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Background:
Europe’s ageing society faces a growing gap in long-term care (LTC) resources. The Care about Care project developed a Remote Care Assist (RCA) system to support LTC staff.
Objectives:
The project aimed to develop and evaluate a robust, mixed-reality- capable communication infrastructure for home care workers. This case report (a) details requirements for a communications infrastructure, (b) examines challenges in field testing, and (c) describes the transition to an alternative approach. It also provides a glimpse into a new solution used in a follow-up project.
Methods:
User requirements were gathered through co-creation workshops across three countries. Technical requirements focused on modularity, security, integration, and cross-platform usability. The initial implementation used Asterisk and was tested with ∼300 participants.
Results:
The field test revealed persistent video quality issues with Asterisk, attributed to its WebRTC implementation. A switch to Kamailio resolved these issues, improving video quality but sacrificing group call capabilities.
Conclusion:
Pre-testing is limited, highlighting the necessity of field testing. Emerging frameworks like LiveKit could be an alternative for follow-up projects.
