Experts and professionals in the healthcare and elderly-care service industry came together to discuss the development and implementation of a technology-driven smart elderly-care system and shared the valuable experience and insights within the domain.

 

 

 

At the event, UBTECH announced its strategy of creating a smart elderly-care system with several sub-systems within specific elderly-care scenarios. They also launched several robotics products for the healthcare and elderly-care domain. In addition, UBTECH announced key strategic collaboration agreements with China Merchants Health Care, Medical Care Service Company Inc (MCS) in Japan (A joint venture company to be established this month), and China Academy of Transportation Sciences Group.

UBTECH combines intelligent robots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, coordinated by the UBTECH Smart Elderly-care Cloud-based Platform, for the aged group. The whole system provides nursing services for senior citizens living at home or in community centers. The cloud platform-based solution focuses on six key scenarios: services management, daily care management, security and health monitoring, memory-loss prevention, emotional support and rehabilitation. The goal of the system is to create a comprehensive system with high reliability and security to provide the elderly a happy, healthy, and high-quality way of living.

Huan Tan (Co-Chief Technology Officer, UBTECH ROBOTICS CORP LTD and General Manager, UBTECH Healthcare Business Unit,), introduced how the company has been developing and integrating AI, robotics, and other high-tech approaches to improve the quality of life for our senior citizens. They apply this technology in the elderly-care industry to create new services, develop a new ecosystem, and generate substantially new values to the industry. The new services are brought by new technology, including the active interaction and companionship, autonomous navigation for uninterrupted and automated door-to-door care provider, the continuous monitoring of personal and environmental safety, precise evaluations, intervention plans, and rehabilitation exercises for the people with the cognitive, psychological and physical disabilities. The new ecosystem integrates robots and smart devices into an elderly-care service system that enables collaborative operations conducted by humans, robots, machines, devices, and IT infrastructure. These robots are regarded as  intelligent service providers, a key  innovation that can significantly improve the reliability and quality healthcare services for the elderly. Based on the new services and new ecosystem, new values are generated to the elderly-care service industry and the end-users with connected senior-care services in facilities, communities, and homes. The operations will be largely improved for the facilities and communities, whereas the senior people will receive some more precise, friendly, and active services, which bring high -quality lives than ever.

The UBTECH Healthcare Business Unit showcased five innovative and powerful service robots: Walking Assist Robot-Wassi, Containerized Delivery Robot-DR, Smart Wheelchair Robot - PathFynder, Open Shelf Delivery Robot-OSDR and Companion Robot-Welli. These robots directly address the challenges of the increasing shortage of caregivers, the fast-growing global aging populations, and the increasing demand for high-quality healthcare services, together with other hardware and software components within the smart elderly-care ecosystem. Additionally, UBTECH debuted a cloud-based Intelligent Elderly-care Service Platform, a "Super Brain", that can coordinate services between service robots and IoT devices for the elderly-care service domain. These robots can operate safely in nursing homes, assisted living communities, hospitals, among other healthcare facilities, providing personalized services for senior citizens

To date, the integrated solution of UBTECH's smart elderly-care service and the portfolio of the products has already been deployed, continuously providing services on several sites, including hospitals, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and retirement communities. UBTECH also officially announced a partnership with China Merchants Health Care in Shenzhen, Xinkai Senior Care Facility in Shanghai, University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital and Taishan Sanatorium of Shandong Province.

At the launching ceremony of building the Ecological Community, UBTECH announced 12 partners, including the aforementioned China Merchants Health Care, Medical Care Service Company Inc (MCS) in Japan, and China Academy of Transportation Sciences Group, etc. The partners are from the elderly-care service providers, the operation owners of medical centers, and technology firms.

Yanhong Wen, China Merchants Health Care General Manager said "…, through the cooperation of companies like UBTECH, we expect robots to provide critical services to the senior citizens, including the screening of health risk, continuous monitoring of the health, assessment and evaluations of medical plans, the early warning and intervention, the active and interactive companionship, and the cognitive and physical rehabilitation, etc." The two companies will continue to work together to build smart residential facilities to provide elderly-care services that meets the needs of the aging population in the community, to offer humanistic care, and to deliver comprehensive end-to-end service.

MCS Founder Takahashi Seiichi noted in a speech via remote video: "23 years ago, I started my first retirement facility in Japan. By 2017, we operated the largest number of dementia beds in Japan. Today, we operate a total of 322 healthcare facilities, including nursing homes and dementia treatment centers. Seven years ago, we opened a nursing home in Nantong, China, and subsequently launched new elderly care projects in other cities. Through the cooperation with UBTECH, we hope to combine the latest AI technology, intelligent robots and other products to transform the Chinese market." Grace Wang, Director of the MCS Group and the General Manager of MCS China, mentioned that the partnership will enable a smarter solution to provide services to the senior citizens, in 3 key areas: nursing and technology, digital transformation, and prevention.

Yong Li, General Manager of the China Academy of Transportation Sciences Group, said in his speech: "I look forward to working with UBTECH on the integration and innovation of the smart transportation and travelling, and creating a commercialized example model for the smart travelling in public handicap-accessible transportation hubs throughout China. "

The elderly-care service industry contributes over 20% of the GDP in developed countries, e.g., the European countries and the United States, compared with only 7% in China, representing a huge potential of the market. The size of the market in China is expected to reach 10.29 trillion Chinese Yuan (approx. $1.5 trillion USD) by 2022. By leveraging a comprehensive integration with the elderly-care industry, the high technology-driven elderly care services will help further improve the quality of life and wellness of all families, and benefit the country's aging population using innovative solutions.

Jian Zhou, the Founder, Chairman and CEO of UBTECH said, "We are committed to addressing the major challenges in communities of China, through our technological innovations, by delivering sustainable and real long-term values. In the elderly-care industry, we will leverage new and innovative AI-based solutions to better serve people and the communities, in which they reside, and accelerate the quality-focused growth of the intelligent healthcare sector."

UBTECH has accumulated over 10 years of experience and expertise in AI and intelligent robotics technology. Throughout the ongoing journey, from the exploration of creating services for the seniors in 2017, establishing an R&D center in North America focusing on the healthcare sector in 2019 and a healthcare business unit in 2021 focusing on applying solutions in various elderly-care scenarios, to the releasing its global strategy for smart elderly-care in 2022, UBTECH has been a pioneer and leader in the smart healthcare sector. UBTECH is committed to the vision of transforming the healthcare industry and the sustainable development of the elderly-care economy with innovative technologies, together with the partners in the industry.