"The number of older people, i.e. over 65 years of age, with complex care needs is growing - everywhere in Europe - and requires better integration and coordination between health and social services," reports Prof. Dr. Dr. Klaus Nagels, holder of the Chair of Medical Management and Health Services Research at the University of Bayreuth and coordinator of the new project. The complexity results from multimorbidity, increasing life expectancy and existing societal, social and economic factors and is becoming increasingly challenging. This is why the EU has launched the "Horizon Europe: Integrated care solutions, person-centered long-term care and overcoming territorial inequalities" program with corresponding funding.
Lena Schinner, research associate at the chair, explains the objectives of the project: "BUILD will first analyze the understanding of person-centered and integrated care for older adults in country-specific health care systems in order to understand the existing legal frameworks and current challenges (e.g. differences in Spain, Portugal or Germany). Based on this, a concrete framework will be developed to support policy makers in the implementation of person-centered and integrated care for older adults with complex care needs through ''Participatory Co-Design'' and ''Community Engagement''. This means that BUILD takes different perspectives into account: Communities, affected older adults with complex care needs, formal and informal caregivers, different stakeholders and policy makers at different regulatory levels. At the same time, they should be actively involved in decisions that affect their interests."
For policy makers, a toolkit will be developed that can be adapted to different country-specific circumstances and meet the urgent need for care solutions for older adults with complex care needs. This toolkit will ultimately be assessed for its socio-economic value and adapted to country-specific circumstances.
The grant agreement for the project was signed in October. The project is led by the Chair of Medical Management and Health Services Research at the University of Bayreuth, Professor Dr. Dr. Klaus Nagels. The project partners are the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt Foundation (Eichstätt), 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, S.A. (Oliveira de Azeméis) and the Danish Board of Technology (Copenhagen).
The project will start on March 1, 2024.
