The Tele-Service for Seniors (TESS) is a video telephony-based social support service for older people living in their own flat, i.e. not in an institutional setting. Its availability is restricted to the area of Bielefeld in the North-West of Germany where it is offered by Evangelisches Johanneswerk (JOW), one of the main welfare organisations providing support services to older people in the region. The service was initially implemented in the context of a three-years pilot project supported by German Telekom. It refers to an overall concept developed by the "Institut Arbeit und Technik", a research and development agency of the Federal State of North-Rhine-Westphalia together with empirica, a private research and consultancy organisation. This concept - the so called "virtual older people's home" ("virtuelles Altenheim") - aims at remotely providing access to a wide range of services to which older people would otherwise have access only when living in an institutional setting.
The TESS service has successfully passed the pilot phase and is now being offered on a regular basis. Despite the fact that the service is very much appreciated by current customers, a range of problems still need to be overcome if a wider client-base is to be reached. This case-study illuminates some interesting experiences with regard to:
last update 2002-03-18