HOW SMART TECHNOLOGIES AND THE COOPERATIVE MODEL TACKLE DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE
30% of the EU’s population will be over 65 years in 2050. Today’s healthcare systems are struggling already. How can the European Union guarantee dignified ageing and caregiving for years to come?
Coops empower the people
Care Cooperatives are the answer. You might have heard about the cooperative model being well-established in other domains such as food coops or housing coops. Cooperatives are jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprises. They bring together ambitious individuals who voluntarily collaborate to achieve their common goals. In the case of a Care Coop this is to enable older adults to age independently in the comfort of their private households.
Sharing is caring
The recent growth of the cooperative sector is closely connected to the rise of the sharing economy. It has become common practice for people to share their apartments (Airbnb), their rides (Lyft, Car2Go, Uber), their photos (Instagram), their private lives (Facebook, Snapchat) and soon also their care resources. Just like all these sharing platforms build upon a strong software solution, care cooperatives will also include online tools to enable seamless coop management and care service provision via computer and smartphone.
What’s AAL?
Active and Assisted Living (AAL) is a European programme aiming at developing technologies which enhance quality of live in different stages of live. Thus, AAL solutions put a strong emphasis on care and assistance, such as emergency treatment (prediction, detection, prevention), autonomy enhancement service (e.g. cooking, cleaning, medication, travelling) and comfort services (e.g. orientation, infotainment). The AAL programme has been funding the research and development project iCareCoops. iCareCoops’ objective is to make elderly care more efficient through the cooperative model and innovative information and communication technologies.
Beyond iCareCoops
This blog is more than iCareCoops. Experts in the field of cooperatives and smart health will blog their personal stories and first-hand experiences. This includes care receivers sharing their impression of recent technologies, researchers explaining new insights about elderly care, engineers presenting their latest technological breakthrough or cooperative members giving management advice. Related events and activities will also be covered on Care Cooperatives.
Follow our journey!
The team of iCareCoops consists of partners from Cooperatives Europe (Belgium), iDeal Development (Denmark), SIVECO (Romania), SYNYO (Austria), VIA University College (Denmark), ZDUS (Slovenia), and ZHAW University of Applied Sciences Winterthur (Switzerland). Our team will be supported by external experts from across the EU to guarantee exciting and diverse coverage. As the coordinator of iCareCoops I hope you will enjoy reading our blog. Subscribe to Care Cooperatives to stay on top of stories and news from cooperative and smart health experts! Please make use of the comment function so share your feedback and your ideas!