Pannon Business Network Association located in the West-Transdanubian region, Hungary. PBN is an internationally oriented organisation, having participated in over 75 international partnership and research projects with more than 450 partners. Since 2016 the key domain is digitalization, leading to establishment of the first Hungarian digital innovation hub – am-LAB. Additional competency area was developed in a decade, involving the health and care sector. It started with product and application developments – mobile app for combatting mild cognitive impairment, real-time diagnostics visualisation with Ericsson, hospital innovation support methodology in Central Europe, etc. – than continued with home care market analysis. Finally, it led to the establishment of an additional department, focusing on digitalization in senior home care.
Based on the Finnish good practice in the INTENCIVE project – “Showrooms to demonstrate technological solutions related to health and wellbeing” PBN established the at.home - Smart Senior Room at the end of 2021, which is a Pilot Project and also the Action 1 of the regional Action Plan in the INTENCIVE project.
The Action Plan aims to impact: Szombathely 2030-Local-city level- Policy instrument, which was approved by the city and involved representatives in September 2021. Szombathely2030 is the strategic policy framework for the region, focusing on health- and social care, both with respect to FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) generation and community building. The Smart Senior Room is an important part of the programme.
The at.home/Smart Senior Room is focused on 4 main activities: Demonstration, Training, Research and Testing. PBN plans to organise study visits and policy maker workshops where the target groups can reach an increased capacity. Practical trainings will be continuously organized to different target groups: elderly and their relatives, secondary and higher education institutions, and companies. At local level there is a high interest from stakeholders’ side in the training possibilities: 3 interested parties (University of Pécs, Szent-Györgyi Albert Medical and Vocational School, Pálos Károly Social Service Centre, and Child Welfare Service) are already engaged to extend their training modules with practice in the Smart Senior Room.
Ensuring the durability, the Smart Senior Room will be the basis to elaborate strategic flagship projects in the current programming period 2021-2027 (e.g. Horizon Europe, ERDF, AAL, etc.) to ensure further developments of the facility.
The Action Plan is available HERE.
