2017 IEC SyC AAL Autumn F2F Meeting
PCHAlliance to host the IEC System Committee on Active Assisted Living (SYC AAL) at the HIMSS Innovation Center in Cleveland during the week of September 18th. Delegates from 10 or more countries will attend this face-to-face to advance standardization for assisted living.
SYC AAL is the term used to describe the systems, products and services enable people to live safely at home longer. These items include alarm systems, home monitoring, telehealth products, communications and robotics.
These systems, services and products have largely grown ad hoc, in response to the aging of the population, and driven by technological developments. Awareness of this piece-meal approach led the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) to set up a System Committee to look at international standardization needs in order to foster market development and to protect the end-user. The committee consists of some 30 members from at least 10 countries.
The big challenge is to ensure the whole system-product-person interface is fit for purpose and matches the identified needs of the person. Interactions between technological developments in different areas of interest may pose unforeseen risks. Infrastructures and systems ought to work together, and allow products to function as intended, but this does not always happen.
To give a couple of examples: some home alarm systems will not work without the copper telephone lines being available. This means that installation of only ultrafast broadband fiber may deprive a person of the choice of using a medical/personal alarm as a vital means of calling for help. Some subdivisions in New Zealand are currently being serviced solely by ultrafast broadband fiber. The second example is illustrated by the following quotation from a car handbook in the section dealing with remote door locks: “People with implanted cardiac pacemakers or implanted defibrillators should make sure such devices come no closer than around 22cm to the vehicle’s interior or exterior transmitters. Electromagnetic waves could affect their operation.
For more information, please see the IEC SYC AAL site here: http://www.iec.ch/dyn/www/f?p=103:186:0::::FSP_ORG_ID:11827”