NijFinster Distance Care

In this article I describe some recent e-Health related projects, executed by the Dutch specialised company NijFinster. This is a hundred percent daughter company of Kabel Noord, a regional cable operator in the north of the Netherlands.

'Distance Care' at home care organisation Friese Land.

This is a project currently running. More than a 100 home care clients are connected to a video communication system. The newest generation of video phones is much more user friendly and a lot easier to configure and install. Better still, the system is cheaper than alternative systems presntly used in the Netherlands.

CEO Anja Paap: "With our well developed project concept, supplemented with our current technology and partners, we can serve any organisation quickly and at relatively low cost."

Business developer Gijs van Hesteren says: "We are very proud that we were able to implement this system so cost effectively - for ourselves as well as for the home care organisation concerned. Low cost is very important, especially for the target group. We have worked hard to acquire sufficient funding from innovation funds."

NijFinster video phone project

In this project, clients are connected to the Friese Land Health Care Center. This is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A follow up project is being set up.

Distance Care, enabled by interactive video communication, is gaining momentum in Friesland and in the Netherlands. Health organisations try to assist their clients more efficiently and more frequently.

Virtual polyclinic Wadden Islands

Medical specialst Hilde Royen discusses online with a patient and his island doctor

Patients on the remote coastal island Ameland contact a medical specialst in the regional hospital Sionsberg. Nominated for the Spider Award 2009 of the magazine ICTzorg. Eventually awarded a remarkable shared second place. From the jury report: "(...) innovative use of videoconferencing for direct interaction between medical specialist and patient. Anamnesis and diagnosis are investigated. That shows some guts."

This project was executed at instigation by the Frisian Cartesius Instituteand in co-operation with the Pasana-Sionsberg hospital in Dokkum en general practitioners on the Ameland island.

Second place Spider Award 2009

NijFinster executed project management, consultancy, technology advice, installation of hardware.

More on NijFinster

Kabel Noord increases internet speeds

Cable provider Kabel Noord is planning to raise internet speeds on coaxial cable before the end of this year.

The speeds will be as follows: 'KNID Lauwersland'to 1 Mbps, 'KNID Basis' to 4 Mbps,
'KNID Family' to 20 Mbps, 'KNID Comfort' to 30 Mbps. The new 'KNID Super' will deliver 60 Mbps. To enable these speeds, Kabel Noord has installed a Docsis 3.0-platform in September.

Source: Kabel Noord, 19 November 2009

'Responsive Environments' surprise Domotica fair

My neighbours at the Domotica Fair of the Smart Homes Foundation really made an impression, with their transgressing designs for 'response environments' in the 'adaptive office'. One of the students involved spoke passionately, alsmost as an artist, about his designs. "It's all about making technology more accessible and adding useability," he said, "In a more natural, logical and intuitive way!"
His urgency made an impression on me. We see not a lot of that in this country.


Seen from the NijFinster stand: the boys of 'Responsive Environments'.

Their tables were stacked with prototypes of 'home automation objects'. Under supervision of head design researcher Jorge Alves Lino the project members showed that there's more to home automation (Dutch: domotica) than automatic door locks, clever cable and tubing systems, or intelligent fire alarms.
"This is very exciting," they told me, "A fair full of end products and here we are, with a lot of very unmatured try outs!"

It made me think. For how long already have we been searching ourselves: for video communication hardware that does not deter its users, but invites them to play; for user interfaces that show them the way, in stead of making them lose it?

Their coach of the day Ben Salem was a man of unorthodox opinions too.
"In fact this fair is an oldfashioned event, all its innovative goals notwithstanding. It's well organised, but there would be so much more to gain. Why are all these kinds of technologies exposed so mixed up? Why is there not a team at the entrance that invites the visitors for a tour of the fair? Why are the unique characteristics of this building not used more effectively? The fair is stacked wirh products ready to market. Why not invite more groups like us, who are searching for new boundaries?"

Worth listening to, I thought. Most technology presents itself so dreary and unimaginatively. This was quite the contrary: artistic, long haired young people from all corners of Europe, led by a passionate thinker, with exciting stuff, built out of nothing. Read more at www.jorgelino.com


Responsive environments.

All pictures by www.festinalente.nl - Inge van Hesteren

Dutch version of this article

NijFinster at Evoluon

Great, it's Friday. We're driving home on the motorway. Yesterday, the mobile Vodafone network was down completely, today the KPN-netwerk tries to do worse. Well, nice and quiet, no Friday afternoon emails to handle and I try not to think of twittering. With my SMS service I can tweet comments, in any case.
We got into the car Tuesday afternoon, on our way to the Domotica fair of the Dutch Smart Homes Foundation. A 260 kilometer drive to Eindhoven, to crew the stand of eHealth consultant NijFinster Inc.

Colour TV

Evoluon, from the forth inner ring. Picture by Gijs van Hesteren

That same Tuesday evening my wife Inge and me had erected the NijFinster stand, at the upper, fourth ring of this remarkable Evoluon building. Our actions had taken some patience and inventivity, because of the long lines waiting for the elevator and the complicated staircases. But I prefer to speak well of the building: when the Evoluon was still a technology museum in the sixties, it was there that Inge as well as I saw our first colour television set. And the kids were allowed to turn the dials, which was unique those days. Today, the Evoluon functions as a congress and exposition centre, nothing wrong with that.

Hotel
We spent three nights at the Eindhoven Sandton hotel, at recommendation by the Smart Homes Foundation. Nevertheless, the hotel pretended more than it could deliver. Our room was situated outside of the hotel. We could reach it only after walking along the street. The bathroom was rather smelly, I think something was wrong with the plumbing. There were some unexpected animals in the bathroom. When I tried to choose a breakfast table, a member of the crew snarled: "Other table!" Okay, okay, I'm leaving already. Anyway, the other crew members were all right. For the money charged the hotel was not up to its standards, I think. No second visit for me.

UFO
For two days we worked in the flying saucer. Hundreds of people walked past the NijFinster stand. The second day seemed busier than the first. Both days, the public
seemed very interested and knowledgeable. For me, this turned out to be a fine event. Al this talking got me a dry throat, but the catering service was as good as ever. Try that at any other fair!

Meetings
Nice, to have the stand of Sharecare near us. The owners of that company are old friends. Their concept of a virtual care community fits into the strategy of the North east Frisian region: innovative use of ICT, internet, social media, to improve the quality of living in rural areas. It would not surprise me if a web based application like this would be carried by our prototype videophones with touch screen.


Sharecare-owner Saskia Vermeulen explains to me her thoughts of our videophone with touch screen. Picture: Inge van Hesteren

A funny thing: I spoke to a Frisian guy who moved to work in the southern province of Noord-Brabant. Later on I met someone who was born and lives in Brabant - he wanted to move to Friesland very badly. The grass is always greener...

All on the wings of video communication and innovation. During the fair, I discussed intensely its ins and outs, I was brought to new ideas and received a lot of food for thought. Nevertheless, we can still be proud of what we have done recently with the NijFinster projects. For example with the screen-to-screen project of a hundred home care clients, or with the Spider Award nominated Virtual Policlinical diagnosis. at the Dokkum hospital De Sionsberg.