Arbitryum, how data can improve the quality of life in care homes for the elderly

Arbitryum is a digital platform that collects and analyses data from a wide variety of stakeholders (managers, employees, carers, etc.) in care homes for the elderly with the aim to improve the quality of life of their residents.

Arbitryum has been designed to meet the needs of any dependent eldery person living in a care home while supporting caregivers and health professionals. That represents almost 1 million elderly people in 10,000 care facilities throughout France. This number is set to increase as life expectancy increases. Indeed, INSEE estimates that the number of people aged over 85 will rise from 1.4 million to 5 million by 2060. 

With the average age of loss of autonomy at 83, support for the elderly is a more important priority for society than ever. This raises the question of “ageing well”. Today, the challenge of accommodating elderly people in France has created a social and political crisis as well as a crisis in trust. A survey conducted by Odoxa in 2019 gets to the heart of the issue: only 31% of French people had a positive image of residential care home for the elderly, compared to 56% in 2017. Moreover, the limited resources available to public residential homes and the excessive working hours of their employees are regularly singled out for criticism. 

This context renders it almost impossible to preserve the freedom of choice of dependent elderly people, whose numbers will dramatically increase over the next forty years. 

After three years of research in public health, Sabrina Albayrak has developed a tool to assess if the freedom of choice of eldery people is protected within residential care homes. With the aim of creating an easy-to-use assessment tool, Sabrina Albayrak and her team have launched an AI-based digital platform that helps nursing homes to better respect the choice of their residents.

Libre jusqu’au bout de sa vie

The solution has been named Libre jusqu’au bout de sa vie (Free until the end of one’s life) and is made up of four successive stages as follows:  

1. Arbitryum measures the quality of life in the eldery nursing home using questionnaires filled in by the stakeholders ;
2. An analysis report identifies points for improvement is sent to the institution;
3. The institution can then consult and select the actions to be implemented among the suggestions proposed by the platform;
4. Arbitryum continuously monitors the impact of the recommended actions in order to measure their effectiveness.

To have access to this service, a residential home for dependent eldery people must subscribe to an annual subscription calculated on the basis of the number of residents living there.

The data are collected from all the stakeholders identified above and are intended to encourage ethical and respectful professional practices, in addition to reaffirming the commitment to the preservation of human dignity. The analysis of the data collected leads to recommendations for action to be taken to increase the freedom of choice and therefore the fulfilment of residents. The effectiveness of the actions will then be assessed through an impact measurement study. 

Entraide

As well as its main activity, Arbitryum created a new digital platform during the Covid_19 crisis. The solution, Entraide, enables professionals and volunteers from the social and health sector to exchange ideas on common challenges and topics raised by the crisis. This creates a platform for everyone to get answers to their questions, to receive training or to share their good practices between peers and anonymously. 

In November 2020, Arbitryum won the governmental tender for a national project, “Structures 3.0”, in partnership with two eldery nursing homes of the French Red Cross and two other start-ups working in collaboration with the Association. They presented a project to use digital technology to improve care pathways as part of the French Ministry of Health’s roadmap “Accelerating the digital shift in health”. 

Strategic interest of the partnership between Arbitryum and the French Red Cross

Arbitryum wishes to help the French Red Cross to offer secure, shared accommodation, adapted care and activities that bring well-being and fulfilment by working with respect for the elderly, their habits, their expectations and their pace of life. 

The solution is aimed primarily at residential homes for dependent eldery people, but could also be extended to day care centres, nursing homes, elderly care centres and residences. The implementation of such an assessment tool could enable the French Red Cross to improve the quality of life of residents in retirement homes, and the feeling of usefulness of its professionals.

For Arbitryum, the partnership with the French Red Cross will enable to increase its database of more than 1500 users in order to refine its technology, to access a portfolio of retirement homes, to set up a Living Lab (User Experience Laboratory) with residents, professionals and managers, and to work with an organisation that shares the same convictions of respect for the freedoms of the elderly.