Tackling the loneliness crisis with home care – A digital smart home assistant

In the last three years, public awareness of the negative effects of loneliness has grown, with particular attention paid to over 65s who are often more susceptible to physical and mental risks loneliness can cause. Research has demonstrated that access to the internet and digital services can help to mitigate these risks, through fostering a sense of community and the ability for individuals to connect with others. But with barriers around digital inclusion also a key issue for this demographic, innovative and accessible technologies that can offer the low-level interventions needed to combat loneliness are essential.

Smart home assistants that run on devices like the Amazon Alexa can act as a solution to addressing these challenges. These solutions afford an accessible entry point to digital services and communities, particularly when they provide both voice and touch functionality.

In the last seven years, we have been developing an AI digital assistant that runs on smart home speakers. Our solution ‘HomeCare’ combines the accessible technology of a smart speaker with a unique set of features that are proven to reduce the negative effects of loneliness. We worked in partnership with Hafod housing association in Wales to co-design HomeCare to ensure that we were creating something that required minimal digital knowledge.

Numerous academic studies have run in recent years that tout the benefits of smart speakers and digital assistants; namely, that speaking aloud and interacting with a speaker can help individuals feel less lonely. Moreover, these solutions often require little to no digital experience to use.

But connecting and speaking to a digital assistant only goes part-way to resolving the issue. While this reduces some of the barriers to digital inclusion, research by Age UK has demonstrated that feelings of loneliness occur when ‘people’s ability to have meaningful conversations and interactions is inhibited’. So drawing upon the smart speaker’s ability to improve digital literacy, whilst connecting users with others, and signposting them to necessary support services becomes imperative.

The HomeCare solution connects users with local events, allowing them to meet others with shared interests. It also reminds them of happy memories through photos, videos and messages. In addition, it works to reinforce a sense of purpose and routine as users regularly engage with the solution and it adapts to their preferences.

Our hope is that HomeCare not only provides positive benefits to its users but also affords peace of mind to family and caregivers as they’re able to facilitate remote monitoring of individuals’ activity and wellbeing. For Housing Associations, solutions like HomeCare help staff optimise their impact and flag the need for intervention early, before reaching crisis point.

Our work with HomeCare has shown us the possibilities that can be leveraged with digital assistant technologies. We have already rolled HomeCare out across a number of housing associations and two thirds of our users have reported feeling an improved sense of wellbeing and over 91% report that the solution is easy to use. Integrating and embedding these technologies within care settings has demonstrable benefits for users, reducing loneliness and alleviating much of the pressure felt by frontline staff. With figures of those over 50 who feel lonely set to increase to 2 million people by 2025, our hope is that solutions like ours go some way tackling this crisis.

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To find out more about HomeCare, please visit: https://homecare.accenture.com/home (opens new window) or contact homecare@accenture.com

If you found this of interest, visit our dedicated webpages on technology-enabled care housing (TECH). Here you will find the latest on the TAPPI project, smart housing and about Going Digital.