routines which may signal progression of his/her symptoms; KOMP digital assistant used to include care feedback and anticipatory guidance for transitional care and solutions to help doctors in creating intervention roadmaps and list of actions / activities that can be delivered directly to the other adults; AV1 telepresence digital assistant which enables one-way video streaming and two-way audio streaming to be used in the controlled environment testing.

In January 2021, the H2HCare consortium released the first version of the H2HCare plans for end-user recruitment and test protocols as part of deliverable D3.2 – Recruitment and test protocol.

This deliverable describes the different usability tests: heuristic evaluation, formative tests and different field trials necessary to carry out user-centered development within the H2HCare project.  In particular, it defines the recruitment strategies, the number of all types of end-users required for each usability test/testing location and elucidates all other tests-related administrative aspects. This deliverable will also go through all work plans/schedules, sample size and tests methodologies, making all general information available to enable the consortium to have an overview of the different stages of a longitudinal evaluation in a real-life context.

In January the H2HCare consortium released the first version of the H2HCare system services design together with their associated mockups as part of deliverable D1.3 – Services co-design and intelligent dashboard mock-ups – 1st version.

This deliverable describes the technical aspects, interfaces design and internal data flows of the three different service components that will be integrated into the H2HCare platform: Pre-discharge Comprehensive Elders Risk Assessment Service, Older Adult Post-Discharge Monitoring and Follow-up Service and Digital assistant-based Coaching and Intervention Service. The services are described using the 4+1 architectural view model.

The complete version of the deliverable can be found in the Library section of the website.