Accenture Uses Artificial Intelligence to Help the Elderly Better Navigate Their Care and Improve Their Well-Being
November 28 2017 - 7:29PM
Business Wire
Accenture (NYSE:ACN) has completed a pilot program that uses
artificial intelligence (AI) and the ease of voice to help older
people manage the daunting challenges of navigating their care
delivery and well-being. The Accenture Liquid Studio in London
developed an AI-powered platform (the Accenture Platform) that can
learn user behaviors and preferences and suggest activities to
support the overall physical and mental health of individuals ages
70 and older.
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The Accenture platform, which runs on the Amazon Web Services
(AWS) cloud, includes a ‘Family and Carer’ portal that lets family
and caregivers check on the individual’s daily activities, such as
whether they have taken their medication or made new requests for
caregivers. The Accenture platform can also spot abnormalities in
behavior and alert family or friends, based on user defined
permissions.
Other services provided by the Accenture platform helped
participants find local events as well as potential new friends,
encouraging them to become more active and social. It also gave
them better access to reading and learning materials, music, daily
exercises, appointment reminders and required them to confirm when
they completed the assignment. The services in the pilot were
delivered through the new Amazon Echo Show.
The Accenture platform was tested over a three-month pilot
period, from August to October 2017, with a focus group of
approximately 60 people aged at least 70 years old and living
independently. A further 20 participants brought the Echo Show into
their homes to interact with the technology in a more natural
environment. The testing phase helped identify some of the most
challenging tasks within the home and aided in the development of
solutions built into the Accenture platform.
The Accenture platform’s combination of voice activation,
on-screen prompts and underlying cloud-based AI technology provided
the participants with new ways of doing a range of tasks and
extending their well-being. In building the platform, Accenture
used the self-service Amazon Alexa Skills Kit to customize the AI
to power the devices and employed advanced secure cloud
technologies such as AWS Lambda and Amazon S3.
“The Accenture platform demonstrates Accenture’s ‘People First’
approach that puts technology to work for people to help create
more human experiences and achieve better outcomes,” said Laetitia
Cailleteau, head of Accenture Liquid Studio London. “With the help
of Age UK London, we identified the more common challenges of
everyday life for older people – from setting daily reminders to
the heartache of loneliness – and applied AI to create a
human-centered platform to provide support and assistance.”
Feedback from pilot program participants was very positive, with
comments such as how “it’s like having a friend in the other room.
I’d be lost without it now” from an 87-year-old woman from
Merseyside and “it’s reinforcing my autonomy” from a 76-year-old
man from London.
According to Age UK, the UK faces challenges with delivery of
care for older citizens. Misallocated resources cost UK taxpayers
an estimated £173 million (approx. US$273 million) per year.
Elderly care programs, such as this initiative from Accenture which
uses AWS, Amazon Echo Show and Amazon Alexa Skills Kit can help
reduce these costs by allowing caregivers to provide support
remotely and supplement in-home visits. In addition, loneliness is
a pervasive problem, with 200,000 older people in the UK going a
month or longer without having a conversation with friends or
family. The Accenture platform helped to address this by bringing
people together virtually and in-person.
“Older people are not a homogenous group; the ageing experience
is very personal, with each person having different needs, and we
now have technology that can deliver an increasingly personalized
experience to them,” said Paul Goulden, Age UK London’s chief
executive. “The elderly care pilot has helped show how technology
can improve the well-being of older people. The potential here is
huge. I look forward to seeing how Accenture and Amazon Web
Services technologies can positively impact future developments for
the benefit of older people.”
Dr. Matt Wood, general manager for Deep Learning and AI at
Amazon Web Services Inc., said, “We are working closely with
Accenture and other Amazon Partner Network partners to help
facilitate so that people can have equal access to the benefits AI
can bring. Through pilot programs such as this we can continue to
find new ways to use the Alexa service and other Amazon AI services
to help the elderly – and people from all walks of life – enhance
their wellbeing.”
Accenture plans to expand this advanced in-home care platform to
more elderly people across the UK.
In the United States, Accenture recently developed a
voice-activated physician-search capability for Amazon Alexa,
making the task of finding a physician as simple as asking Amazon
Alexa for help. Accenture has contributed the code to the open
source community for further development.
Accenture is dedicated to leading the charge toward Responsible
AI, with the goal of providing better outcomes for all people.
Through its #AI4Good initiative and working with its Global 2000
clients to actively design and direct AI to augment and amplify
human capabilities, Accenture is committed to helping people to
achieve more for themselves as individuals and for the world around
them.
The Accenture AWS Business Group (AABG) helps clients capitalize
on a cloud-first agenda by developing agile, enterprise cloud
solutions to drive innovation and transform business processes,
tooling, and talent to address the new opportunities inherent
in the intelligent enterprise on the AWS platform. The AABG has
trained 3,200 Accenture technologists and earned more than 1,400
AWS certifications, helping enterprise clients – such as Avalon
Healthcare Solutions, Capital One, Hess Corporation, and Mediaset –
accelerate innovation for ongoing business transformation.
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company,
providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy,
consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched
experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries
and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest
delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business
and technology to help clients improve their performance and create
sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately
425,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries,
Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and
lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.
Accenture Disclaimer:
By offering this cloud platform, Accenture is not intending on
providing a medical device or patient care platform. The platform
is solely intended to be used to support overall wellbeing. It
should not be used to supplement or monitor treatment, care, health
status or for treatment or diagnostic purpose. Any use of the
platform by third parties will need to comply with applicable laws
and regulations.
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AccentureMylissa Tsai, +1 917 452
9729mylissa.tsai@accenture.comorDuncan Burford, + 44 208 611
4826duncan.burford@accenture.com
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