A pan-European social alarm system

Abstract

SAFE 21 is a pan-European research and development project which will take social alarms into the twenty-first century. It is run by a consortium of eight organizations, with financial support from the European Commission. SAFE 21 will use existing infrastructure to deliver a much broader range of services and extend availability to users who are currently excluded. The project aims: to develop a social alarm that will work from anywhere inside the home, using a neck-worn speech-pendant and outside the home making use of radio cellphone and global positioning technology; to demonstrate how telemedicine can be incorporated at marginal costs, by exploiting the existing social alarm infrastructure; to demonstrate a shared control centre that facilitates emergency services, medical, welfare and social professionals working together to support a broad-based social alarm system; to provide access to social alarms for deaf users, who are currently excluded.