Two years ago Sensire –a healthcare organisation in the Netherlands – started to provide care to elderly people with aid of an iPad. Elderly, who didn’t know anything about a computer, let alone an iPad. Our care providers in the home care didn’t know much more about iPads either. With a party of three we started a care innovation by making the elderly and their care providers the innovators themselves. Now we provide care to over 1.100 people with an average age of 80 years with the help of an iPad. But the iPad is not the innovation; the real innovation is the way we look upon care. We now make the transition from “let me take care of you” to “how can I coach you to take care of yourself”. The iPad plays an imported roll in that transition, because it enables us to lead the elderly to empowerment, self management and life style changes. But also to entertainment, contact and all sorts of things that make their lives easier and more fun. Since we believe that a happy person asks for less care.
