AUTH Healthcare Transitions Living Lab

About the Living Lab: Thess-AHALL Active and Healthy Ageing Living Labs

Overview

Year of Establishment: 2014
Panagiotis Bamidis, Medical Physics and Digital Innovation Lab
Thessaloniki, Greece
Governance: University lab (AUTH)

Type of Living Lab

- Living Testbed (Technology Testing, Tech transfer)

Online Presence

Story

Back in 2014, the team had to test a device in older adults’ homes. In order to facilitate the process and get participants to know the technology, we created a home-like environment inside the lab that was ecologically valid and helped the older adults get acquainted with the technology. In that way the team was involved with the stakeholders and the community around them. When we joined the Open Living Lab Days 2015, we understood what a Living Lab is and met people that were framing the Living Lab map for the future. We understood that we are already operating as Living Lab and We applied for ENoLL Membership in the 10th Wave.

Challenges

The Living Lab fosters initiatives encouraging regional development and healthcare systems sustainability by the provision of novel technologies and innovation. It is actively engaged with the end-users and relevant community stakeholders, actively pursuing co-creation and co-design of technological solutions to improve health and social conditions and facilitate independent living.

Partnerships

Some of the Living Lab’s key partnerships are:

ENoLL (effective member) & H&W AOTF (leader)
EIPonAHA (2* Ref. Site)
Hellenic Inter-Municipal Network of Healthy Cities of the WHO (EDDYPPY)
Member HL7 Hellas, ELEVIT

Goals & Vision

The main goal of our Living Lab is to facilitate innovation, collaboration, development and testing of more accurate services, which is achieved by the early involvement of users as co-creators. Our vision is to support independent living of people and their healthy living in the community for as long as possible.

Infrastructure

The Healthcare Transitions Living Lab infrastructure is located inside the Hippokrateion General Hospital of Thessaloniki and it includes infrastructures, services, studies and ICT tools that are used to study and support the transition of a patient from long term care facilities, like intensive care units in hospitals or convalescence after surgery, to another long-term care facility, such as rehabilitation centers, nursing homes or patients’ houses. The Living Lab will consist of two separate spaces and is equipped with a small kitchen, a living room and a bedroom.

Area(s) of work

Areas of work: Health & Wellbeing

Subsections: Care Transitions, Palliative Care, Multimorbid patients, Discharge planning, Healthcare professionals empathy

Staff Expertise

Psychologists, pedagogues, engineers, computer scientists, doctors, experts in communication studies and experts in sport science.

Stakeholders Population

The Living Lab provides access to the following end-user groups:

Healthy older adults (over 60 years old),
Older adults with neurodegenerative diseases, mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia,
People in Autism spectrum and mental retardation/ cognitive disorder
Parkinson disease patients,
Breast cancer survivors,
Prostate cancer survivors,
People with Down syndrome,
People with ADHD,
People with cardiovascular disease,
People with multiple sclerosis,
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients,
People with sleep apnoea,
People with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD),
People with learning difficulties

Other stakeholder populations: Medical, engineering and computer students, healthcare professionals, informal caregivers of the above mentioned population, nurses, researchers in the above mentioned fields, people with technical background (engineering and computer scientists), social workers, policy makers.

Services

Within the framework of provision of Transnational Access to external researchers, the following services are provided in AUTH Healthcare Transitions Living Lab:

→ Networking and capacity building: Capacity building; Expert opinion, and advisory services; Innovation network orchestration; Panel management; Stakeholder (and partner) analysis and mapping. Planning to offer: Grant writing and funding application support service; Legal, regulation and safety standard support; Marketing and sales support; Public procurement support services.

→ Project planning and management: Intake and matching; Expert opinion, and advisory services. Planning to offer: Temporary research funding.

→ Market and competitor intelligence services: Access to data; Competitor and market analysis and benchmarking; Expert opinion, and advisory services; Stakeholder (and partner) analysis and mapping. Planning to offer: Foresighting (trends, weak signals and wild cards); Legal, regulation and safety standard support.

→ Co-creation: Co-creation session; Expert opinion, and advisory services; Stakeholder (and partner) analysis and mapping. Planning to offer: Foresighting (trends, weak signals and wild cards), Legal, regulation and safety standard support, Public procurement support services.

→ Testing and validation: Clinical trials; Concept and proof-of-concept tests – concept feasibility study; Expert opinion, and advisory services; Idea selection and testing; Impact assessment and validation test; Large-scale real-life testing and piloting; Prototyping test; Simulation test; Small-scale real-life testing and experimentation; Usability testing. Planning to offer: Legal, regulation and safety standard support.

→ Advisory services: Planning to offer: Public procurement support services; Expert opinion, and advisory services; Legal, regulation and safety standard support.

→ Marketing and sales support: Planning to offer: Expert opinion, and advisory services; Public procurement support services.

Visit our Living Lab Harmonisation Wiki Page for detailed descriptions of the Research & Development services that Living Labs offer.

