MobileCare brings smart healthcare technology to people’s homes
More and more people want to grow old in their own familiar surroundings. That makes good home care essential, but there is a lot of pressure on healthcare, and healthcare professionals are scarce. Can smart healthcare technology help? Yes, says digital healthcare provider MobileCare. Of course, you need to know how to get it to people in their own home, especially on a large scale. And that is precisely where things often go wrong. But MobileCare has the answer: a combination of virtual home care, motivated students and IoT.
Range of solutions
At MobileCare they believe it can be done differently. The organization has been focusing on virtual home care since 2020. In many cases, people can continue living in security and good health in their own home – as long as you have the right support and resources. And MobileCare is one of a kind in terms of those resources. Not just one or two medical devices, but a full range of healthcare technology. They call it Virtual Home Care. From health tracking watches and blood pressure monitors to fall detection and bed sensors. Almost all of them internet-connected.
A smart connection
It’s all in that connection. MobileCare is well aware that the services you provide are as strong as the weakest link. No matter how good the healthcare technology, Virtual Home Care is nothing without a good connection. Relying on the client’s Wi-Fi involves too many risks. If that connection is unstable, or uses a lot of data and is therefore slow, the effects can be considerable – especially in an emergency. There is also the question of dependence: if the client changes the Wi-Fi password, the required home care cannot be provided. For that reason, all the digital products of Virtual Home Care have their own M2M SIM card. These special Internet of Things (IoT) SIM cards work via the mobile 4G network but have a number of other advantages besides. For instance, you can administer all the SIM cards remotely in one portal. And more importantly, they have a smart connection with MobileCare’s EKD (Electronic Coupling Records) platform. Thanks to that connection, healthcare professionals can observe remotely. They also get a notification straight away if something is wrong.
From student to client
Virtual home care is gaining ground. It needs to make faster progress though, because healthcare is under a lot of pressure. But implementation – social implementation in particular – takes time, and time is precisely what is lacking. “What if we were to go to the district nurses?” was the idea that occurred to the Dutch Innovation Factory – an initiative of mboRijnland and the Center for Innovative Craftsmanship (CIV) Care & Welfare – which works in partnership with MobileCare. Care and Welfare students have been experimenting with healthcare technology since the very beginning. They also research a variety of healthcare issues, big and small.
This gave rise to the Expobike, a cargo bike that carries smart medical devices. On request, students and teachers at mboRijnland take it to the district nurses. They demonstrate how the devices work and explain how to use them. Ineke de Ruiter, implementation coach at MobileCare, is involved in the project. “We want smart medical devices to be tailored to the demand for healthcare and to be accessible to everyone, clients, healthcare providers, informal caregivers...”, she says. This approach appears to be achieving that goal. It is the power of people and technology together, exactly as MobileCare foresaw years ago.
Want to learn more about smart medical devices? Check out our page for more information and other practical examples.
