April 23 20221

How Camanio Care is digitizing Swedish care homes.

Our subsidiary Camanio Care has pivoted to developing digital services for Swedish elderly care. Now a partnership with Siemens is helping the company to roll out this new strategy.

Five years ago, the Swedish government introduced an e-health vision for 2025. It stated that the country would aim to be world-leading in terms of using digital services to support health and welfare.

This is primarily about addressing the needs of older adults, who represent an increasing proportion of Sweden’s demographic. The number of aging people is rising so fast that the government has said it needs to build up to 600 new care homes before 2028. Faced with such demand, the country’s healthcare system needs smart digital solutions that help care workers in providing remote assistance for seniors.

“Camanio Care’s offering used to be about devices, but under the leadership of CEO Catharina Borgenstierna the company is now focusing exclusively on developing its digital service platform: Camanio SmartCare.”

This is the market served by Brighter subsidiary Camanio Care. Since 2011, the company has delivered welfare-assistance technology to more than 50% of Sweden’s 290 municipalities. Camanio Care’s offering used to be about devices, but under the leadership of CEO Catharina Borgenstierna the company is now focusing exclusively on developing its digital service platform: Camanio SmartCare.

“We’re going through a transition from a product company to a platform company, streamlining our business to focus on smart care services,” says Borgenstierna. “While municipalities in Sweden have a lot of digital tools available to them, they are struggling with widespread implementation and shifting their operations to digital. We’re helping them bring it all together.”

Building on existing behavior

The strategy with Camanio’s SmartCare platform is to support the company’s own or third-party hardware and services through a single dashboard for care workers. This dashboard can be monitored from within a care home or remotely.

The first major use case for the platform is centered around care alarms. Used in Sweden since the 1970s, a care alarm is a button that a senior can press to call for assistance. These buttons used to be analogue, but now they are digital. Swedish municipalities regularly procure such alarms, which is why Camanio Care decided to focus on this service as the central component of its offering.

That strategy is paying off: in October 2020, the company won a nationwide framework agreement with The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) for stationary and mobile care alarms. This means that Camanio Care is now one of five companies from which SALAR can procure such alarms.

“The agreement with SALAR shows that Camanio is able to compete in the market for care alarms. It opens many doors and opportunities for us in Sweden,” says Borgenstierna.

Smart real-estate tech with Siemens

Camanio is now taking its strategy a step further through an important partnership with Siemens. The German conglomerate is a big provider of hospital equipment around the globe, and the partners see an opportunity in combining their expertise and market positions to develop new solutions for Swedish care homes.

“All these sensor features can be tailored to meet the specific care needs of each individual within a facility.”

“The partnership with Siemens means we can connect our care platform with the care facilities’ smart infrastructure,” says Borgenstierna. “There are a lot of synergies in terms of utilizing sensors, with everything from indoor positioning of the individual in need of care, to controlling lighting and other energy consumption within the facility.”

“We can offer packages that include internet connectivity, routers and new services such as voice control, door control and temperature control. All these sensor features can be tailored to meet the specific care needs of each individual within a facility.”

“By offering this kind of integrated solution, you can actually include the investment of the digital care into an overall facility-management fee. It’s changing the way we do business going forward,” says Borgenstierna.

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