Italian Pilot
The Italian pilot is split between two locations, Tuscany and Apulia. The primary objective of the Italian pilot is to improve quality of life for older adults living at home. In Tuscany, the priorities are to address socialisation and inclusion, as well as monitoring living conditions. In Apulia, the priorities are to provide physical and cognitive stimulation activities, while also providing solutions for socialisation and environmental monitoring.
Among the technologies used to kick-off the pilot activities, in the second half of 2021 the Italian pilots tested a multi-platform social network called SENTAB to boost socialization among older adults and caregivers. The Sentab tablet was used in Apulia, while the Sentab TV was used in Tuscany. A monitoring dashboard “Discovery”, supported caregivers monitoring the health status of selected pilot participants. In Tuscany, the participants were also asked to try the Ohmni robot for telepresence services.
A cascade training process was fundamental in the pre-validation: operators were trained as “facilitators of technologies”, thus managing the test sessions, approaching the users and training them on ethical and privacy aspects related to the use of the selected technologies. The technologies were tested by 10 older adults, 10 informal caregivers and 7 health professionals (formal caregivers in Apulia, social workers in Tuscany) during phase I.
Apulia
Phase II of the pre-validation started in January after procurement of the devices and refinement of the technologies
and took place over different sessions at the Geriatric Unit of the Research Hospital “Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza”
(CSS), in the Apulia pilot site. The CSS team applied a pre-recruitment strategy to determine the interest in using
the proposed technologies among a group of older adults. The technologies were tested by 5 older adults, 4 informal
caregivers and 2 formal caregivers in their homes for three weeks. The digital skills of the participants were
appropriated for the usage of the technologies although trainer collaborators noticed that some users needed to be
encouraged to use the technologies, like the Sentab App. At the recruitment stage the CSS team administered the
standardized questionnaires on cognitive status, usability of the technologies and evaluation of the training.
Comments and feedback were essential for technology providers to further refine the services.
The main challenge that arose from the feedback of the informal and formal caregivers was the lack of some of the charts
on the measurements of the sensors (environmental and body) on the Discovery dashboard.
Tuscany
All the devices in the Tuscan site were purchased at the end of October 2021. Setting up the environmental and
wearable sensors (with Senior Phone) took a long time. In the second part of December 2021 and the beginning of
January 2022, environmental sensors and smartwatches were tested in a controlled environment, in order to verify
the flow of data between the different platforms. Umana Persone decided to involve the same users enrolled in
phase I also in Phase II and for the deployment of the large-scale pilot. Since most users involved in phase II
already knew and used the technology, a short training session was only organised for new users.
When the technologies were installed in the users’ home, a summary training was carried out, to remind the user
of the main functions and characteristics of the devices.