U-CARE: We develop a services layer for tailorable, evolvable, non-intrusive home care services

Information Systems Group, University of Twente (is.ewi.utwente.nl)

Project: U-care

Project Goal

The goal of the project is to develop a services layer for integrated homecare systems, which provides tailorable, evolvable and non-intrusive home care services. This U-Care platform will provide technology-independence, in the sense that it will shield application developers from underlying software and network technologies. The U-Care platform differs from current platforms in that it will provide basic context-aware functions that can be used as service building blocks, by utilizing information derived from sensors for biosigns (activity level, heart rate, blood pressure, oximetry, weight, etc.) and sensors for physical context (location, temperature, humidity, etc.). We will focus on wellness and healthcare applications and services to assist people of 50 years and older in an "integrated living" environment

Design questions

–	How to model the user environment, identifying stakeholders, their interest, responsibilities and relationships within the relevant care-giving and care-receiving process?

–	What are suitable scenarios for using wellness and care services?

–	How to design a service-oriented architecture for the U-Care platform that provides maximum tailorability, evolvability, non-intrusiveness and technology-independence?

–	How to define and develop wellness and care services, that use the proposed conceptual model and service-oriented architecture to enhance alignment between the technical system and its social context?

–	What are suitable basic context-aware wellness and care services that can be used as building blocks in creating and composing user-tailored services?

Solution approach

–	Building upon and extending the research results from previous projects in which the partners were involved, the design of the U-Care platform will be driven by scenarios and constrained by the requirements obtained from the healthcare partners Orbis and IZIT.

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As a testbed we will use Parc Hoogveld, a 400-unit appartment complex in Sittard, that aims to integrate living, wellness, care, services for a population including (but not limited to) elderly citizens.
Another field test will involve home care organizations and nursing homes in the Eastern part of the Netherlands

Project information

–	Period: 2008-2012

–	Partners: University of Twente (chairs of IS, BSS, IS&CM), Orbis, IZIT, IBM Nederland, TKH Group, Mobihealth BV.

–	IS chair: 2 Ph.D students, 3 senior researchers.

–	Sponsor: SenterNovem (Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs)

–	More information on the U-Care website