Preliminary results of a pilot project on remote monitoring of functional health status in the home

The authors report on the implementation and recent completion of a pilot project carried out in Sydney, Australia over a period of five months, monitoring functional health status of the elderly at home by continuously recording parameters of daily living sensitive to changes in health. The home monitoring system is based on Echelon Lon-Works technology communicating over the mains power lines. A sophisticated information management, communications and analysis system has been designed to automate and support the data collection phase of the project. Preliminary data suggest that remote monitoring of functional health status of the elderly is technically feasible and may result in improved health care outcomes for the elderly