How can we use the Internet of Things to make life easier, safer and more cost-effective on a broad scale? By deploying Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) that combine digital data, physical devices and human activities into cohesive, responsive environments that can be active, reactive or proactive, depending on need.
These technological ideas were introduced at the White House on June 10 and demonstrated on June 11 in Washington, DC, as The SmartAmerica Challenge. This White House Presidential Innovation Fellow project was initiated to bring together research in Cyber-Physical Systems and to combine test-beds, projects and activities from different sectors, such as Smart Manufacturing, Healthcare, Smart Energy, Intelligent Transportation and Disaster Response. The goal was to show tangible and measurable benefits to the U.S. economy, and the daily lives of American citizens.
In December of 2013, the SmartAmerica Challenge was launched by Geoff Mulligan and Sokwoo Rhee, two White House Presidential Innovation Fellows, to bring Industry, Academia and the Government together to show how Cyber-Physical Systems can create jobs, new business opportunities and socio-economic benefits for America.
Over 65 Companies, Government Agencies and Academic institutions came together and launched 12 teams/projects. Over time, an additional 12 projects were formed. These teams built systems, prototypes, pilots and products that demonstrated the capabilities of CPS, but more importantly to the goal of the SmartAmerica Challenge, they showed how these technologies will deliver socio-economic benefits to America.
In this imaginative deployment, participants from a broad variety of disciplines in medicine, academia and technology, showed how the effective use of data -- collection, normalization, transport and analysis -- could streamline healthcare delivery and, through predictive analysis of gathered daily living data (thanks to Z-Wave sensors), even pre-empt hospitalizations. In the CPS scenario, an elderly individual code-named Randall, lives alone and falls. Thanks to ClosedLoop Healthcare, his essential wellness and activity data is known in advance, transported and interpreted for all stakeholders throughout his treatment and rehabilitation, and continues to be monitored even when he returns home. In this way, everyone concerned with Randall's health is kept in the "closed loop."
The groups assembled to deploy this CPS test bed included figures from Harvard, Vanderbilt, and the Universities of Missouri and Pennsylvania; the U.S. Department of Defense; IEEE; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Massachussetts General Hospital; UL, NIST and a variety of software and middleware companies dedicated to health data collection and transport. The project was supported by the Z-Wave Alliance and Alliance members ADT and Nonnatech.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation estimates that roughly $31b is spent annually for preventable hospitalizations among adults in the U.S. Many could be avoided through better integration and coordination.
With the technologies shown in the ClosedLoop Healthcare CPS, America can save costs, provide better care, achieve improved health outcomes and create new jobs and industries. The Alliance is pleased to have taken part in this exciting initiative, and looks forward to extending Z-Wave's role in intersection of smart homes and smart healthcare.