A couple of weeks ago, we attended  the Scottish Assisted Living Program Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. This particular program is doing a great job of promoting the development and implementation of new telehealthcare technology as routine practice in Scotland.

We were there among some big international names such as O2, Vodafone and Philips – who have invented some really cool products in the assisted living sector. They use wireless or bluetooth technology to send alerts from medical devices to your TV – as a quick reminder that you may have left the oven on too long, for example.

They also have a social-network based user interface which allows the user (or their family) to create a profile of next of kin details, including photos and contact details so that medical or social work personnel know right away who to contact in an emergency.

The fact that this program exists, and that such big names are becoming more involved in this area shows that there is real interest in the area of assisted living and keeping people at home as long as possible. It’s pretty exciting working in a relatively new and growing area and seeing work that helps improve lives of the elderly population. Especially when one of our SIMUL8ers, Emma, had her first small project,-which she completed around 6 months ago-be the highlight of  their pitch!

After the 3 minute pitch explaining the benefits of evidencing the best practice for implementation and using simulation to answer any stakeholder’s doubts, there was a crowd of people gathered at the SIMUL8 stand! Emma demonstrated the Telecare pathway, which is based on Scenario Generator and Sarah helped by demonstrating some of the other healthcare models such as the outpatient clinic and emergency department.

All in all it was a very successful day!