Introduction

An integral element of smart homes is the transmission and interpretation of data and information about the dwellings and the environment within which they are installed. The act of transmission reflects, of course, the ability to communicate. The act of interpretation, however, means that for systems to be smart they must have intelligence. And as seen in Chapter Eleven, such intelligence can be used in a variety of ways to assist and empower dwelling occupants.

It is the increased capacity for communication and the power of microprocessors that offer the ability for transmission and interpretation of data and information about people as well as the home environment. This ability, building on the experience of social alarms, has brought us telecare – care provided remotely. The link with smart homes is clear; Tang and Venables (2000, p 8) having referred to smart homes and telecare as “natural companions”.

The origin of the term telecare is unclear. It was used with increasing frequency during the 1990s to describe medical services provided at a distance, albeit generally within hospital and clinical environments. It has also been used for some telephone mediated counselling and advice services. And with the development of medical services within people’s own homes, as associated with hospital-at-home and early discharge schemes, the word telecare has been encountered with increasing frequency, although the meanings ascribed to care, as noted in Chapter Ten, are varied.

Curry and Norris (1997) reviewed telecare activity in the United Kingdom for the Department of Health, ascribing a somewhat medically oriented position to it. But they recognised that the use of communications systems could offer a means of redressing some of the power imbalances that are normally found with medical services in that they noted the opportunity (p 14) for patients to benefit from on-line information as well as for medical practitioners to remotely check on a patient’s healthcare status. Of note in relation to this book, however, is the fact that Curry and Norris (1997, p 18) saw the “opportunity to develop rapidly the healthcare side of telecare using the existing community alarm infrastructure”.

The first and broadest perspectives on telecare are those that see it as close to, or an integral part of, telemedicine.