WAALTeR ­ - Integrated System Solution with Added Value

The WAALTeR project responds to demographic and health policy challenges and the ubiquitous digitisation of everyday life. In order to enable older people to live a self-determined life in their familiar environment with a high quality of life, WAALTeR develops service packages tailored to the needs of users, which open up opportunities for the three areas of social integration, security and health, as well as in the cross-cutting context of mobility.

The focus is on prevention and care strategies in the urban context and on practical, integrated solutions tailored to the needs of the users and their physical and social environment. To this end, existing technical applications are adapted and integrated into a system solution to leverage synergies. Thus, skills as well as the motivation for an active, self-determined life are promoted to increase personal safety and health as well as improving social integration and social participation.

Practical Application and Evaluation of AAL Technologies

The holistic approach pursued by the WAALTeR project focuses on user needs and the added value of AAL solutions and examines future AAL applications in Austria’s largest urban area. The technologies and services used are already available as prototypes or as commercial products at the start of the project and are comprehensively evaluated and used in the project for the first time. The benefit is scientifically investigated in an experimental evaluation and is thus given increased marketing potential.

WAALTeR relies on solutions that meet the diverse, specific requirements of older people: the integration of individual and partial solutions or prototypes in a networked system solution, which can be integrated into existing care processes and tested for their product or target group suitability. Each senior citizen can thus receive the appropriate form of care for them and remain in their familiar environment for as long as possible.

Independence, self-determination and quality of life can thus be maintained until old age. The creation of a range of opportunities tailored to the user is designed to counteract the risk of isolation, physical and psychological deterioration as well as the anxiety and insecurity of older people in everyday life, thus increasing quality of life.

Cost-Effective and Sustainable Test Facilities for AAL Solutions

The WAALTeR approach with strong stakeholder orientation and the involvement of potential purchasers (for example, relatives or organisations) enables efficient and market-oriented testing. The focus is on affordability and sustainability, so that social obstacles to obtaining a product can be mitigated in advance. The ease of use and added value of the devices and services is taken into account from the user perspective.

The broad profile of the WAALTeR project consortium covers the products (SMEs/ research), the financing of care services complying with the social welfare standard (Fonds Soziales Wien) and, to an extent, the already existing and still expanding sales channels for the products (Wiener Sozialdienste Alten- und Pflegedienste, Johanniter) in the Vienna AAL test region.

Long-Term Integration of Users

The users are actively involved throughout the project: they are informed and recruited in interactive information cafes, local media, neighbourhood networks and the social service providers and are involved, as ambassadors, in the dissemination of the results.

Relevant stakeholders – political decision-makers as well as the WAALTeR advisory board members – are also involved throughout the duration of the project and act as multipliers for the replication of the results. Starting in 2018, 83 Viennese households will be equipped with the integrated WAALTeR system (tablet system solution).

In addition to basic services, they can also use supplementary AAL services and technologies from the social, health and safety services packages (for example, indoor fall detection, telemonitoring or fall prevention). Together with 35 control users, they are part of the experimental evaluation study, which will be carried out over a period of eighteen months.

WAALTeR primarily addresses active users in heterogeneous housing and care situations in the urban environment and supports them in the context of their physical and social environment. In parallel with the test houses, a sample apartment will be set up at the end of 2017 at the Johanniter Schichtgründe residence, which will be accessible to interested parties on request.

Consortium Manager

TINA Vienna GmbH

Further Project Partners

• AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
• Bernhard Rupp
• CogVis Software und Consulting GmbH
• Fonds Soziales Wien
• FragNebenan GmbH
• ilogs mobile software GmbH
• Johanniter Österreich Ausbildung und
• Forschung gemeinnützige GmbH
• Microtronics Engineering GmbH
• Vienna University of Technology
• Wiener Sozialdienste Alten- und
• Pflegedienste GmbH
• WPU Wirtschaftspsychologische
• Unternehmensberatung GmbH

Project Coordinator

DIin Julia Sauskojus
E-mail: Julia.Sauskojus@tinavienna.at