AI sensors to monitor social care patients at home

Agroup of social care patients are to be monitored using artificial intelligence (AI) to check their wellbeing.

Dorset Council is running a three-month trial in which sensors installed in patients’ homes will analyse their movements and use of electricity.

Each home will have between six and nine sensors, but no cameras. They’ll be able to detect unusual or worrying behaviour, such as frequent visits to the toilet during the night. But they’ll also monitor more typical actions such as opening the fridge and switching on the kettle.

Lilli ( www.intelligentlilli. com), the Uk-based company that makes the technology, says it could cut the number of home visits health professionals need to make, saving councils money. Early schemes indicate that it will save 780 hours of occupational therapy time, amounting to £250,000 a year.

Nick Weston, chief commercial officer for Lilli, said: “Using this technology, over-stretched health and social care providers can intervene earlier while monitoring at a distance, reducing the need for hospital admissions or residential care and lowering costs”. He said more trials will take place in the north east of England, and south London.

Some experts have warned that monitoring patients remotely can increase loneliness if it leads to fewer visits. But Weston insists that the technology “will not replace care by humans, but will improve it”.

He added that the system isn’t just about saving money, but also making sure patients are receiving the most appropriate care.

To install the sensors, Lilli needs written consent from patients or someone authorised to give consent on their behalf. Data from homes is encrypted when transmitted and stored, and only the organisation providing care will be able to access it.