Equipment

The following technologies and devices are available at AUTH Healthcare Transitions Living Lab:

→ Activity tracking/monitoring

Body Battery (Tanita MC-780)
Body Positιon (Kinect 2, Kinect 3, Mentorage)
Body posture (Kinect 2, Kinect 3, Mentorage)
calories burned (Fitbit charge 4,5)
Gait (Kinect 2, Kinect 3, Mentorage, Fitbit charge 4,5)
Human balance (Kinect 2, Kinect 3, Mentorage, HUR BT4)
Physical activity (Withings Pulse HR, Fitbit Charge 4,5)
Physical performance (Withings Pulse HR, Fitbit Charge 4,5)
Physiological and behavioural biomarkers (Empatica E4 wristband)
Sleep (Fitbit Charge 4,5, Wavelet Wristband)
Steps (Fitbit Charge 4,5, Wavelet Wristband)
Stress Level (Fitbit Charge 4,5, Garmin Vivosmart 4, Wavelet Wristband)
VO2 (Garmin Vivosmart 4)
Blood oxygen (Wavelet Wristband)
Blood sugar level (iHealth Gluco)

→ Assisting technology

Natural Language Understanding (Mozilla Foundation Service (Deep Speech)
Video stream (Fisheye Lens, Kinect 3, Mentorage)
voice commands (Mozilla Foundation Service (Deep Speech)
Walking Speed (Kinect 2, Kinect 3, Mentorage)

→ Biometrics: Heart rate (Withings Pulse HR, Fitbit Charge 4,5, Sigma PC3 watch, Garmin Vivosmart 4, Wavelet Wristband)

→ Biosignals

Electrophysiological timeseries (NEUROFAX EEG-1200 Nihon Kohden with 128 channels)
EEG (NEUROFAX EEG-1200 Nihon Kohden with 128 channels)

→Environment/context: Indoor movements (LOCS System)

→ Physiological monitoring

Weight BMI (iHealth scale)
Virtual reality (Oculus VR headset)

→ Virtual reality/interactive technology: Gesture detection (smile) (Mentorage, cameras)

Visit our Living Lab Harmonisation Wiki Page for more details regarding Living Lab technologies and devices.

Use Cases based on Researchers Expertise

→ Computer/Technology Scientists: Developing systems/tools/ technologies, testing and evaluating an ICT tool, prototype and real-life testing, computer vision & AI, Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality, Cybersecurity

→ (Clinical, social, developmental, neuro-) Psychologists: Studying the behaviour and the mental wellbeing of participants, conducting psychometrics evaluation and real-life setting experimentation/observation/real life testing

→ Researchers with clinical expertise: (Doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, specialists, physiotherapists etc.), conducting research of healthcare services and practices, research on symptomatology or epidemiology of a disease, analysis of clinical effects of research performed in the study, e.g; via real life testing

→ Experts in UX research and assessment: Developing the process for user experience design (UXD, UED, or XD) supporting user behavior through usability, usefulness, and desirability provided in the interaction with a product or service, addressing all aspects as perceived by users with a focus on the quality of the user experience. Studying and experimenting the best practices for UI/UX and evaluating user’s experience in different situations and while using different tools

→ Experts in rehabilitation (physical, cognitive): Physiology, physiotherapy, occupational health research, rehabilitation and prevention. Cognitive diseases assistive technology, neuromuscular rehabilitation assistive technology

→ Experts in ergonomics and safety: Implementation and validation of ergonomic technologies/services to support workers and system performance, promoting ergonomics in working environments, improving both health/well-being and productivity, while avoiding occupational hazards

→ Citizen Scientists / users as co-researchers: User empowerment, training, design, analysis and implementation of strategies and methodologies for user engagement and for raising awareness and generating citizen participation

→ Biomedical researchers: Studying biochemical and physiological functions, investigating how the human body works with the aim of finding new ways to improve health. Biomedical engineering knowledge (Home hospitalization, Transitional Care, Multifunctional interaction), as well as digital biomarkers analysis (e.g. for cognitive state)

→ Experts in accessibility Design: Validating accessible Architectonics and escape route models with VR experiment and real-life simulations

→ Neuroscientists: Focusing on the brain and its impact on behaviour and cognitive functions (cognitive neuroscience, EEG-based BMI research, protocol / paradigm testing, study framework evaluation)

→ Data Scientists: Collecting, analysing and interpreting digital data, such as data analytics in healthcare and digital patient recordings (how patient information recording process is managed and utilized during the intervention by using digital tools in simulated situations)

Operations

→ Running/Ongoing Projects:

InAdvance: INADVANCE (H2020) is working towards the integration of early PC in the daily clinical routine addressed to patients with complex chronic conditions in evolution /towards advanced stages. In the context of the project, patients, caregivers and HCPs are also invited to test a number of technological interventions like self determination mobile apps and VR apps for training or/and relaxation. An empathy training is offered to HCPs both in live settings and VR sessions.
JADECARE: The Joint Action (JA) on implementation of digitally enabled integrated person-centred care (JADECARE) is part of a series of initiatives the EU has launched to face the challenges of the transformation of health and care in the EU. ADECARE intends to reinforce the capacity of health authorities to successfully address important aspects of health system transformation, in particular the transition to digitally-enabled, integrated, person-centred care in the EU.

Apply for Transnational Access to AUTH Healthcare Transitions Living Lab