CommonWell delivers ICT-supported, integrated social and health care services at four sites in Europe: Andalucia in Spain, Bielefeld in Germany, Veldhoven in the Netherlands and Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom.
At two sites (Andalucia and Bielefeld), platforms and services mainly focus on supporting independent living of older people, while Veldhoven and Milton Keynes focus on supporting the management of common chronic diseases.
The CommonWell approach is being applied to a major gap in service provision for older people at German care provider Johanneswerk. It relates to the needed improvement in the effectiveness of co-operation between social care and healthcare providers on admissions to hospital, and subsequent discharge.
Overall, co-operation between the social alarm centre, the emergency call centre, the rescue co-ordination centre and the hospital is improved. Ambulance crew and clinicians are able to act more effectively, adverse effects of emergency medication can be avoided and care providers are continually in the picture about the location of their clients.
In Andalucía, FASS- as a non-profit organisation of the Andalucía Government- is responsible for the provision of social care and independent living services, and operates the largest telecare service in Europe. EPES is the Andalucían emergency health service provider, responsible for emergency calls from users in the whole region, providing emergency health care to 8 million inhabitants.
Calls to the FASS service centre can be made from fixed or wireless terminals in the clients' homes. In case of an emergency, the clients can push the alarm button and, depending on the nature of the call, the service centre will give adequate and fast response contacting the EPES service. EPES provides a 24/7 service dealing with calls from healthcare emergencies and providing health-related information and advice. EPES is also coordinating collective emergencies and epidemic critic situations. The CommonWell project will provide FASS users with a high quality service by integrating the information from both emergency and social care services into one common platform. Integration includes voice and data transfer, enabling faster response in emergency situations, and enabling citizens with need for social care identified by EPES to be put in contact easily via FASS with the appropriate social services.
PoZoB and Smart Homes work together to integrate social and healthcare in Veldhoven, focusing on patients with chronic heart failure. The general practitioner, a nurse practitioner and a case manager at a call centre work closely together in order to provide much more integrated medical and social care. The patient has a single point of access, and a single telephone number to obtain support on medical and social issues. To respond in a timely fashion to exacerbation of heart failure symptoms, these patients are equipped with telehealth monitors.
The goal of the pilot is to improve communication between care providers, to integrate social and healthcare and to improve health outcomes for patients, particularly those with chronic heart failure.
Milton Keynes Council and Milton Keynes Community Health Services (PCT) are working together to develop effective ways of helping people in the community who are managing with a chronic and unstable long-term condition. The aim is to reduce unnecessary admissions to hospital and to facilitate early supported discharge from hospital following an exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Telehealth readings are monitored on a daily basis and critical information is passed to a named clinician who is able to facilitate early intervention and prevent a rapid deterioration which could lead to an unnecessary admission to hospital. CommonWell is enabling health and social care data to be integrated to provide more comprehensive and complete patient information which can be used to deliver more joined up and responsive service.
Learn more about the CommonWell use cases that will be implemented at each of the sites...