Freedom to innovate: Harnessing the power of assistive technology
Fresh from presenting one of the most popular sessions at Merged Futures 5, Pedro Santos, Assistive Technology Project Lead at West Northamptonshire Council, shares his insights into the world of assistive technology.
There is a misconception that assistive technology is just a pendant or a lifeline or telecare device. But technology can be anything and the term 'assistive' just means that you help someone to do something that otherwise they wouldn't be able to.
For example, if someone uses an Alexa or Google home device to turn off the TV or the light because otherwise they can't do it, that is considered assistive technology.
So my main focus has always been to get people to think about technology. I don't expect people to know that equipment exists or understand exactly how the equipment operates.
What we specifically want is to get people to know there are potentially solutions that can help a person no matter what that solution is.
Being innovative is allowing us to find a solution for the person. First we find out the need, then we find the solution.
I started working for the Council back in 2013 as part of the sensory equipment and rehabilitation team. In 2021, we started to develop a new Assistive Technology strategy looking at a different model of how we operate. Currently it's very common for technology, including telecare, to be quite reactive. You expect the person to tell you something is wrong for you to act upon it.
The new idea was based on something called the Barcelona model, which is a more proactive approach to looking after people you monitor and support. That involves constant engagement, using systems that provide you with data about the person on a day-to-day basis, so that you can analyse that information and provide the most suitable intervention. We ended up creating a partnership with our colleagues from Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust.
One of the things I really like about the job is the ability to try and always find new things. And I think we are lucky in the way we operate. The council's leadership has given us freedom to innovate and that's allowed us to go and try new things that other people wouldn't. There's that understanding that technology exists and there's always the encouragement to try and find solutions.
The service has been successful as a result, including recognition such as an HSJ award for supporting people out of hospital through digital and being highly commended in the Connecting Health and Social Care awards, because being a partnership with both councils and the health services, we now have information-sharing from a telecare perspective.
With remote monitoring, we know we can look at the number of outcomes that we achieve. We can see how many ambulance calls were avoided. For example, we can see three to five days of deterioration happening to somebody. We can then intervene and bring the person back to normal observations. It's difficult to quantify what would have happened if we didn't make that intervention.
I think the main thing about technology has to be about promoting the person's wellbeing and independence and ensuring they can stay at home in the place where they live and reside for as long as possible. That has always been my aim.
My role as a project lead involves looking at ways we can develop the service. We have a lot of ideas and there are plenty of new things we would like to try.
Hydration devices
Hydration devices are smart cups that tell you, within five millilitres, the fluid intake of a person.
These devices are all digital-ready in the sense that they provide regular data about fluid intake of the person. So we see this could be a huge benefit for both the community and residential homes.
Without these devices, staff have to constantly be checking all the residents to see if they are drinking. With this, they just log into a portal where they can see the number of residents that have the cups, they can check who has drunk what and whether there were any spillages.
Robotic pets
We've had successful stories around customers with dementia. One of the stories is from one of the council's care homes. A care home manager showed a robotic cat to all the residents in the home. There was one particular resident who took the cat and she's a known faller.
So now, when she goes to bed, she takes the cat into the bedroom and closes the door. That has reduced the amount of time she's getting up during the night because she knows the cat is there, so she isn't suffering from falls.
Reducing social isolation
We are looking to partner with IRIS IoT, a company based in Northamptonshire. They have a tablet device called a Genus Care Frame. One thing we really hope it achieves is to allow us to reduce social isolation that we know seriously affects some of the customers in Northampton. The idea behind using this device is to allow the person to have face to face communication with family and friends and carers, to receive messages, pictures and so on.
We partnered with Serve, a company that provides volunteer services across Northamptonshire, to help us identify about 20 to 30 customers in Northamptonshire that could benefit from using this device. This is not necessarily something to save anybody's life. It's just about empowering the person, giving them tools so they can keep in contact with family and friends and carers and just give us a bit more understanding of what the person needs.
Virtual Reality
I think VR is a great concept. There are plenty of customers that we have and can access to measure the impact of VR. I know for certain contacts within the care homes, they would be delighted to participate in something like this. So again, it's new, it's fresh, it's exciting. And I'm sure when we have something up and running we will see the benefits.
When it comes to benefits, it's not always just to save money or reduce staffing costs. It's sometimes about providing some wellbeing and quality of life to the people who reside. Technology tends to be seen as a solution for something else but it can be a solution in conjunction to support the person to remain at home in their place of residence for as long as possible. And that is a great outcome.