Worldline Iberia is Part of SOCIALCARE, an Innovative Project to Improve the Quality of Life of the Elderly in their Homes

December 20, 2017         By: Payment Week

Madrid, 20th December 2017 - Worldline Iberia is participating in SOCIALCARE, an innovative project to improve the quality of life of the elderly in their homes with the help of sensors. In collaboration with a consortium of European partners, and with the support of the Ministry of Energy, Tourism and Digital Agenda within the framework of the European Active and Assisted Living Program (AAL), SOCIALCARE is a new paradigm in care and well-being systems, in which volunteers and service providers use the most advanced technologies to conjointly support the management of the independent lives of the elderly in their homes.

The SOCIALCARE project was born with the aim to help self-managed elderly communities that, with the help of relatives and neighbors, seek out their own individual healthcare services. In this context, SOCIALCARE provides a set of guidelines, best practices and technological tools focused on facilitating their social interactions and health and well-being monitoring as well as promoting new knowledge that could be of interest to them.

In short, these local communities will be able to provide wider support to elderly people when they need it the most, when they are very fragile and have the greatest need for care. The project is based on the idea that elderly people know their problems best, and therefore are the ones who can find the solutions that are the most efficient at the local level. The elderly are therefore users of the system but, at the same time,also volunteers and citizens in their communities.

 

Health comes first

The SOCIALCARE project is working directly with various communities providing social services to the elderly in order to capture their main concerns at the source and get a sense of the most needed services. This is how health-related services were identified as their main priority, and, more specifically, fall detection, help requests and medication management. In addition to these health services, there are also needs of social nature, such as information about events they can attend or activities and volunteering in which they can participate.

 

Personal assistance

However, the reality is that there are hardly any affordable solutions in the market that allow monitoring of personal health parameters in one’s own home and in a non-intrusive way, by using for example low-cost mobile sensors (so-called “wearables”) whose objective is to monitor said parameters recommended by health professionals. The solution SOCIALCARE not only carries out this monitoring according to each user’sspecific needs but also includes a management system that allows immediate caregiver notifications in case any type of anomaly, that could be linked to a health risk situation, is detected.

 

According to Antoni Paradell, R&D Manager for Worldline’s Mobile Competence Center: “The combination of the most advanced IoT technologies with the latest generation of mobile devices allows us to make a qualitative leap in terms of remote healthcare systems, adapting to the specific needs of each patient”.


SOCIALCARE in action

The solution SOCIALCARE has already started its implementation journey in communities in the Netherlands and Austria, receiving a high degree of acceptance in said communities. This enthusiastic reception can be attributed to the agile development philosophy of SOCIALCARE, which allows the quick implementation of suggestions made by the communities. Another key aspect that has contributed to the success of the solution has been the extreme care that has been given to the solution’s usability, taking into account the needs and restrictions of the elderly as the main users of the applications.


About Worldline

Worldline [Euronext: WLN] is the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry. Worldline delivers new-generation services, enabling its customers to offer smooth and innovative solutions to the end consumer. Key actor for B2B2C industries, with nearly 45 years of experience, Worldline supports and contributes to the success of all businesses and administrative services in a perpetually evolving market. Worldline offers a unique and flexible business model built around a global and growing portfolio, thus enabling end-to-end support. Worldline activities are organized around three axes: Merchant Services, Mobility & e-Transactional Services and Financial Services including equensWorldline. Worldline employs more than 9,400 people worldwide, with estimated revenue of more than € 1.5 billion on a yearly basis. Worldline is an Atos company. worldline.com