Inn4Cure: Promoting health rather than focusing on illness
The healthcare sector is undergoing many changes. One such trend in elderly care is older people living at home longer. How do you properly support elderly people remotely?
Inn4cure has the answer: the company wants to make the development of the health of the elderly transparent remotely through digitisation by measuring vital signs with a smartwatch.
The Dutch population is ageing. As a result, healthcare is becoming more intensive and expensive. This has to change, says inn4cure. Why not implement a preventive health policy to prevent illnesses among the elderly?
Full Package Home (Volledig Pakket Thuis)
This type of health policy is currently facilitated by ‘Full Package Home’. All the health care needed by the elderly is provided at home by a single care institution, enabling people to continue living at home with the right mix of nursing care, assistance and treatment. To be eligible, people need an indication in the light of the Long-Term Care Act (Wlz).
Inn4cure and its partner Eurocom support Wlz institutions that provide nursing care, treatment, advice or general assistance to people living at home as part of the ‘Full Package Home’. They offer a helping hand so people can live at home longer.
Making it digital
How is inn4cure tackling the transformation of elderly care? Director and founder Pieter van Weijen explains: “We measure vital signs at home using a smartwatch. A smartphone sends the data to our inn4cure platform. Here, we compare the values with personal thresholds. Is there a deviation? That would trigger an alert to the caregivers. Someone will then contact the client.”
Inn4cure uses trend alerts. Vital signs are compared to threshold values over a defined period of time. It provides a remote but objective and transparent view of the development of a person’s health. Older people, their families and caregivers get peace of mind. Because no alarm means no worries.
Innovation in healthcare
Inn4cure believes in the power of digitalisation. Healthcare is undergoing major cuts, while the number of older adults is set to double in the next few years. This requires innovative ways of providing care, such as inn4cure’s solution. They offer their solutions to private and public customers, such as elderly care facilities. Digitalisation is still a big step for healthcare.
“That’s why we are in the process of helping healthcare providers discover how to deal with digitalisation”, says Pieter. “Together with HAN, we have developed an e-learning telemonitoring so that caregivers can get to grips with it. With these insights, they can then make a positive impact.”
Together for health
Inn4cure has a clear vision for the future. They want to roll out their services nationwide as a shared service centre for elderly care. With such a centre, a residential care facility can also provide digital services to older people still living at home in their neighbourhood: the nurse at the residential care facility receives an alerts if the health condition deteriorates. The video call facilities of inn4cure allow the nurse to check in to know if everything is OK. Participation of a GP or medical specialist can be done likewise.
“We are working with large, national partners on this future idea”, says Pieter. “This is how we continue to provide transparency in the development of healthcare. It’s like we always say: no alarm means no worries.”
Please note: This article about Inn4Cure was written for Briskr following their pitch at Business Angels Netwerk Nijmegen (BANN)
