An agent‐based architecture for managing the provision of community care – the INCA (Intelligent Community Alarm) experience

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Beer, Martin | Hill, Richard | Huang, Wei | Sixsmith, Andrew

Affiliations: School of Computing and Management Sciences, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, UK E‐mail: {m.beer, r.hill}@shu.ac.uk | Department of Computer Science, The University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZF, UK E‐mail: huang@csc.liv.ac.uk | Department of Primary Care, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK E‐mail: sixsmith@liv.ac.uk

Abstract: Community care is an area that requires extensive cooperation between independent agencies, each of which needs to meet its own objectives and targets. None are engaged solely in the delivery of community care, and need to integrate the service with their other responsibilities in a coherent and efficient manner. Agent technology provides the means by which effective cooperation can take place without compromising the essential security of both the client and the agencies involved as the appropriate set of responses can be generated through negotiation between the parties without the need for access to the main information repositories that would be necessary with conventional collaboration models. The autonomous nature of agents also means that a variety of agents can cooperate together with various local capabilities, so long as they conform to the relevant messaging requirements. This allows a variety of agents, with capabilities tailored to the carers to which they are attached to be developed so that cost‐effective solutions can be provided.

Keywords: Community care, agent applications, multi‐agent systems

Journal: AI Communications, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 179-192, 2003