VIPSAFE is a R&D Project fruit of a collaboration between two research centers: Sabanci University and Kalrsruhe Institut of Technology, and two companies: Videmo and Vistek. This 36 month long project is co-funded by Tübitak and BMBF with the main goal of improving patients’ safety by means of automated visual monitoring.

Population ageing is taking place in every country and region across the globe due to the rising life expectancy and the declining of birth rates. At the same time, the nations are facing an explosion of costs in the health-care sector as threating elderly people is 3 to 5 times more expensive than for those under 65. The dramatic increase of the elderly population along with the explosion of costs poses extreme challenges to society.

Thus under VIPSAFE we develop novel techniques for automated visual monitoring of patients and elder people living in nursing homes or in their (assisted) home environments. We are developing vision-based sensors to determine if someone has fallen, if someone has not arisen from bed, whether a patient in the intensive care unit is showing unusual behavior or whether a patient is about to hurt himself by removing life-keeping devices or cables from his body.

Such automated techniques to detect critical and possibly life-threatening situations can then be used to automatically alert clinical personnel or care providers. This systems will thus have a direct impact in improving patient safety in hospitals and nursing homes.