FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Japanese company tests health monitoring system in Thailand

Japanese company tests health monitoring system in Thailand

Mimamori watches over elderly patients, sends data to nurses

Hoping to be part of the effort to improve healthcare service for the elderly in Thailand, a Japanese company, Advanced Information Valuable Service (AIVS), with the support of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has trialled its Mimamori monitoring system at Banphaeo Hospital and the Thai Red Cross’s Sawangkanives Home for Elderly.
Shuinchi Yoshitake, president of AIVS, said that since Thailand is becoming an ageing society like Japan, the company foresaw increasing demand for healthcare solutions for the elderly in this country. 
The company has conducted one-month field tests at Banphaeo Hospital and Sawangkanives Home for Elderly. 
The Mimamori system consists of sensor technologies, network communication, and software as well as mobile-device applications. The trial used five sets at each site.
The system uses sensor technology to detect blood pressure and temperature. Panel sensors wirelessly send data to a Mimamori sensor box in the patient’s room and a Mimamori station in a control room. Real-time data sent to the control room helps keep the patient in touch with healthcare providers even when asleep. 
“All patient movements and even symptom such as convulsing will be detected instantly via the system,” Yoshitake said.
The Mimamori system for households also consists of sensors, software and networks, but it has more sensors, such as one to detect when a door is opened or closed, since an elderly person living at home has more movements and activities than a patient in a hospital. 
Yoshitake said the company planned to collect feedback from the trial in order to improve the system before expanding it to more sites in Thailand. The company plans to conduct trials at seven more sites, five hospitals and two nursing homes.
By mid-2017, it plans to establish a joint-venture company with a local partner to provide the service. 
In Japan, Mimamori has been used in 80 hospitals or clinics and in 50 households. 
Meanwhile, the 300-bed Banphaeo Hospital has also initiated a nursing home service to provide healthcare technologies along with doctors, nurses and caregivers to elderly people in Ban Phaeo district of Samut Sakhon province. 
Dr Surapong Boonprasert, a consultant at Banphaeo Hospital, said it had been offering healthcare service for the elderly for a decade through traditional home visits to around 800 households throughout the district. The hospital plans to improve the service with the use of technology. It plans to open the nursing home service for the elderly by 2018. 
“In Ban Phaeo district, around 14-15 per cent of the almost 100,000 population are elderly,” he said. “We want to raise the quality of healthcare service for the elderly with the use of technologies. Therefore the hospital volunteered to be a site for field trials for the Japanese healthcare solution for the elderly called Mimamori in order to study the system before fully launching it in the future.” 
Surapong said that with the advanced technology together with the expertise and resources of the hospital, it was to be able to provide better healthcare for the elderly in the area.
RELATED
nationthailand