viQtor in the field: the third living lab has started

We receive a lot of feedback from clients and we learn from that

Reinier Vrolijk, co-founder & projectmanager pilot projects

To experience how viQtor works in real life, smartQare sets up living labs at healthcare organizations. There, clients and healthcare professionals discover the added value of our 24-7 monitoring solution. For the first living lab, we have entered into a partnership with Sensire, a large and innovative care institution in the Netherlands, and Medical Service Centre NAAST-ZCN. Project manager Reinier Vrolijk and nursing researcher Judith Douma share their initial findings.

Reinier: “I started this story as a co-founder five years ago and it is the first time that we see viQtor 'at work' in the field. That's super exciting! We have all worked hard on it. The device has been extensively tested internally and the technical validation has been successfully performed. Now we are testing the total solution for the first time. Sensire clients use viQtor for a number of weeks. Meanwhile we closely monitor how that goes: from the wearing comfort of the client to the monitoring at the medical service center.”

Front runner

Judith Douma, community nurse and researcher at Sensire: “Sensire is an organization that wants to be a front runner when it comes to innovation in healthcare. We are always looking for innovations that contribute to healthcare-related issues. We are therefore used to working on these kinds of projects and that is nice. Everyone really goes for it. We have placed viQtor within the nursing team. These colleagues are trained to interpret vital values and to take action on them. With this living lab, they are addressed on their nursing capacities, which makes it fun.”

Network around the client

“Sensire was an appropriate partner for us to set up the living lab with,” says Reinier. “They work together with NAAST-ZCN, a medical service center that offers remote care to healthcare professionals and institutions. That is exactly the triangle we need: a healthcare organization that is looking for new possibilities in healthcare and is open to process change, a medical service center that acts as a backup, and smartQare that supplies the medical device and technology. NAAST-ZCN has the platform we developed open day and night. The moment something changes in a client's vital values, they are immediately alerted. Contact is then sought with the client and, if necessary, the family or a neighbor is called. If he can take a look, a healthcare professional does not have to go to the client right away. This way you build a network around the client who often lives alone and that can relieve the burden on the care organization.”

Personal explanation

Reinier: “For each client, we have adapted the settings to their personal health situation. They all live independently, but have different medical conditions (such as COPD and heart failure) for which they receive home care. I went to everyone's house to explain how viQtor works: how to put it on, how to request for help and how to cancel a request for help. It is important that we fully involve clients in the story, because you want people to become familiar with wearing the bracelet.”
“As a healthcare provider, you want viQtor to have a relieving effect, that it takes over your care,” says Judith. “We looked at possible ways for improvement, for example in wearing comfort for the patient. And sometimes the assist button went off unintentionally during sleep. And we are now investigating which devices, such as iPads, work best with the portal.”

Learning from feedback

“I notice that there are people who think it's great that technology can help,” says Reinier. “We have a gentleman who views his own data via the app, which he finds interesting. Another says, if I'm alone and something happens, I can hit the help button. Then it is nice and reassuring to know that help is on the way. We receive a lot of feedback from clients and we learn from it. We base our choices on this in order to continuously improve the solution.”
Judith: “For a certain group of clients, viQtor can certainly deliver something. Also for people who do not yet receive home care, such as single elderly people who get the flu or corona. With viQtor you can remotely monitor how they are doing.”

Curious

“Of course we have to wait and see what conclusions we can draw later, but the initial insights are very positive,” says Reinier. “viQtor does exactly what it should do. At the end of this living lab, we analyze all data and all participants are also interviewed about their findings. With all this information, we can optimize the total solution for the healthcare institution, medical service centre and certainly for the client!”