A current vision in the area of ICT-supported independent living of the elderly involves populating the home with electronic devices (“things”), i.e. sensors and actuators, and linking them to the Internet. Creating such an Internet-of-Things (IoT) infrastructure is done with the ambition to provide automated information gathering and processing on top of which e-services can be built, E-care@home.

While the information can be stored in the form of PHRs, it needs to be linked with e.g. EHRs, home-service documentation and documentation generated by information from end-users and their informal caregivers. Semantic-interoperability related technologies play a central role in ambient intelligence systems and their components such as pervasive/ubiquitous computing, profiling, context awareness, and human-centric design. While these things need to “talk” to each other, the heterogeneity of the services, devices and communication technologies is a major challenge for expanding generic IoT technologies to efficient ICT-supported services for elderly. This project is designed to address this interoperability challenge. Semantic interoperability is seen as a key requirement for gaining the benefits of computerization of the health domain and much effort has been invested to understand and provide solutions of the problem of achieving semantic interoperability.

E-care@home is a “SIDUS – Strong Distributed Research Environment” funded by the Swedish Knowledge Foundation – a research financier for universities with the task of strengthening Sweden’s competitiveness and ability to create value. Duration 01.03.2015 – 31.02.2020

Project webpage:    http://ecareathome.se/

Publications