None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
This project will evaluate the impact of implementing 'Smarter Safer Homes'(SSH), a platform designed by CSIRO specifically to support older Australians living in their own homes, through a parallel group randomised controlled trial. The study will recruit 200 participants, 65 years and older, alone or couples (with the partner being an informal carer), using stratified randomisation across metro, regional, and rural/remote aged care sites from four Aged Care Service Providers. Main objectives are to evaluate potential beneficial impact of implementing the SSH platform on: A: - Quality of care provided by Aged Care Providers; - Quality of life for older persons living independently in their homes; - Activities of daily living; - Depression in elderly living independently in their own homes; - Carer burden (informal carers); B: - Health service utilisation including unscheduled visits to hospital, to GPs and Nurse visits; - Existing and changes in service delivery care models, adoption by Aged Care Service Providers - Costs effectiveness Participants will be recruited by appointed site officers at each site. Intervention Group participants will have the SSH sensor kit installed in their homes (including physical environment sensors and human movement sensor networks), be provided with an iPad and have access to the SSH Platform/App for 12 months. The novelty of the SSH platform is its feature of providing an Objective Activities of Daily Living (O-ADL) component and scoring through non-wearable and non-intrusive sensors in the home environment; and the ability to correlate this measure with self- or care-reported status of health and wellbeing. The SSH portal provides access for multidisciplinary care teams to monitor the resident's O-ADL's. During this trial, Intervention Group participant data will be viewed by Aged Care Provider clinical staff at least once/week to optimise care with efficient utilisation of clinical and care workers. Participants allocated to the Control group will continue to receive their existing care.
Interventions
a) All participants assigned to the intervention group will receive the CSIRO Smarter Safer Homes (SSH) kit. The SSH Kit includes a tablet with the pre-installed SSH app (can be downloaded at Apple store), and a set of wireless sensors to be deployed in home. These sensors are all passive environmental sensors that collect participants' in-home actions as sensor data. The sensor data will be uploaded to CSIRO server and used to infer the participants' daily activities by the CSIRO AI engine. And
a) All participants assigned to the intervention group will receive the CSIRO Smarter Safer Homes (SSH) kit. The SSH Kit includes a tablet with the pre-installed SSH app (can be downloaded at Apple store), and a set of wireless sensors to be deployed in home. These sensors are all passive environmental sensors that collect participants' in-home actions as sensor data. The sensor data will be uploaded to CSIRO server and used to infer the participants' daily activities by the CSIRO AI engine. And finally, the computed info will be communicated to participants through the SSH app. b) The duration of the intervention is 12 months; c) The study will be conducted in partnership with four Aged Care Providers, Anglicare, Integrated living, All about Living and starAged living. Aged care services staff will identify potentially eligible participants, conduct interviews and provide consultation and helps during the intervention period d) To monitor participants' adherence to the intervention, we will take two strategies: i) the SSH server communicate actively to every installed sensor periodically. Therefore, if any sensors are offline, onsite aged care service staff will be noticed to fix the problem ii) the aged care service staff will also regularly visit participants' homes during the intervention, as part of their normal routines. iii) Intervention Group participant data will be viewed by Aged Care Provider clinical staff and CSIRO researchers at least once/week to optimise care with efficient utilisation of clinical and care workers.
Sponsors
CSIRO
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
65 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Aged 65 years and older *.In the care of a designated Aged Care Service Provider * English speaking, proficiency in written English
Exclusion criteria
*. People residing in long term residential care *. Not able to give independent consent due to reasons such as severe cognitive impairment (must give informed consent)
Outcome results
None listed