To fight senior isolation, they created a easy, tech answer

[This is a sponsored article with the Singapore Government Partnerships Office.]

Behind the partitions of a modest flat in Queenstown, a person in his sixties died alone. For days, neighbours at Block 49, Stirling Highway, dismissed the lingering scent as trivial. 

It wasn’t till the stench turned insufferable and repeated knocks went unanswered that residents referred to as the police, who, upon entry, discovered his lifeless physique on Jun 12—days after his loss of life.

Tragically, Ah Fei’s story isn’t remoted. With Singapore’s inhabitants ageing and family sizes shrinking, such circumstances might change into more and more widespread.

The truth is, the variety of seniors aged 65 and above dwelling alone rose from 58,000 in 2018 to 79,000 in 2022, and is projected to be round 122,000 by 2030. By then, one in 4 Singaporeans is anticipated to be 65 or older.

That is the very situation HeartBeat goals to deal with. A simple-to-use app the place seniors can examine in as soon as a day, HeartBeat provides peace of thoughts to their caregivers and ensures that assist can attain them when it’s wanted most. 

Sending a every day “heartbeat”

HeartBeat was conceived throughout the 2024 Construct for Good Hackathon, an initiative by Open Authorities Merchandise (OGP).

For the primary time, the hackathon partnered with the Singapore Authorities Partnerships Workplace (SGPO) to foster deeper co-creation between authorities businesses and residents. 

SGPO introduced in public sector material specialists to share real-world drawback statements, making certain that hackathon individuals may deal with urgent social points dealing with the nation. One in every of these challenges highlighted the rising concern of seniors dwelling in isolation—an issue that impressed the creation of HeartBeat.

Behind the app is a four-member crew led by Chen Zhihan, a knowledge scientist, and Royce Hoe, a senior software program engineer.

All of it started with a easy however highly effective idea: an app that lets seniors ship a fast every day “heartbeat” within the type of an alert to their caregivers, signalling that they’re secure and properly.

Tapping on the $5,000 Construct for Good Starter Fund that helps shortlisted hackathon individuals flip their public good options into actuality, the crew started experimenting. 

What began as a bodily Tamagotchi-like machine advanced by numerous iterations and person suggestions till they arrived at their present design: a easy cellular net app with three emoji-like buttons: “Completely satisfied,” “Okay,” and “Unhappy.”

By way of this design, HeartBeat makes an attempt to deal with two key challenges:

1. 24/7 monitoring of the bodily & emotional well-being of care recipients
2. Managing the sources of caregivers

Every day, care recipients can examine in by the app. In the event that they don’t, their caregivers obtain an computerized alert by way of WhatsApp. 

To deal with emotional well-being, the app additionally tracks temper patterns. If a care recipient logs greater than a set variety of consecutive “Unhappy” responses, the system notifies their caregiver, enabling well timed emotional assist.

HeartBeat additionally permits a caregiver to take care of any variety of care recipients. By way of an administrator account, caregivers can view all their care recipients’ temper check-ins in a single centralised dashboard, making it simpler to watch a number of people effectively.

Constructing the app was the straightforward half

When it got here to creating HeartBeat, the crew targeted on making it “small, efficient, and with little bloat as doable.” 

“We wished to create an software that was so intuitive to make use of, any untrained individual would know methods to use it simply by it,” stated Royce. In spite of everything, ease of use was essential, particularly for seniors.

Preliminary person testing, together with a pilot run at Braddell Heights, provided useful insights to the crew. They found that some early options didn’t join with seniors, which prompted a cycle of trial and error.

Nonetheless, one encouraging perception emerged: many seniors already owned smartphones, presenting a chance for wider adoption. “Seniors are on the lookout for one thing easy that integrates seamlessly into their lives, turning into a behavior,” famous Zhihan.

With the design refined, the actual problem started—not in coding, however in placing HeartBeat into the arms of those that wanted it. Royce admitted that rolling the app out was far more durable than constructing the app.

Fortuitously, assist from OGP and SGPO helped speed up the rollout. By connecting the crew with key companions, together with Company of Built-in Care, Ministry of Well being, Asian Girls’s Welfare Affiliation, Dementia Singapore, Caregivers Alliance, Public Service Division (SupportGoWhere), in addition to a number of Folks’s Affiliation networks, they enabled entry to networks, sources, and on-the-ground insights that had been essential in navigating operational challenges. 

These partnerships additionally helped the crew higher perceive the caregiving panorama—from the actual challenges caregivers face to how current companies are used.

By connecting us to caregivers on the bottom, we may construct one thing actual and grounded in lived expertise.

Making a 360-degree caregiving co-pilot

HeartBeat will quickly be built-in into CareCompass, one other answer developed throughout the 2024 hackathon. As a part of this integration, HeartBeat’s performance will change into a brand new function throughout the CareCompass app.

CareCompass is a free app that helps caregivers of dementia sufferers discover important info, from care companies and maid businesses to out there subsidies and assist programs.

The combination prioritises seniors’ person expertise. Whereas HeartBeat’s capabilities shall be added to CareCompass, the HeartBeat app will stay as an icon on seniors’ telephones, permitting them to proceed utilizing it simply as a part of their every day routine. 

For caregivers, the merger creates a extra holistic platform. Inside CareCompass, HeartBeat will seem as a devoted “card”, enabling them to watch their family members’ well-being alongside different caregiving sources.

Finally, the groups behind HeartBeat and CareCompass are working in direction of making a 360-degree caregiving co-pilot—one which eases the emotional burden, makes caregiving really feel much less isolating, and offers weak seniors with an efficient early detection system.

Wanting again on the crew’s journey, Royce described it as “profoundly significant” as a result of it exemplifies how residents can proactively tackle group points. 

The citizen-government partnership proves that collective motion can considerably enhance the lives of Singaporeans. We hope that [our journey] conjures up everybody to play an element, recognising that each particular person motion can certainly trigger an enormous and optimistic response for our nation.

Be taught extra about HeartBeat and CareCompass, or uncover different citizen-led initiatives by the Construct For Good programme. In case you are impressed to contribute, submit your individual group challenge proposals by the SGPO web site for steering and assist.

Featured Picture Credit score: SGPO/ HeartBeat