Where Care: A Patient Localization System for Nursing Homes

As the world's population continues to increase rapidly, there is a growing demand for healthcare services. Nursing homes are becoming more and more populated; the demands placed on care staff continue to grow exponentially. New approaches to care, such as palliative techniques, need to be considered to ensure residents are cared for in years to come. Localization can be used to track changes in behaviour and provide new insights into residents' palliative needs. Low-cost, reliable systems can be developed to help nurses monitor resident locations within nursing homes. This paper proposes a Bluetooth Low Energy localization system called 'Where Care'. The proposed system uses smartphones and wireless Bluetooth beacons to localize residents in a test facility. A novel beacon placement technique and localization algorithm are used to provide real-time resident locations. Data collected is displayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) for ease of use. Heat maps and graphs are available in the GUI to allow care staff to make location predictions based on historical resident data. Nurses can also configure a notification service within the system interface to ensure resident safety. The system is implemented and tested in an experimental university space. Results show that the 'Where Care' tool provides sufficiently accurate real-time localization measurements and data summaries. Overall, feedback indicates that 'Where Care' is a useful tool with the potential for future use in busy, over-burdened nursing homes.