The ACTIVATE project focuses on optimising care in intensive care units. The systemic approach addresses essential (non-medical) action requirements in the nursing care of critically ill ventilated patients in the course of weaning from the ventilator and/or waking up from a coma: communication and information as well as activation and participation.

The aim of ACTIVATE is to develop a socio-technical system to provide human-technology interaction (HTI) optimally adapted to anthropometry for users with temporary cognitive and physical impairments, in particular speech. This includes (1) the development of a technical (software) system for the context-sensitive integration of MTI components, (2) the development of a novel ball-shaped input device for use in bed and (3) the user-centred development of interaction mechanisms and content. The demonstrator developed in the project will be evaluated in a clinical field trial.

In contrast to previously available systems, ACTIVATE offers a hybrid approach consisting of automatic macro-adaptation to the input/output devices used and (semi-automatic) micro-adaptation to the respective patient condition. In addition, the innovative input device enables intuitive operation for the first time, even for seriously and critically ill patients.

Following the project, the system is to be marketed by the consortium leader REHAVISTA GmbH, a nationwide system house for medical products and services. An initial rough market analysis indicates a potential market of 2-3 million treatment cases and a demand of several thousand ACTIVATE systems per year. In addition to the sale of the hardware, the sale of the software and services for commissioning, instruction and training are planned.

From a scientific point of view, transferability to other fields of application in the care sector is possible. This includes the integration of third-party software components, the integration of further MTI hardware components and the transfer to other specialised medical departments in the inpatient and outpatient sector.

The work of the Institute for Multimedia and Interactive Systems (IMIS) focuses on the user-centred, context-specific development, design and evaluation of a multimodal human-technology interface that can be operated intuitively by the patient and can be adapted to the patient's performance during the waking/weaning phase. For the design of the user-centred human-technology interface, extensive research work (both in terms of the methodology used and the results achieved) from the field of age-appropriate design of human-technology interfaces can be used. In collaboration with the future users (former patients of the intensive care unit, nursing staff) and the other project partners, demonstrators will be developed in an iterative process in the IMIS creative lab. These are then evaluated in terms of software ergonomics in the institute's usability lab. To this end, methods for recording objective data are combined with methods for recording subjective data. Mature prototypes are then randomly tested in practice.

More detailed and up-to-date information can be found on the project website www.projekt-activate.de.