Press Releases
Saúde Agora promotes healthy living and more independent and safer aging through smart homes
Through the development of an IoT (Internet of Things) management platform, patients’ homes will be equipped with intelligence capable of collecting data, interpreting patterns, sending alerts and communicating. In this way, it will be possible to monitor chronic conditions, prevent and monitor diseases, and provide health care, social support, leisure and entertainment activities, among other things.
According to António Tavares, Provost of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto, “The ‘Saúde Agora’ project will bring about a social digital transformation. It is a proximity product, designed to meet the present needs of families. This makes the Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto the first institution to promote health care at home in an integrated way. Through an innovative platform, users will have access to new applications designed to respond to the community’s real problems in the health area. We are experiencing a new generation of user support services in the context of active aging. This is a product of the future and the Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto is already in the future.”
The project will allow remote monitoring of health conditions in real time, reduce the distance between the elderly and new technologies, and prevent diseases and enable their early detection by automatically identifying dysfunctions and issuing alerts.
According to Mário Vaz, Chairman of the Vodafone Portugal Foundation, “Information and communication technologies (ICT) can help us to promote lifelong healthy lifestyles, in particular by making active aging support services more efficient and effective. They also allow older people to be able to live more independently, for more years, while using health facilities less frequently. The Saúde Agora Project is providing services that contribute to active aging, supported by the most advanced artificial intelligence methods”.
About the Vodafone Portugal Foundation
The Vodafone Portugal Foundation is a not-for-profit institution with its own funds, established to contribute to the development of the Information Society, combat info-exclusion and disseminate mobile telecommunications technologies. Since its creation in 2001, the Foundation has supported projects in areas such as Health, Education, Safety and the Information Society, operating as a key tool of Vodafone Portugal’s Social Responsibility strategy. Rather than simply making a financial contribution, the support provided to projects by the Vodafone Portugal Foundation is given in the form of help with specifying partners’ needs, planning, implementing and monitoring projects, and ensuring their effectiveness and success, in all cases in cooperation with outside organisations including NGOs and public bodies.
About the Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto
The Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto is a charitable institution founded in the city of Porto on 14 March 1499, and is part of the centuries-old movement of the Santas Casas da Misericórdia. Constituted under Canon Law, the Misericórdia do Porto is a charitable social assistance institution for philanthropic purposes and public utility. In its social assistance role, it engages in direct action in support for the elderly, health, disability, poverty and social exclusion, housing, culture, education, occupational training and leisure.