"Save Aria" SKT Surpasses 500 Emergency Care Rescue Cases

Park So-sun (female, 83), residing in Changwon, Gyeongnam, fell inside her home on the morning of January 10 and injured her waist. Ms. Park shouted, "Aria, save me," and as she expressed severe pain through the speaker, she was transported to the hospital emergency room via the 119 ambulance. A CT scan at the hospital revealed a fractured vertebra, a serious injury requiring surgery. Thanks to being immediately transported to the hospital, she was able to receive emergency surgery.

A family in Seongdong-gu, Seoul is using AI care services.

On the 7th, SK Telecom announced that the number of emergency rescue cases linked to its AI speaker NUGU-based ‘Emergency SOS’ service has surpassed 500. SKT’s AI care service was developed to support the daily lives of elderly people living alone in an aging society. It provides various functions including emergency rescue, information delivery, schedule management, and cognitive ability enhancement.

SKT provides AI care services to about 17,000 elderly people under care in 93 local governments and institutions nationwide. When users face an emergency, they can request help from 119 or control centers with simple phrases such as "Aria, save me" or "Aria, emergency SOS."

Since the service began in April 2019 until early May this year, about 6,000 ‘Emergency SOS’ calls have been made. Among these, cases that led to 119 emergency rescues have now exceeded 500.

Of the total 500 ‘Emergency SOS’ call cases, 52% were related to emergency symptoms such as cerebral hemorrhage, hypotension, acute abdominal pain, and acute headache. Cases where underlying conditions like asthma, hypertension, and herniated discs worsened accounted for 25%, and 20% were requests for help due to safety accidents occurring in daily life such as falls and slips.

By time of day, 74% of calls were received between evening and early morning hours when it is difficult to get help from others, about three times more than during working hours (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.).

Seasonally, emergency rescue requests were highest during the autumn transitional period (September to October) at 19%. This was followed by the spring transitional period (late February to April, 15%), the cold season (December to February, 15%), and the heatwave period (July to August, 12%).

SKT also provides a function that analyzes negative verbal expressions such as feelings of isolation and depression expressed by users through the AI speaker and connects them to visiting nurses or psychological counselors. About 800 psychological counseling sessions have been provided over the past three years.

On the 8th, SKT will sign a business agreement with the Ministry of Health and Welfare for the ‘Love Link Project for Elderly Living Alone’ and plans to provide the ‘NUGU Biz Call’ service to local governments and comprehensive support centers for elderly living alone over the next eight months.

SKT’s NUGU Biz Call is used to check on the well-being of care recipients suffering from insomnia, loneliness, underlying diseases, and to identify welfare service needs such as discomforts of the recipients.

SKT plans to continuously enhance AI and big data-based services such as the ‘AI Care Service’ and ‘NUGU Biz Call’ to minimize safety gaps for elderly people living alone under care.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.