IPPI and AMIGO

Sweden

2004

The main purpose of the service was to provide easily accessible information, advice and support to informal carers and/or older people regardless of their level of IT literacy.

 

IPPI is a patented product whose main driver was to allow people to use a TV to communicate via email and mobile phones. This fit well with the EU social policy to include older and functionally limited people in the modern information society.

Development of IPPI commenced in 2004, from a collaboration between the head technician of the company InView AB, with the Swedish Institute for Assistive Technology (SIAT) and Sweden’s Innovation Institute. In 2008, with the additional driver to research and develop the combined ICT solution, AMIGO, InView AB, with funding from SIAT, entered into collaboration with Carers Sweden.

 Care Recipients
 Informal carers
 Paid assistants
 Formal carers

Not available

 Independent Living
 Information and learning for carers
 Personal Support and Social Integration for carer
 Care coordination

The support service is composed of three parts: IPPI, which allows users to send/receive email, text messages and multimedia messaging service (MMS via an ordinary TV set. AMIGO call centre for support and guidance. A Handbook for informal carers, which is a digital database with different types of applications.

 

A TV connected to the internet and a telephone.

Both public and private

Public research funding: local, regional, national, European and international funds for research, development and implementation of innovative initiatives

Public research funding: SIAT and the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems (VINNOVA).

Other: please specify

Private out of pocket: users pay for the service

 

IPPI is sold primarily as a subscription service to municipal and private health care providers. There is an initial charge of €384 and a monthly fee of €33 per IPPI unit. In addition, the telephone company charges the cost of the mobile data traffic, but this is only a fraction of what a broadband subscription would cost. Finally, costs can vary, depending on the amount of support needed by municipalities. Formal carers decide how much users will pay. In some municipalities, individual users pay the monthly fee. In other municipalities, IPPI has been implemented as a communication system for an entire housing project, making the housing project pay (such as municipality) instead of the individual.

There are no intentions to transfer the costs to individual users. The municipalities choose themselves how to manage costs, and informal carers have a statutory right to be helped from municipalities. Since the IPPI service is a cost effective solution, compared to other municipal support, it is possible not to transfer those costs to caring relatives. The business model has been developed to justify the IPPI imposition as a good condition to meet the Social Services Act, as it has proved to be important, from an implementation point of view, to attract users and maintain them.

A relevant factor in favour of the sustainability of IPPI is the trend towards digital communication. Since IPPI takes advantage of established ICT infrastructure, the service should be sustainable. Nevertheless, as IPPI has not yet become profitable, a return on investment calculation could not be made. Funding and delimitation of the focus/target group were the main development and marketing difficulties. The company mainly has been funded by private financiers, as well as through public support from SIAT and VINNOVA and sales revenue. The numbers of municipalities piloting IPPI and AMIGO has steadily increased in 2011. IPPI has recently obtained further research and development funding from VINNOVA. As the initiative is relevant to current policy emphasizing active collaboration between the formal care sector and civil organisations, its sustainability prospects appear positive.

To increase its sustainability, the current IPPI marketing and courses of action in the international distribution have to be adapted to each country's organization of health care, turning to a provider that offers similar type of solutions. Looking ahead, the initiators expect to get quantified benefits that municipalities can use to decide to invest in the service, which proved to positively and decisively impact on care caretakers, informal carers and health-care providers.

Not available

 Authorities
 Private Care Sector
 Health and Social Care Systems
 Third Sector
 Private Companies

Not available

The charity Carers Sweden funded the initiative and collaborated on research and development of AMIGO

 Informal Carers
 Health Professionals
 Social Care Professionals
 Privately-Hired Care Assistants (inc. Migrant Care Workers)
 Volunteers

In 2011 IPPI AB hired additional full-time workers: a CEO (one of the founders of the company), who is a civil engineer; a Vice CEO, CTO and founder of the company; a system architect responsible for the IPPI platform and the technical development; a product manager, who is an engineer in charge of customer relations and marketing, and a head of education and a resource manager. There are a system developer responsible for IPPI central and a board of seven members including investors, founders of the company and experts. Moreover there are suppliers of services, manufacturing and telecommunications.

Volunteers run the AMIGO call centre service.

501 - 1,000

Not available

IPPI organises seminars where health care providers, potential customers and researchers can share experiences, tips and ideas. Representatives go to trade shows and conferences to raise awareness of the service. The IPPI webpage contains a special section for informal carers with information on the service.

