ValueCare is a Horizon2020 project that started in December 2019 and is coordinated by the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam. The consortium consists of 17 participants from 8 different EU countries:Italy, Spain, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Croatia.
The project’s aim is to deliver efficient outcome-based integrated care for older people who suffer from cognitive impairment, frailty, and multiple chronic health conditions. This will be supported by a robust, secure, and scalable digital solution to be tested and evaluated in seven large-scale pilots in Europe. The goal is to improve the quality of life of older people and their families, while also making European health and social care systems more sustainable.
Last month two dynamizing deliverables dedicated to pilot sites were finalised in the framework of the ValueCare project.
The first Deliverable collects the methodologies the pilot sites can use in involving the local stakeholders such as health authorities, municipalities, insurance companies in the design of the new integrated care pathways as a trial to be tested into the existing regulations framework.
The aim is to motivate people to participate as agents in determining the organizational care model approach, for each specific target disease, providing creative contribution and expressing what really matters for them in the area of integrated care in older age.
It is a “journey” that involves several steps:
1/ identifying significant contact points
2/ mapping stakeholders (they are considered the core of co-creation and their contribution to social and health innovation is essential)
3/ contacting the professionals
4/ choosing the right social networks and influencers
5/ engaging the volunteers
6/ developing the profile of the personas
7/ organize public events for co-design.
The second Deliverable comprises the guidelines to implement the co-design activities in the seven ValueCare pilot sites. Concretely, the guidelines provide the pilot sites with the tools to implement the co-design activities for each of the ValueCare target groups (older people and their families, health and social practitioners and health and social care managers): organisational tips, questions and supporting documents (checklists and reporting sheets). Due to the COVID-19, the project partners have been pressured to provide the solutions to approach the target groups virtually. The supportive technologies consider for example the use of wearable devices connected to a remote Virtual Coach that support the adoption of the healthy behaviours, were included in the guidelines.
Those deliverables will guide the co-design process at the pilot sites and the indications they contain are flexible and adaptable to the challenges and the uncertainty brought by COVID19. The pilots will have the opportunity to choose the most appropriate approach for their target groups. Every pilot will carry out the codesign process according to the project schedule and the local COVID19 situation, says Vanja Vasiljev from Faculty of Medicine University of Rijeka, Croatia, coordinator of pilot activities of ValueCare project.
Both deliverables will be soon published on the project website: projectvaluecare.eu
Authors: Oscar Zanutto, ISRAA / Mireia Ferri Sanz, K-veloce / Vanha Vasiljev, University of Rijeka, Croatia / Karolina Mackiewicz, ECHAlliance
