Ecosystems for integrated long-term care: KU expertise in a European research consortium

27.11.2023 15:50

The number of people over 65 with complex care needs is growing in all European countries. Eight European cooperation partners, including the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, are investigating how the care structures of long-term care can be organized sustainably, efficiently and in line with the needs of the people.

For them, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zerth, Professor of Management in Social and Health Care Institutions at the KU Faculty of Social Work, involved in the project “Building ecosystems of person-centered integrated care through co-creation (BUILD). The European Union is funding this with a total of 3.1 million euros over three years as part of the “Horizon Europe: Integrated care solutions, person-centred long-term care and overcoming territorial inequalities” program. The Chair of Medical Management and Health Services Research at the University of Bayreuth (Prof. Dr. Dr. Klaus Nagels) is taking charge of the overall project.

“The growing complexity as a result of demographic developments is putting pressure on existing care offerings in all European countries, which tend to be episodic and primarily medically oriented, but do not take the overall process into account. However, it is often important to pre-plan various possible needs, for example in the context of care transitions,” explains Professor Zerth. For example, if an older person is discharged from the hospital after treating a fracture of the femoral neck, this not only requires follow-up treatment. It should also be checked whether your own apartment needs adjustments or what support the family needs for future care. The person-centered nature of the project therefore aims to consciously take medical, nursing and social needs into account in an integrative manner in the sense of an ecosystem. “Ecosystem means a combination with and from various social actors who can address the question of social participation in rural structures, for example when traditional family-based support may only be less pronounced,” explains Zerth.

The researchers hope to gain momentum from a systematic inventory of successful projects with an integrating perspective in various European countries, which will be carried out as part of BUILD. Differences in terms of access and the nature of the provision of nursing services should be taken into account, as well as gender-specific aspects. Zerth reports: “Family care is still very often carried out primarily by women, who later often find more difficult care arrangements in their own area of life when their own care needs arise and therefore have to make disproportionate use of inpatient long-term care offers, for example in Germany. Developing integrative care systems in a participatory manner, “Therefore offers the opportunity to take up the different facets of user perspectives and the question of what care responsibility can be expected from a social perspective in order to discover “blind spots” in the reality of care.”

BUILD takes into account different perspectives from municipalities, affected older adults with complex care needs, formal and informal carers, various interest groups and policy makers at different regulatory levels. With the participatory involvement of users and community management, those involved want to work on a European long-term care “toolkit”. This toolkit for decision-makers is based on social science and socio-economics by the researchers involved in BUILD and aims to contribute to developing a European policy strategy for integrated long-term care.

Professor Zerth is involved in the project in both the European inventory of ecosystems relevant to care and the relevant regulatory framework, as well as the systematization of the state of knowledge and the development of the decision-making toolkit and its validation. He will also contribute his expertise in social impact measurement, for example with regard to the social return on investment. This model, known in German as “social return”, offers the opportunity to evaluate not only the economic but also the social effects of measures.

The research consortium is led by the Chair of Medical Management and Health Services Research at the University of Bayreuth, Professor Dr. Dr. Klaus Nagels. In addition to the KU, the consortium included: Karl Landsteiner Private University for Health Sciences GmbH (Krems), Charles University (Prague), University of Lisbon, Lisbon School of Economics and Management (Lisbon), Fundación Avedis Donabedian (Barcelona), VICESSE Research GmbH (Vienna ), GLOBAZ, SA (Oliveira de Azeméis) and the Danish Board of Technology (Copenhagen). The project will start in March next year.