Are AI (Artificial Intelligence) and sensor technology the solution to the pressure on healthcare? Two entrepreneurs from Beilen are investigating this. With the help of radars, they can keep an eye on the elderly and vulnerable from a distance and thus assist the care.
After a pilot in Emmen, they will roll out a trial after the summer in 20 households in Drenthe and in a care institution in Leeuwarden.
“Now there are also alarm systems in nursing homes, but we run up against limits. You can’t hang those systems in bathrooms, for example. We work with radar sensors. So not with images and so it is less privacy-sensitive information,” says Erjen Derks from Beilen . “For example, we don’t see anything.”
After his time as alderman in the municipality of Midden-Drenthe, Derks and his partner John Beuving are putting their energy into developing software and hardware for a new healthcare system.
Processed in a tiny box in the corner of a room, the radar can keep an eye on someone by means of radar waves. Breathing, heart rate and location are closely monitored at the same time. If something deviating can be seen, the system sounds an alarm. “You have to imagine that it is an incredibly smart baby monitor. Only then without image and sound, which detects things based on movements.” The artificial intelligence is the software that tells you what the deviation is.
In the video the gentlemen show how that works, text continues below video: