Microsoft uses tech to address social care challenges - Philippa Lynch

Microsoft has joined a UK-wide group that aims to enable older adults to remain in their own home and reduce the country’s £20 billion annual social care bill.

The technology company has teamed up with the Agile Ageing Alliance (AAA), a social business made up of more than 600 private and public organisations to look at how new homes and conversions can contain technology to meet the needs of an ageing population. AAA, which has released a white paper on the ageing issue entitled Neighbourhoods of the Future, has enlisted Microsoft to help.

Microsoft has launched a health bot in the US, which uses AI to help medical professionals treat patients, while its InnerEye research project is using AI to help doctors treat diseases such as cancer. They form part of Healthcare NeXT, a series of initiatives announced earlier this year to help organisations use intelligent technology to improve the lives of people across the world. This AI technology, underpinned by the Azure cloud platform, can be used in homes to learn more about patients and connect them with healthcare workers when issues arise.