Using Sensors to Improve Patient Assessments in Ambient Assisted Living Settings

Home-care providers in Switzerland use an adapted version of the general Resident Assessment Instrument for Home-Care (RAI-HC) for care assessment and planning. A questionnaire – the Swiss Minimum Data Set for Home-Care (MDS-HC) - is used in order to assess the patient’s health situation and create a care plan, in which the care requirements, procedures and goals of care are defined. The aim is to provide standardized care, which is effective, efficient and of consistent quality. The MDS-HC questionnaire uses a self-report assessment procedure, which can be prone to bias, under- or overestimation. Especially for patients with cognitive impairments it is difficult to recall if they conduct activities of daily living, regularly or not. As the care a patient receives, is planned based on this questionnaire, it is possible that the requirements of the patient are wrongly estimated, which can result in improper care, which is neither efficient nor effective.Although there exists a large body of knowledge in the ambient assisted living research in how to improve the living conditions of elderly people, e.g. by using technology, a concrete proposal in how to support the MDS-HC assessment with technology is missing.