In Germany, around six million people aged 65 and over live alone in their home environment. Their share of the population is steadily increasing due to demographic factors. If elderly people living alone suffer an emergency in their home and are consequently no longer able to make an emergency call themselves, emergency care can only be initiated when the person concerned is found by third parties. The longer it takes to initiate emergency care, the greater the risk of subsequent health damage. Home emergency call systems ("alarm button") can contribute to timely emergency assistance, but have so far only been offered to people with a certified degree of care via long-term care insurance.

The project is aimed at people aged 70 and older who live alone and have an age-related increased risk of falling. They are provided with an intelligent emergency detection system (INES) that goes beyond the standard home emergency call. Sensors installed in the home immediately detect falls, whereupon an emergency call is automatically sent. Depending on the need, emergency personnel are sent to the home and, if necessary, further emergency care is initiated.

In the regions of Hamburg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria, the use of INES is to be used as a model to show that it reduces consequential damage to the health of people who have fallen. For this purpose, among other things, the length of stay in hospital after the fall will be surveyed. Of the 1,832 persons participating in the project, half will be treated with INES as an intervention group, while the other half will receive standard care as a control group.

The task of OFFIS is the development of the data protection concept as well as the consolidation and quality assurance of the study data.