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Planning Meetings and Pilot Tests• 11th-12th June 2015: Meeting 4 in Lille, France
• 21st-22nd May 2015: Pilot Test 4 in Gits, Belgium • 19th-20th May 2015: Pilot Test 3 in Lomme, France • 21st-22nd April 2015: Pilot Test 2 in Vlissingen, The Netherlands • 30th - 31st March 2015: Meeting 3 in Lille, France • 12th - 13th March 2015: Pilot Test 1 in Canterbury, UK |
EDECT: Empowering Disabled People through Ethics in Care and Technology
INTERREG IV A 2 Seas Cluster
There are an estimated 5 million wheelchair users in Europe, with around 1.26 million users in the UK, France, Belgium and Netherlands. These individuals have reduced mobility in varying degrees and rely heavily on their care network and the best technology made available to them in order to live their lives the best they can. Empathy and an understanding of the importance of a patient’s dignity are skills that the care network and those that design assistive technologies must employ in order to add value to their patient’s lives.
EDECT cluster brings together partners from SYSIASS and Dignity In Care (DIC) projects. These two projects share a similar aim: the underlying principle of educating and motivating the care network through dignity, empathy and experience, all to strengthen a patient’s autonomy. DIC aims to reinforce the principle of dignity in care and its importance in nursing (through the development of the Stimul care sessions), while SYSIASS reinforces the importance of a person’s autonomy, even if their mobility is extremely limited (such as through an autonomous wheelchair).
The overall purpose of the cluster is:
Across all 4 countries of the 2Seas programme, the importance of ethical care is being discussed. In the UK in particular, with the emergence of the Francis report, the nation has been shocked by stories of poor care which left patients without dignity and often led to their death. It reinforces the importance of considering a patient's dignity in any way that you care for them, including technology developed to improve their lives.
The cluster objectives are the following:
Target Group
Through an improved method of engaging with patients and their care network to develop assistive technology, it is these two groups that are the main target group final beneficiaries of the cluster: namely patients with limited mobility, elderly patients, patient and carer representative groups, as well as health care professionals (doctors, nurses etc). The results of this cluster will also target those who can learn from the research of the cluster and lead to further innovation. The initial target group is made up of education and research departments, students in health & social care and technology, representatives and leads of a wide range of health care organisations, and regional policy makers (councils and local authorities)
EDECT is part of the INTERREG 2 Seas capitalisation actions and is completely financed by the European Regional Development Fund.
Useful links:
SYSIASS: www.sysiass.eu
Dignity in Care: www.dignity-in-care.eu/portal/welcome
e-Ucare: Health cluster Europe: www.e-ucare.eu
Interreg IVA 2Seas Programme: www.interreg4a-2mers.eu
Europe: www.europa.eu
EDECT cluster brings together partners from SYSIASS and Dignity In Care (DIC) projects. These two projects share a similar aim: the underlying principle of educating and motivating the care network through dignity, empathy and experience, all to strengthen a patient’s autonomy. DIC aims to reinforce the principle of dignity in care and its importance in nursing (through the development of the Stimul care sessions), while SYSIASS reinforces the importance of a person’s autonomy, even if their mobility is extremely limited (such as through an autonomous wheelchair).
The overall purpose of the cluster is:
- To inform stakeholders from the four countries on our earlier project results
- To educate and motivate users, families and the care network through empathy and experience
- To explore the ethical implications of user-centred provision of assistive technology
Across all 4 countries of the 2Seas programme, the importance of ethical care is being discussed. In the UK in particular, with the emergence of the Francis report, the nation has been shocked by stories of poor care which left patients without dignity and often led to their death. It reinforces the importance of considering a patient's dignity in any way that you care for them, including technology developed to improve their lives.
The cluster objectives are the following:
- To devise a methodological approach for developing assistive technology. Acceptability, a critical success factor, depends on how technology is constructed, so it is important to take into account user and stakeholder needs from the start, keeping the focus on the user. Dignity/ethics play a vital role in providing the correct balance to empower the user during the developmental process in order to maintain/improve individual freedoms. This methodological approach will be developed using existing technologies tested at pilot sites over 2 days, 1 per country ensuring it is suitable for cross-border application. It will produce a report with comparative results on the tests, lessons learnt and strategic and geographically-defined future challenges to improve quality of life through technology and ethics in care.
- To develop a range of practical, internationally-transferable tools to evaluate assistive technology in an ethical and dignified manner. The tools will be highly suitable to evaluating disabled users of assistive technology, whilst being equally effective for obtaining comparison feedback from other stakeholders.
Target Group
Through an improved method of engaging with patients and their care network to develop assistive technology, it is these two groups that are the main target group final beneficiaries of the cluster: namely patients with limited mobility, elderly patients, patient and carer representative groups, as well as health care professionals (doctors, nurses etc). The results of this cluster will also target those who can learn from the research of the cluster and lead to further innovation. The initial target group is made up of education and research departments, students in health & social care and technology, representatives and leads of a wide range of health care organisations, and regional policy makers (councils and local authorities)
EDECT is part of the INTERREG 2 Seas capitalisation actions and is completely financed by the European Regional Development Fund.
Useful links:
SYSIASS: www.sysiass.eu
Dignity in Care: www.dignity-in-care.eu/portal/welcome
e-Ucare: Health cluster Europe: www.e-ucare.eu
Interreg IVA 2Seas Programme: www.interreg4a-2mers.eu
Europe: www.europa.eu