SimPat – Holistic care for patients with dementia

14.03.2016 13:34

As part of the “Service Action Plan 2020” under the measure “Service innovations through digitalization”, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research is promoting the SimPat concept - a holistic concept for caring for people with dementia and various illnesses. SimPat stands for “Ensuring intersectoral care through an IT-supported service concept for multimorbid patients with dementia”.

What does that mean? People with dementia often suffer from other age-related diseases, such as diabetes or fractures as a result of falls. Therefore, these patients have a variety of support needs that go beyond the needs that arise directly from dementia. In addition to inpatient and outpatient medical services from various specialists, rehabilitation measures, therapies and care services are also necessary, some inpatient, but also in the home environment. Holistic, patient-oriented care is based on a network of different disciplines and professions, some of which operate in different sectors of the health system.

The project partners already have experience with this complex supply situation: The challenge is to bring together all the necessary information centrally so that everyone involved in the network can access it as needed. While the patient has often compiled the required information themselves and is usually also responsible for implementing doctor's orders such as medication or further treatment, the patient suffering from dementia can contribute less and less to their case management as the disease progresses. Relatives and carers must therefore be regularly involved in the processes on behalf of the patient.

The aim of the interdisciplinary joint project SimPat is to develop IT-supported case management, implement it in practice and evaluate it. The IT solution is intended to support multimorbid patients with dementia, their relatives and carers in the care process and to facilitate interaction between the different service providers. In addition, e-learning modules expand knowledge on relevant, care-related topics.

In its complexity, SimPat goes beyond the possible uses in healthcare: digitalization as the central driver of growth and innovation today is changing the interaction in service processes. It makes increasingly complex systems reliably controllable and enables service innovations by linking previously separate service systems (here: medicine, nursing, rehabilitation).

Dr. Markus Horneber, consortium leader SimPat and CEO AGAPLESION gAG, outlines the business dimension: “SimPat is an example of the electronic mapping of complex service systems that, despite advancing standardization, require the highest possible level of individualization.” But what it is essentially about is ultimately “a “New quality of care and thus an increase in the quality of life of patients and their caring relatives while at the same time relieving the burden on professional carers.”

The interdisciplinary project is carried out by six partners from all over Germany:

• AGAPLESION non-profit AG, Frankfurt – Project management and coordination
• AGAPLESION ELISABETHENSTIFT, Darmstadt – Assist in the analysis and implementation of a prototype case management solution
• Christian Albrechts University of Kiel, Institute for Innovation Research – User-oriented design of the networked service system and innovation process
• German Foundation for the Chronically Ill, Fürth – Evaluation with associated situation and needs analysis
• TU Braunschweig, Peter L. Reichertz Institute for Medical Informatics at TU Braunschweig and Hannover Medical School – Development and implementation of an integrated cross-agency IT system for case management
• Sector5 GmbH, Cologne – Development and implementation of an e-learning concept

Further information about the project can be found online at www.simpat-demenz.de.