HomeSense: Design of an ambient home health and wellness monitoring platform for older adults

The unprecedented rise in the population of older adults and the number of seniors living with and managing chronic conditions are straining our institutional health care systems leading to reduced care quality and unmanageable cost increases. At the same time, an overwhelming majority of older adults express a strong desire to age in place in their communities. Ambient home sensing presents an opportunity to reduce healthcare costs by facilitating older adults’ ability to age-in-place in more familiar, less restrictive, and less expensive environments. Further, ambient home sensing tools have the potential to extend the health care work force and enhance health care quality/outcomes by facilitating remote patient monitoring as well as early intervention and prevention against adverse events – all while catering to older adults’ preference to live at home. Despite their potential, there is limited research at present about the benefits of ambient sensing systems installed in private homes, and older adults’ response to them. This paper describes a pilot ambient home sensing project, HomeSense, actively deployed in the homes of older adults residing in The Villages, Florida.