Carbon monoxide monitoring can alert to health problems, among other big data points
WASHINGTON – Nicola Palmarini, a technology advocate with IBM Accessibility, helps the technology powerhouse leverage the power of big data.
At the 2015 M-Enabling Summit, he sat down with RCR Wireless News to talk about some of the ways IBM has started to leverage big data analytics in smart and effective ways, helping to increase public safety and quality of life while maintaining the delicate balance of privacy.
“There’s a lot of research we’ve done in the past on how to increase accessibility for people with cognitive and physical impairments,” Palmarini said. “That [initiative] can be translated to other categories of people who could benefit from this research, such as the growing aging population.”
For example, Palmarini points to IBM’s work with the municipal government in Bolzano, Italy. Bolzano, a city of 100,000 people seated less than 30 miles from the Austrian border, in many ways is demonstrative of the changing demographics of the old world.
“It’s a perfect storm case of the rise in the aging population you see all over Europe.” Palmarini said. “The aging population is 22.6% and is growing.”
IBM received a contract, or as Palmarini describes it a “challenge,” from the city government to see if it was possible for them to help manage this trend by using big data.
The city’s motivation is the economic hardship in Europe following the 2008 financial crash, which forced governments across the continent to undertake cuts to welfare programs.
“They wanted to see if we could help them mange this trend given the limited economic resources and the need to address many pressing issues,” he said. “We put in place a plan, which has been in place for an entire year, where we were providing monitoring to households where the inhabitants are 75 or older. Most of these people live alone or are a couple with a highly disabled partner with, for example, Alzheimer’s. We’ve used technology that can monitor the environment through the so-called ‘Internet of Things.’ From basic raw data, like the readings from a very basic carbon monoxide sensor, which already needs to be installed in a building as a safety regulation, you can gain very interesting and insightful data.”
Palmarini explained that through the use of monitoring patterns in the carbon monoxide level, they were able to determine which room someone was in, how long they were there, if they were alive and even their daily routine.
From these patterns, IBM’s software was able to alert social workers if someone living in one of the monitored homes had broken their routine or even if they had just been alone for a week. Through this monitoring, social workers are able to more effectively plan their visits giving resources to individuals in greater need or hopefully being alerted to medical problems that may arise.
Palmarini was quick to note that carbon monoxide monitoring is a non-invasive way to leverage smart data. Carbon monoxide detection is much less invasive than, say, video surveillance.
“It’s a low impact on privacy because we do not want to know what you were doing in your home, we just wanted to know if you were safe and receiving visitors. Then applying bootstrapping-like techniques we could sort out much more information. ”