IPPI was evaluated by asking users about the system usability . The initial research and development work was led by Britt Östlund, an experienced researcher in the field of assistive technologies for older people. IPPI was then evaluated with funding by the Swedish Institute for Assistive Technology (SIAT) in 2008/9 using a variety of qualitative methods and a further user acceptability evaluation study employing qualitative methods was carried out in 2009 by the Swedish Institute of Computer Science. By means of SIAT funds, the general call centre run by Carers Sweden and the web-based handbook were assessed interviewing carers, who had used these services.

(Ostlund, 2011).

The service can have a positive impact on the quality of life of:

- Informal carers and paid assistants, by giving them opportunities for training and respite (Handbook for Carers and telephone contact with skilled volunteers of the call centre)

- Older people, by improving the quality of care delivered and their social relationships, as they can stay in touch with people by mobile phones and internet. IPPI could be used as a reminder (for medication or home help services) and for security (showing who is at the door for example). Furthermore, the system helps users accept new technologies, as they are asked to use an ordinary television but strengthened by the electronic mail box in order to make it able to connect and send messages. It is a first soft step towards the ICTs’ use (Ostlund, 2011).

 

 

The service can have a positive impact on:

- Private organisations that provide care, by enhancing coordination of care, which helps save costs and optimise resource (Ostlund, 2011).

By providing information and support to carers, the service could help reduce the number of hospitalisations, contributing to optimise financial and human resources. There could be a positive impact on the ability of the service to promote the active participation of the national care organisations. In partnership with private companies, the care organisations offer flexible peer support and information to informal carers to complement existing care support services provided by municipalities (Ostlund, 2011).

Strengths:

1. It consists of a TV set and a mobile phone network, and thus it is based on simple devices well known also from not digitally literate persons, who could be afraid of new technologies.

2. The system is flexible, as it gives the possibility of choosing the type of ICT solution that best fits different situations.

3.  

4. Neither installation nor technical expertise are required.

5. Users can easily remain in contact with family and health care services.

6. Healthcare providers can easily send information and ask questions to users.

7. The existing care system does not need to be adapted.

8. IPPI has been nominated for a variety of ICT awards and in 2007, won the Swedish Embedded prize, for the best newly developed intelligent embedded system.

9. IPPI has been tested in Kenya, India, Singapore, Spain and Sweden.

Weaknesses:

1. Despite the company’s international coverage there’s not English language webpage.

2. Families of the target group were been added later and need additional support functions.

3. As of February 2014, no impact assessment of the service has been carried out.

4. The lack of document reporting evaluation results concerning AMIGO.

Opportunities:

1. The simplicity and user-friendliness of IPPI strengths its chances of increasing the number of target users.

2. IPPI started a project, on behalf of the Swedish communications authority, Post and Telecom Agency (Post och Telestyrelsen) to allow users to pay bills electronically through the IPPI service.

Threats/challenges:

1. As far as the project on behalf of the Post and Telecom Agency, from a critical standpoint, such a range of applications will be a generalization of the target group and the user will therefore not be as free to seek information on the Internet. Thus there might also be a risk that users are limited by what is offered rather than developing with the help of the technology.

2. Although IPPI has been tested in India, Singapore, Spain, Aland Islands and Kenya, generalization on the service use and frequencies have limitations, as the use depends on local conditions. It is possible to counter this but a good deal of work with user-based development is necessary to adapt the service to the local context.

3. Although the system was designed to be used through an ordinary television, some social-health workers might be skeptical of new technology, and they have to be convinced to think from a development perspective. The risk otherwise is that they reject the aid as a burden before they try it and see the benefits.

 

 

 

References: Ostlund B. (2010), How to catch needs and demands by working with old people as lead users for innovations?, AAL Forum, Odense Denmark, at http://www.aalforum.eu/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/197-Brittstlund.pdf Östlund B., Lindén K. (2011), Turning older people’s experiences into innovations: Ippi as the convergence of mobile services and TV viewing, Gerontechnology 2011; 10(2):103-109 Swedish Institute for Assistive Technology (SIAT), at http://www.gerontechnology.info/index.php/journal/article/view/gt.2011.10.2.003.00/1493 Resources: http://www.ippi.se/ Update by Mr Mats Holmfeldt, responsible of IPPI-AMIGO service, (February 2014) via personal contact.

-Information: information@ippi.se. -Care Communication Scandinavia AB. Tel: +46 70 399 01 00 -Lars Hagefors, CEO Mats Holmfeldt: mats.holmfeldt@gmail.com Contact person for update: mats.holmfeldt@gmail.com

Address:
Elsa Brändströms Gata 54
129 52 Hägersten (Stockholm, Sweden)