Home Care of the South Karelian Social and Health Care District (Eksote), in cooperation with Vesratio Oy, is beginning to test the potential of smart sensor technology to support living at home. Vesratio’s goal is to provide a solution for speeding up the routine work of home care staff and liberating working time for caring of people.

The launch of the test is also the first pilot for a testbed to be developed in the joint ELSA project of Eksote, Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology (LUT University) and Saimaa University of Applied Sciences (Saimia). Privacy is protected by utilizing Digita Oy’s nationwide IoT network.

Vesratio Oy, a Finnish service provider specializing in the well-being of people and real estate, and Eksote, a South Karelian provider of social and health services, are jointly launching an experiment to test the benefits of smart sensors for home care. During the testing and development project, the utilization of the information gathered by the devices will be mapped from the perspective of the customer and the home care workers.

“Eksote, LUT University and Saimia are currently developing an innovation environment and testbed services in South Karelia that will enable testing of new technological products and services in a genuine customer environment. For us, the partnership we are launching with Vesratio is the first set of projects to be implemented at ELSA Testbed”, says Kaisa Pesonen, Project Manager at ELSA Project.

 

“We are very excited about the practical testing now underway. The results provide us with the opportunity to refine our solutions to the perfectly fit the needs of the home care. In the future, Vesratio’s solutions can also be used to monitor eg. water and food consumption of home care customers”, explains Vesration’s director Antti Pellinen.

In this experiment, sensors are installed in the homes of eager home care clients, where they collect data on the measurable properties of the apartment or room. The collected data is transmitted encrypted via Digita’s nationwide IoT network to Vesration’s cloud-based service. There data is analyzed and combined into real information about the surveillance target. All this is done hidden from the human eyes. The analyzed information is presented to Eksote’s home care staff in various summaries and alarms.

“Digita is following Eksote’s and Vesratio’s project with great interest. Vesratio’s service is one of the first health market services in Finland utilizing our nationwide LoRaWAN network for IoT”, says Ari Kuukka, Director of IoT Services at Digita.

Once the sensor device is installed, no action is required from the customer, a close relative, or medical personnel. The home care clients live and work in their own homes during the test period as before. As the testing progresses, the information collected by the system will be utilized to develop various automatic alarm functions. Alarm functions are tested with Eksote’s home care with minimal interference with their basic work. During testing, alarms can also be routed via e-mail to relatives of the home care clients.

“The sensors themselves are small, fire alarm sized, devices that operate completely independently and unobtrusively for many years. It only takes a few minutes to install them”, explains Timo Tuononen, Project Director at Vesratio.

Sensors collect information directly from the homes of the home care clients. Information is collected in an unobtrusive and privacy-sensitive manner. The devices collect real-time information on temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide level, light and motion. For example, high temperatures in a dwelling above a specified threshold may cause an automatic message to the care provider or a loved one.

Additional Information
Vesratio Oy, Director Antti Pellinen, +358 40 547 7044, antti.pellinen@vesratio.com
Eksote, ELSA Project, Project Manager Kaisa Pesonen, +358 40 651 3007, kaisa.pesonen@eksote.fi
Eksote, Welfare Technology Supervisor Marko Lakanen, +358 40 134 8900, marko.lakanen@eksote.fi
Digita Oy, Director Ari Kuukka, +358 40 149 7942, ari.kuukka@digita.fi

Eksote
Eksote provides public social and health services to approximately 130,000 inhabitants in nine municipalities in South Karelia. We have about one hundred offices. All offices of Eksote are accessible to all South Karelians, regardless of their home municipality. Our services include open health care, oral health care, mental health and substance abuse services, laboratory and imaging services, medical care, rehabilitation, family services, adult social services and disability services, as well as elder care services that are flexible to the population’s age structure. The South Karelia Central Hospital is responsible for specialized medical care. Further information: http://www.eksote.fi

ELSA Testbed
Together with the Saimaa University of Applied Sciences and the LUT University, Eksote is building an innovation and testing environment for social care co-development in South Karelia, which will promote the digitalisation of social care services and enable experimentation of technological solutions on a regional basis. The development is being carried out by the ERDF-funded ELSA project. Experiments focus on home services and services that support living at home. The project runs from 1.6.2018 to 31.12.2020. Further information: http://www.elsatestbed.fi/

Digita Oy
Digita owns and operates Finland’s leading nationwide terrestrial television and radio network and is the largest independent owner of telecommunications masts in the country. The company is a provider of digital infrastructure and services. Digita’s services include masts, data center and Internet of Things (IoT) services, and future broadcasting services. Services are provided to the country’s largest mobile operators, Internet and media companies, infrastructure companies and property owners. Digita employs 180 professionals nationwide. Further information: https://www.digita.fi

Vesratio Oy
Vesratio provides easy-to-understand real-time information about living environments, homes, facilities and real estate. By providing situational awareness, we improve our customers’ quality of life, cost-effectiveness of fieldwork and help ensure the well-being of both people and property. Vesratio’s solutions are based on technical measurement sensors utilizing private communication (IoT) networks and a specialized cloud-based artificial intelligence analysis that evaluates and processes measurement data into significant information. Vesratio Oy, established in 2018, is headquartered in Lappeenranta, Finland. The company offers its services all over the world.

Vesratio Oy
Korvenkyläntie 39
55300 Rauha
viestinta@vesratio.com
www.vesratio.com