Summary of notes of the AAL workshop in Brussels on June 7, 2011
Personal summary
Many platforms and many applications and many users = many end-to-end products/services = 'The Long Tail' in assisted living. Going from 'one size fits all' to 'one size fits one' (quote from openurc).
Open source, flexibility, synergy and interoperability are the way to cope with current and future society variables and the velocity of technological evolution. Committee not fond of small scale projects (like Flanders Care) or closed source (like Apple).
User based involvement and consolidation of players in the ecosystem is imperative.
Whereas I think building data-aggregations (function like translators) will offer solutions for agile connectedness, none of the participants I spoke to seem to agree. Also my believe that creating an open environment through regulated APIs would leverage the potential of SMEs, didn't have many supporters.
AAL products and services have the advantage they aren't (always) considered as medical devices.
Matchmaking in AAL: find information/products/projects/... I can't understand why the EU hasn't started with making a list of people and companies involved, there's no public searchable list or inventory! If a complex ecosystem is one of the barriers, you should start by identifying the stakeholders!
Liked
Users can pick any controller they like to interact with the system.
Trialog: standardisation for interoperability is supported by the EU commission
Repository (like sourceforge) in Brazil around assisted living. At this time they have 50 apps
Medical reminders are displayed on the TV while watching.
Freemium in assisted living (business model on operational level).
Increase system-family engineering to speed-up development.
Fusion with energy, e-health, city- and home-services and social media.
Web guidance tools for self-care (like measuring blood pressure).
uAAL works together (complementary) to openurc, continua and osami.
EU 2020 target: increase healthy years with 2 years
Personal UI: anywhere, anytime.
Presentations of openURC and Osami.
Barriers
Interoperability
Hesitant stakeholders
Lack of standards
Regulation and laws (Continua)
No awareness of AAL among end consumers
Stand alone projects (small ecosystem or small market) are too expensive
Assembly or choreography of the healthcare service ecosystem is a huge challenge (casala.ie)
Guidelines for privacy and security
Liability
Speed of technology: healthcare technology goes faster than the ability of the EU committee to make a roadmap for it
Venture capital doesn't fund platforms or ecosytems.
Practicality and usability.
Producing a healthcare product may cost 100,00 EUR, putting it on the market may costs millions. Cost of production-ready healthcare-product testing (at least 500-1000 people) is too high for SMEs.
SMEs are not interested in (open source AAL) platforms, they are only looking for short term business possibilities.
Critical support services and sustainable maintenance.
