it has a dial which the owner turns to indicate his or her mood. A message is transmitted to social media: email, text, Facebook, IM, Twitter, etc. [So the “digitally excluded” users it is aimed at need to have an internet connection? It’s not clear. Ed. Steve] A 12 month trial with people with mental health problems is underway with South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.
More information (and a video of the designers talking about it) on the Sidekick Studio’s website, and comments on the development of the Buddy on their development blog. Fast Company article.
Buddy
Emma here at Sidekick, thanks for sharing Buddy with the telecare crowd. Please feel free to follow progress and make comment on the dev. blog
Question to Emma at Sidekick Studios
Do the “digitally excluded” users it is aimed at need to have an internet connection in order to use this?
Sidekick Studios – internet connection reply
Hi David,
Thanks for pointing this out, the simple answer is nope! The communication can work through an sms link up to a host which will then distribute the message as required…either, twitter or facebook, email, sms.
Hope that helps you, we’ll put more information on the blog as we go.
What a waste of public money
Most patients have internet connections nowadays so a web application would be so much more useful (and scaleable) and not require the NHS to buy silly hardware. Why do they hand out money for these useless projects?
Internet focus
I am not going to address whether this is appropriate use of public money. However Simon makes a dangerous generalisation in saying most patients have Internet connections. There are still high proportions of populations where computer use and Internet access are not common place.
Therefore we must be wary of worshipping Internet based solutions and look for mobile solutions to become more widely available.