Towards an interoperable health-assistive environment: The eHealthCom platform

Developed societies are currently facing severe demographic changes: the world is getting older at an unprecedented rate. New challenges are raised to the traditional systems of health care. There is an urgent need to find solutions that allow to extend the time people can live in their own environment by increasing their autonomy, self-confidence and mobility. Residing and being cared in the own familiar environment, in contrast to an institutionalized inpatient setting is becoming more attractive for an increasing portion of the population. Ambient Intelligence and, particularly, the development of Ambient Assisted Living environments can help to minimize hospital stays and, in doing so, enable patients an independent life in a domestic environment. However, the complexity of such systems raises fundamental questions of communication and computer-supported cooperation among components, devices and systems. This paper reports on the work developed in the eHealthCom pro ject, an interoperable health-assistive platform designed to meet the requirements of the current health services in caring, monitoring and motivating the elderly population in their own environment.