Personalized Home Healthcare Options for Smart Service Delivery and Patient-Centered Monitoring

Adapting the patients’ monitoring in a familiar and age-friendly habitat has lately become a blustering necessity in the context of the global ageing of the population (due to the increasing longevity and the average decreased birth rates), associated with co-morbidities and degenerative dysfunctionalities. As the number of elderly mounts, the number of available or appropriate caretakers diminishes, the healthcare and social systems need increased financial and human resources. In the same time, the people are more and more accustomed with the use of digital technology and eager to use it in order to be better informed and empowered regarding the management of their own health, to have broader access to customized health services and, last but not least, to integrate it in their everyday life for preserving as much as possible a healthy, independent and active life apart from an institutionalized environment. Smart technology and devices are extending the performances of the continuously emerging health informatics that are directly involved in providing personalized monitoring and healthcare services that target a specific patient and are adapted to his home, needs and specificities. This paper aims to demonstrate how an existing health informatics system - the PROlonging ACTIVE life for an independent and healthy AGEING (ProActive Ageing) integrated platform for online services - can be improved and developed into an intelligent decision support system with real-time locating facilities in order to provide a better support to elderly to live at home and to have real-time access to smart monitoring and service delivery.