UK Universities To Develop Digital Home Health Solution

Three UK Universities are to collaborate in the development of a digital home health assistant.  SPHERE project which stand for “Sensor Platform for Healthcare in a Residential Environment”, hopes to address some of the challenges the UK’s healthcare system faces.

The £12 million project is a partnership between the University of Bristol, University of Southampton, University of Reading, Bristol City Council, the NHS in Bristol, Knowle West Media Centre, IBM and Toshiba.

“The concept is to allow health care experts and carers to have information that is appropriate to their needs, ranging from identifying activities that could cause concern to direct feedback to the individual,” said Professor William Harwin, from Reading University’s School of Systems Engineering.

Part of the project is the develop sensors that are wearable in clothing or jewellery and will monitor any changes in behaviour and movement of the individual, that could indicate a health problem.