The nursing home of the future

Business Innovation Factory has undertaken some excellent work on how innovation and systems thinking can help re-architect the nursing home. The BIF work shows how inadequately most nursing homes address the challenges the elderly face. How the physical space is designed - how long the hallways are, how adapted the sinks and counters are to wheel chair use, etc. - is key to the well-being of the residents. But it is not only the home itself that is important - the home and its residents are part of the local community and ensuring accessibility to the community is also an essential component of the elderly care system. As a doctor notes in one of the videos, before moving into nursing homes most residents could probably access some green space - either their back garden or nearby park, etc. Once inside that ability is drastically reduced thereby depriving residents of the joys of being outdoors (and the physical and psychological pleasure that is derived from it). BIF's work shows how important it is to re-think and redesign not only the home itself but also the home's place in the community and local environment. The welfare of the elderly in our societies has been grossly neglected and this work, and work undertaken by Participle for example, are important steps to building environments and communities in which the elderly can thrive. Such initiatives need to be encouraged, at local and national levels - after all, we all become elderly eventually.

"Attacking the recession"

In December, NESTA, the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, released an important document entitled "Attacking the Recession" in which it proposed that the UK needs

a strategy to attack the recession, not just to respond to it. Innovation – in business, communities and public services – needs to be at the heart of that attack. The UK should aim to emerge as a more innovative, greener, more sustainable and diversified economy.

This document puts innovation squarely back in center court and helps dismiss the mutterings of the "innovation is dead" crowd. And it goes further, suggesting that innovation in other areas is equally important:

The biggest gains for society will be found in those sectors that both offer the most immediate growth potential, drawing on the UK’s existing strengths, and help meet long-term challenges: green energy, environmental services, biotechnology, and services for an ageing society.

As has been mentioned in earlier posts, rethinking and redesigning services and systems, from infrastructure to public services, is key not only to national economic recovery, but also to longer term economic advantage. Investment and innovation are building blocks of growth and competitiveness and are all the more critical in hard times.

'There's nothing worse in the world than "not knowing".'

'There's nothing worse in the world than "not knowing". The Internet quite simply helps me to know,' said Bernard Featherstone from Eccles, near Salford, Manchester, England, named Silver Surfer of the Year for 2008. Silver Surfer Day recognizes the importance of social inclusion and the role that the Internet can play for the elderly in maintaining family ties, finding new friendships, building community and pursuing dreams. The comments by the finalists, and their blogs, are testament to the Internet's incredible ability to empower.

6 point fonts and digital divides

New digital divides are opening up driven by mobility, complexity and miniaturisation. The world is moving to an untethered networked world, in which our personal networks interface with a seamless networked environment so that we are always on, available and "here". But this (somewhat frightening) environment depends on greater processing complexity and miniaturisation, both of which work against the increasing percentage of the population that is aging and can no longer see 6-8 point fonts on their mobiles, or use buttons that were made for a child violinist's fingers.

This brave new untethered world will create all manner of new divides - not just in mobile communications. What are tech companies doing to address these issues? Not much. Slick, fashion driven, "6 month from cool to uncool" mobiles are the trend. Will all this networked mobility merely further socially marginalise those that cannot find the ON button on their phones because of its size (and location)? Much more needs to be done to engineer and design devices that are guided by inclusive (and sustainable) design principles - otherwise an increasingly important part of society will be continually disadvantaged and an increasingly important market opportunity will remain un-addressed.