The Thai unit of the Japanese IT and electronics company NEC is helping turn Chiang Mai, a city north of Bangkok and the second largest city in Thailand, into a smart city by first digitising its delivery of care to the elderly and patients with chronic diseases.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

The municipality of Chiang Mai and NEC Thailand recently signed a memorandum of understanding for the development of smart city solutions, including smart hospital technologies to support its provision of elderly care.

The first phase of the project involves the deployment of IoT devices in participating healthcare facilities and an application for caregivers and families that provides alerts on falls and abnormal health conditions of the patient.

In the second phase, a cloud-based application that allows remote health monitoring, as well as managing appointments and medication requests, will be rolled out.

In the final phase, NEC will enable telemedicine services to allow patients to receive diagnoses and get on consultations with doctors from their homes.

THE LARGER CONTEXT

For the past two decades, Thailand has been deemed an ageing society, given that senior people aged 60 and above account for a tenth of its population. Their number is projected to continuously rise and make up about 30% of the population by 2040. 

NEC Thailand is helping the local government to brace for the impact of an ageing population, particularly the increase in healthcare demand, by digitising care delivery for the elderly. 

It first tried out the Mimamori (meaning "to watch over and protect" in Japanese) system with a nursing home in Chiang Mai last year. It features an online care plan manager for digitising paper records; a mobile app that alerts families of changes in the patient's condition; a medical alert system that includes NEC's 4D fall detection sensors installed in bedrooms and bathrooms. Findings from the trial showed significant increases in the effectiveness and efficiency of staff, raised staff satisfaction, as well as reduced paper waste by 70%.

ON THE RECORD

"Thailand needs to evolve its healthcare system to manage the effects of an ageing population, and we are glad to take the first step together with the local authorities to develop a digital health platform in three key phases for patients in Chiang Mai," said NEC Thailand President Ichiro Kurihara.

"With the digital platform for Chiang Mai's healthcare system in phase one, we aim to enhance access to quality medical services and improve the overall well-being of residents," he added.