The organizing committee for the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Trans-NIH/Interagency Workshop on the Use and Development of Assistive Technology for the Aging Population and People with Chronic Disabilities have released their workshop report.
CCC partnered with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and hosted the visioning workshop which focused on technologies that will allow older adults and people with disabilities to “age in place,” remain in their homes longer, reduce health care costs and enhance quality of life. The workshop engaged a diverse set of experts – computer science researchers, medical practitioners, and government officials from numerous agencies (NIH, NSF, NIDRR, HUD, VA, FDA, CMS). Videos of the workshop presentations as well as the presentation slides are posted on the workshop website in the agenda.
Workshop participants agreed that there is a need for a new generation of research that addresses the complexity of supporting the quality of life and independence of a vast, diverse, and aging population. The workshop report charts a course for the research agenda needed to advance technologies that will allow seniors to age in place. It identifies a set of barriers that must be addressed in order to make actionable progress to meeting the needs of our aging population through innovations in home health technologies:
- The need to better understand the target users
- The need for actionable evidence
- The need for information dissemination that bridges the gap between research and practice
- The need for effective trans-disciplinary collaboration
- The need for far-reaching test beds
- The need for patient access to actionable technologies
See the full workshop report for more information.
