PastEcho

Over het initiatief / About the initiative

PastEcho

In welke fase zit jouw initiatief? / In what stage is your initiative?

Uitgewerkt conceptfase

Heb je jouw initiatief al gevalideerd? / Did you validate your initiative?

Yes (interviews with academic researchers, innovation managers, nurses, caregivers)

Meer informatie over jouw initiatief / More info about your initiative

With 300,000 people living with dementia in the Netherlands, current dementia care often disregards mental well-being and emotional interaction, essential constituents of quality of life. Presently, nurses spend up to 10 hours weekly with trial-and-error processes getting to know their patients and their personal needs. Taking away 2 hours of this time by fine-tuning emotional care would free nearly 150,000 euros per care home every year. Not only patients, but also nurses and management are impacted.

Using AI, PastEcho aims to collect personal data such as precious photographs, favorite books, and audio recordings, to introduce the Emotional Passport. This is a personalized profile containing comprehensive information about an individual’s emotional needs and preferences. It enables caregivers to better understand the resident’s needs and tailor their care accordingly, reducing distress and improving the quality of care. For nurses and nursing homes, the Emotional Passport minimizes administrative workload and enhances overall efficiency, leading to better patient outcomes and reduced stress for caregivers.

Our mission is to simultaneously help patients by means of technology and to create a product with added value for caregivers and care home management. Through the Emotional Passport, PastEcho aims to ensure that individuals are celebrated for who they are, with every chapter of their life honored and every care moment personalized!

Wat is er anders/nieuw aan jouw idee/oplossing t.o.v. bestaande oplossingen? / What is different/new about your idea/solution compared to existing solutions??

Current solutions to improve emotional care focus on specific aspects of emotional care, for example dynamics in group activities. Technology is rarely implemented. There are currently no solutions on the market that create a fully comprehensive solution that adresses both quality of life of people with dementia, as well as the high workload and stress of nurses.

Wat zijn jouw volgende stappen om het verder te ontwikkelen? / What are your next steps to develop the initiative?

We currently have a first functional prototype and are on the verge of finishing the validation of the concept by interviewing people in various nursing homes and care home organization. Moreover, we already collaborate with academic researchers from the Expertise Center Dementia & Technology (ECDT), and also with an organization of nursing homes in the Eindhoven area for among others extensive interviews and preliminary testing. As next steps, we aim to improve the usability of the Emotional Passport by properly performing UI/UX design and to also start the first tests of our product with data from actual nursing homes. Then, it is important to actually expand regarding software development and AI, to streamline the collection and analysis of data.

Wat heb je nodig om (nog meer) impact te maken met dit initiatief? / What do you need to make (more) impact with this initiative?

Most importantly, we need resourcess for software development, to create the machine learning environment to properly analyze the bulk data and transform it into a comprehensive patient profile. Moreover, it is important to further develop and expand our network regarding for example nursing home contacts.