MOLIT and LH will introduce smart technologies to deliver personalized care to the elderly living in the permanent rental housing.
MOLIT is on track to supply 10,000 apartment units to create senior welfare towns across the nation.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of the Republic of Korea(MOLIT) in partnership with the Korea Land and Housing Corporation(LH) will provide smart care services for the elderly living in the permanent rental housing in Ssangchon, Gwangju.
The permanent rental housing in Ssangchon, a long-term rental housing supplied to individuals or households who need public housing support, is an old residential block, built over thirty years ago. It is to this ageing place that MOLIT and LH integrated digital technologies such as the artificial intelligence(AI) and internet of things(IoT) to deliver six smart care services(1. Emergency medical dispatch 2. Emergency call response 3. GPS location of the elderly residents outside home 4. Resident-caregiver interaction 5. Personalized health management 6. Analysis of the residents’ daily routines). The smart sensors installed in individual homes along with the smart care platform will enable a swift response to medical emergencies as well as provision of preventive healthcare.
As the saying goes that it takes a village to raise a child, it took support and efforts from multiple agencies to set up the program. Agencies involved in the program include MOLIT, which provided budget for the program, LH, which oversaw the supply and installation of the smart care platform, Bokjimaeul, a company that supplied and installed the hardware required and the Gwangju Seogu Office, which will administer and manage the smart care program.
This is not the first time that the MOLIT and LH teamed up to improve housing welfare for the elderly. In 2016, MOLIT announced a plan to increase public rental housing supply for the elderly. Named the ‘senior welfare town,’ the housing complex consists of apartments buildings and a senior welfare center built either on the ground floors of the apartments or next to them. So far, MOLIT has supplied 2260 of such rental housing units and plans to expand the supply to 10,000 by 2025.
The apartment’s interior feature barrier-free design (e.g. no floor thresholds) and safety handrails to aid movement inside home. As for the senior welfare center, it gives access to healthcare services, entertainment and culture classes offered by local public health clinics or community centers. By opening the center to all the elderly in its neighborhood, the center is emerging as a hub for social care provision in the community. Across the country, there are several senior welfare towns up and running.
The 150 unit-welfare town in Yeongcheon, Jangseong welcomed its residents in 2019. At the senior welfare center created across the ground floors of the apartment buildings, an average of 200 seniors drop by each day to get free meal, participate in cognition training activities and take horticulture classes while keeping the social distancing rules.
In Eungye, Siheung, the welfare town is famous for its ‘senior-to-senior care,’ a program where healthy elderly residents visit fellow residents with poor mobility or mild dementia regularly to catch up or enjoy leisure activities together. This novel approach to the elderly care can reduce burdens for the caregivers as well as the family members of the elderly and help the elderly remain socially engaged, which will help go a long way to improving their lives as well
The senior welfare center that serves the senior welfare town in Wuirye, Seongnam is the only senior community center in the city. The center offers various social services and entertainment such as free lunch and smart board game. Seniors can also benefit from the physical therapies and health counseling offered at the center.
Hong-mok Kim, director general for housing welfare policy of MOLIT says, “The smart care program marks a great progress in the senior care in Korea. The digital framework and technologies developed for the program can be applied to deliver quality care to the elderly. For the elderly, the smart care services will enhance living standards and welfare. For MOLIT, analysis of the data from the program will give us the insights on ways to improve buildings design and care services for application at future public housing projects for the elderly.”
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