A Support System for Home Care Service Based on Multi-agent System

According to the increase of high quality welfare services in Japan, welfare services need engineering supports. In this paper, we develop a support system for a home care service, using a multi-agent system. The decision of a care schedule is performed autonomously by the negotiations among agents so that it is sufficient for clients and helpers to confirm schedules settled by the agents. They can confirm the schedules using PDAs, which can be easily handled even by elders. Consequently, it is expected that our support system reduces the total cost of a home care service.