The SMART LIVING FORUM took place in the scope of the Innovation Congress on November 14, 2019 in the Congress Centre Villach in Austria. In this unique framework, the final conference of the COOP4HEALTHCARE project was organized and a dedicated CALL FOR POSTER had been launched. Researchers and institutions active in the field of Smart Living were invited to present their latest findings to an international audience. The accepted and peer-reviewed contributions are published as short papers in the proceedings at hand. 

The thematic areas opened for contributions revolving around the challenges currently faced by the health-care sector, like shortage of medical and care professionals, cuts in public spending and an increasing demand for health care services, which are largely attributable to ongoing demographic changes. In addition, the access to needs-based assistance and care in rural and peripheral areas is getting increasingly difficult due to infrastructural challenges. This requires an increased use of technology, especially in terms of digitalization, as well as of already available European knowledge excellence in this area.

Following the idea of the Chronic Care Model, which was described already in 1996 by E.H. Wagner, B.T. Austin & M. Von Korff [1], the health system requires a transition from reactive care to a proactive, patient-centered, evidence-based approach. This means specifically a shift of paradigms from an acute care concept to one that manages and anticipates in advance and initiates interventions tailored to the patient. The model is designed to address the needs of chronically ill patients and to provide adequate long-term care. To tackle these challenges, the project Smart VitAALity is following the concept of a user-centered health management architecture that puts emphasis on the patient’s role [2]. Plattner et al. and Kada et al. provide insights into the pilot region Smart VitAALity and first evaluation results.

Following the description of the telehealth strategy of the World Health Organization, “well-designed telehealth schemes can improve health care access and outcomes, particularly for chronic disease treatment and for vulnerable groups. Not only do they reduce demands on crowded facilities, but they also create cost savings and make the health sector more resilient” [3]. Improvement in outcomes will occur when clinical systems reconfigure themselves specifically to address the needs and concerns of chronically ill patients and their families, relatives and informal caregivers [4]. That is exactly were the work of Hvalič-Touzery et al. related to psychosocial impacts of telehealth systems and the psychological outcome for working family caregivers sets up. Speaking of impact for the primary and secondary end user, Kada et al. address age stereotypes in society which have wide-reaching consequences in terms of health and well-being of older people. From the authors’ perspective, an ongoing reflection of age stereotypes underlying the development of gerontechnology is crucial in terms of preventing the construction of new dependencies.

With the vision of enabling a longer, happier and more self-determined life for older adults within their own homes, the cooperation with future end users to develop new technological solutions is essential. Oberrauner presents the conception and development of a technological assistance system to support the daily structure of people with dementia based on the User Centered Design (UCD) approach. Lumetzberger et al. also involved people with dementia and their caregivers to raise requirements for an intelligent toilet system. A technique and methodology is applied to support people with cognitive challenges to use the toilet. Stückler et.al. describe a solution designed and developed to support older adults in everyday living situations in order to maintain their independence within their own homes. The heart of the solution is an integrated multilingual speech assistant, perceiving speech as one of the most natural forms of communication. Ströckl deals with an assistive and flexible user-system interface that can react according to the habits of the user and that can change its input/output modality with regard to the current user-needs.

Addressing the regional needs of Carinthia, Gundolf presents potential integration and the significance of school nurses in the primary school system. Heiden et al. shape the future in presenting a “Universal Virtual Classroom” (UVC) and its core properties.

All contributions were also presented during the poster exhibition as an integral part of both, the SMART LIVING FORUM and the Innovation Congress and offered a great opportunity to present the projects, current developments and developed products. It reached a broad and diverse audience and provided an opportunity to engage in discussions about current research.

References
[1] Wagner, E.H., Austin, B.T., Von Korff, M., (1996): Organizing care for patients with chronic illness. In: Milbank Quarterly 74(4):511-44, 1996.
[2] Krainer, D., Lattacher, S., Oberzaucher, J., Liebhart, W., Liebhart, M., Ströckl, D., Plattner, J., Schaschl, P. (2019): Practical Realization of an integrated Telemonitoring and Health Care Center Model – Interim results within the Pilot Region Smart VitAALity, SMARTER LIVES 19 – Smarter Lives meets uDay, Digitalisierung und Lebensqualität im Alter, Bozen – Italy.
[3] World Health Organization (2020): Health, environment, and sustainable development. https://www.who.int/sustainable-development/health-sector/strategies/telehealth/en/, accessed: 1 March 2020
[4] Grover, A., & Joshi, A. (2015): An overview of chronic disease models: a systematic literature review. Global journal of health science, 7(2), 210.

1. Plattner, Johanna; Oberzaucher, Johannes / Carinthia University of Applied Sciences / A Multi-Sensory Approach to Acquire and Process Health and Lifestyle Information POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
2. Kada, Olivia; Mark, Anna-Theresa; Oberzaucher, Johannes; Ströckl, Daniela E.;  / Carinthia University of Applied Sciences / Smart VitAALity – Effects of a modular AAL system on subjective quality of life. Methods and first results POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
3. Hvalič-Touzery, Simona; Dolničar, Vesna; Prevodnik, Katja; Škafar, Maja; Petrovčič, Andraž / University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences / The importance of patients’ user experience with a telehealth system for their evaluation of its psychosocial impacts POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
4. Hvalič-Touzery, Simona; Lebar, Lea; Petrovčič, Andraž; Smole Orehek, Kaja; Dolničar, Vesna / University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Sciences / Psychological outcomes of telecare use for working family carers of older people POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
5. Kada, Olivia (1); Mark, Anna-Theresa (1); Kamin, Stefan T. (2); Damm, Franziska (2); Brenneisen, Judith (2); Lang, Frieder R. (2) / 1: Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, School of Healthcare Management, Austria; 2: Institute of Psychogerontology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg / Images of ageing in the Austrian AAL context. Project overview and main results POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
6. Oberrauner, Elena / Carinthia University of Applied Sciences / Developing a technology system for people with dementia based on the User Centered Design approach  POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
7. Kampel, Martin (1,2); Lumetzberger, Jennifer (1,2) / 1: Technische Universität Wien; 2: Cogvis software und consulting GmbH / Using the toilet more autonomously via ICT POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
8. Stückler, Simone; Scherllin, Jasmin; Aldrian, Julia; Stani, Sabrina / e_nnovation better life solutions GmbH / Usability criteria for AAL solutions and smart homes for elderly people POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
9. Ströckl, Daniela Elisabeth / Carinthia University of Applied Sciences – Institute of Applied Research on Ageing / Multimodal Interface Modeling Language – from a Meta-model to an assistive and flexible User-System Interface POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
10. Gundolf, Andrea / University of Klagenfurt / School health nursing POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF
    
11. Heiden, Bernhard (1,2); Decleva, Monika (1); Tonino-Heiden, Bianca (2) / 1: Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, 2: University of Graz / Towards a Wittgensteinean Ladder for the Virtual Classroom POSTER | FULL PAPER PDF