Project CARESPACE

Abstract

The European elderly care sector faces fragmented and underutilized data, hindering the improvement of care services and the development of AI-based applications. Lack of standardization and interoperability leads to siloed information, inefficiencies, and disparities in care quality. Regulatory and privacy challenges further complicate secure data sharing, while the growing aging population intensifies the urgency for innovative solutions.

We propose CARESPACE, a secure and interoperable data space for enhanced elderly care. By creating a central hub for aggregating multimodal data from sensors, wearables, IoT devices, 5G networks, and existing care platforms, we enable end-to-end communication and real-time data processing for novel AI applications. Aligning with GAIA-X principles and Minimum Interoperability Mechanisms (MIMs), our solution facilitates seamless data exchange while ensuring privacy and compliance. By excluding medical data (we will access electronic patient records via interoperability with dedicated medical data spaces), we streamline regulatory compliance and focus on care-related data that can significantly improve services.

Our overarching goal is to revolutionize elderly care by enabling data-driven innovations that enhance care quality and efficiency across Europe. We’re building on over 20 years of data gathered in operational environments – nursing homes and sheltered housing.

Throughout the project, we will develop the CARESPACE data space, integrate advanced telecommunication technologies, ensure interoperability, create AI-driven applications, and address ethical, legal, and societal implications. We will validate our solutions through two state-of-the-art AI care applications: the Elderly Module – Virtual Ward and the Nursing Module – Language Model (LLM) Guided Nursing Module.