Next thursday I will be member of a panel (together with Joachim De Vos from Living Tomorrow & Philip Minnaert from Care Home Carpentier) discussing about the future of home automation in health care.
It will be a very interactive discussing with an audience filled with health care professionals (link to the event, in dutch, here: http://www.facilitynights.com/zorgcongres/).
- Is home automation (or technology in general) for elderly "comfort"or "necessity"? (responding to attractiveness, progress, HR deficit)
- How will a nursing home -through technology- 'take care' of a region? (through linked houses)
- Is home automation a violation of privacy?
- Will residential care evolve into houses of mourning? (because technology enables the elderly to stay home longer and more independently)
- Will residential care be organised solely by large institutions ... or only through local (linked) initiatives?
- Given the labor shortage, deploying robots is inevitable - or should we import "guest workers" in large quantities?
- How much will automation technology blur the boundaries between skilled medical professionals and unskilled manpower?
- What happens to human contact when communication with the outside world is done via screens (and / or augmented reality)?
- If a multitude of devices and software are used, how important will the "openness" of health systems be?
- Will the developments of home automation move from a permanent place in the house to the bodies of care consumers?