Digital Companion for intelligent support and interactive experience

The project »Digital Companion for intelligent assistance and interactive experience« (short »DiCo«) pursues the innovative approach to promote digitisation in care through the development of an AI-controlled assistance system. Care institutions are supported both in the digital transformation process and in the selection of suitable technology.

The »Digital Companion« is able to …

• sensitise nurses and managers in care institutions to success factors of the digital transformation in care,
• assess the organisation's state or readiness of development with regard to digital transformation,
• methodically support the participatory development of a digitisation strategy in such a way that the focus of digitisation is on the concrete needs of staff and the people to be cared for,
• provide suitable e-learning formats,
• analyse specific requirements for digital technologies according to processes and conditions in the care facility,
• propose appropriate technologies and identify their requirements, advantages and disadvantages as well as training needs.

With the help of AI, the Digital-Companion is context-sensitive ("takes into account the situation of the users"), user-oriented ("target group-specific and user-friendly without the need for prior knowledge"), dynamic ("presentation and content based on user input"), multimedia ("different media formats such as text, image, video"), multimodal ("different input and output options / different input and output devices") and self-learning ("learns from user input and feedback").

The project addresses the core problems of digital transformation in care: Decisions to purchase certain technologies are often taken impulsively and often solely by the management level of social organisations. Digitisation is reduced to individual technologies and not understood as an organisational transformation process. The effects of technology on structures and processes in the organisation are neglected. The process of digitisation is not embedded in strategic considerations and is not based on the employee requirements. The competence development of employees is neglected.

In contrast, DiCo relies on a digital assistance system for a participatory, strategic, demand-oriented transformation process accompanied by the development of skills.

The findings from the project will be published and made available to all care institutions.