In 2002, a pioneering benchmark project was launched to validate the social utility of a telecare service to work outside the home. The proposal arises as a natural evolution of traditional home telecare services, which have been provided in Spain for more than 25 years. This project, which was called "Mobile Telecare", laid the foundations for current mobile telecare services, which in Spain are in full development and are provided for the elderly, people with disabilities or women victims of gender violence.
The mobile telecare service, based on the use of new communication and telelocation technologies, allows users to be put in contact with a center staffed by specialized personnel, in order to respond to any demands that may arise.
The advance of the so-called "Smartphones" and the joint innovation work carried out by the Red Cross and the Vodafone Spain Foundation has made it possible to stop using specific terminals to use conventional telephones, improving technical features (longer battery life, faster and more precise location), greater ease of use, customization capacity and greater accessibility for groups such as deaf people, who until now were excluded from the service.
The joint bet of Red Cross y Vodafone Foundation To meet this need and break the access barrier for deaf people, the implementation of the communication module for deaf people (SOTA) has materialized. This development has been the result of years of work, gathering the experience and recommendations of the TELPES project carried out by the Red Cross, Vodafone Foundation, CNSE, FCNSE and the collaboration of the Polytechnic University of Madrid and the TECSOS Foundation.
This new communication module is incorporated into the user's mobile telecare terminal, allowing in a simple way, through messages on the touch screen, to be able to establish communication with the Service Center.
