Cáritas Coimbra Innovation meets to prepare the large scale pilot implementation in Portugal
The Innovation Department of Cáritas Coimbra met again on 31 May to discuss the implementation of the pilot ValueCare project.
Approved under the H2020 programme, ValueCare intends to provide a digital solution at the level of integrated and efficient social and health care, aimed at improving the life quality of older people (with cognitive decline, frailty, vulnerability conditions or multiple comorbidities), as well as their formal and informal caregivers. To ensure its efficiency, the digital solution will be tested and evaluated through 7 large-scale pilots in Europe (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Netherlands, Ireland). The project consortium is composed of 17 entities from 8 European Union countries, under the coordination of the Erasmus Medical Centre.
Cáritas Coimbra is the entity responsible for implementing and testing the pilot in Portugal, dedicated to the social isolation risk of older people. This pilot will involve about 240 participants, between intervention and control groups, so it is essential to hold these planning meetings. Many of these sessions are also attended by representatives of the institution’s Nursing Homes and Day Care Centres, since these facilities will receive the pilot to be tested throughout one year. Thus, besides contributing to the implementation planning, they have continuous training about the ValueCare solution.
The pilot starts this month, aiming, essentially, to consolidate the local and community ecosystem of actors around these older people, ensure that none of them is neglected in relation to the necessary support (in the social and health fields) and explore the potential of ValueCare technology in the strengthening and efficiency of communication between formal and informal caregivers (in the social and health sectors) of older adults.
