Introduction
Care is currently characterised by a professional approach, where health and social care are isolated from each other. To increase quality of life and independent living and to control costs, self-supporting methods and infrastructures are needed. An integrated care concept must be organized in the local context where informal and formal infrastructures can be connected, and where community-, social-, and health-focused organizations are collaborating.
The Urban Health Centres 2.0 (UHC2.0) project promote innovative integrated health and social care pathways, early detection of frailty, management of polypharmacy and prevention of falls for active and healthy ageing in European cities.
The general objective is to develop, implement, and evaluate the UHC2.0 in five varied European cities that will act as pilot sites, in order to produce and disseminate a transferable and easily implementable model for the innovative UHC2.0. The UHC2.0 should be a platform for the realisation of the priorities of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. To pursue the goals of UHC2.0, we will deploy nurse practitioners (or other high level professionals in collaboration with primary care physicians), and we will apply ICT tools that are available at the local level to promote integrated care and health.
Project description
An integrated care concept must be organised in the local context where informal and formal infrastructures can be connected, and where community-, social-, and health-focused organisations are collaborating. In this project, innovative Urban Health Centres 2.0 (UHC2.0) will integrate health and social care, preferably in one location. Here, older citizens and patients will be put at the centre of care in their neighbourhoods. A population-oriented, pro-active approach will be applied, instead of mainly handling symptoms and diseases.
Three important priorities in this UHC2.0 project
- prescription and adherence action;
- personal health management starting with a falls prevention initiative;
- action for prevention of functional decline and frailty.
By the end of 2016, we will prepare a model for innovative Urban Health Centres 2.0. The model will have been implemented in Manchester, Pallini, Rijeka, Rotterdam and Valencia, and thoroughly evaluated by our team of experts. We will prepare a tool box including a concise policy document which will enable wide-spread implementation of urban health centres in European cities and support policy-making to increase the number of healthy life years for citizens.