CommonWell for care professionals

Older people often need services from both social care and healthcare professionals, such as support with activities of daily living and support in managing chronic conditions.

For various reasons, these services are today usually delivered independently. For care professionals this can lead to quite practical difficulties, e.g. if important patient information are available only at one provider but not at another, or if double or adverse treatments occur. As a consequence, the quality and efficiency of care provision can decrease as well as the quality of life and health status of the patient.

CommonWell implemented ICT-based integrated services in four countries to demonstrate and provide evidence on how an efficient, integrated provision of social care and healthcare can be achieved.

What does integrated eCare mean for me as a care professional?

Integrated eCare can mean many things. Within CommonWell, "integration" referred to the joint provision of social care and health care services addressed to older people. "eCare" encompasses electronic devices that are used to support service delivery in anyway, such as telecare and telehealth, but also back-end solutions such as call centre software or electronic patient files.

Under the heading of integrated eCare, many different types of care services are possible. CommonWell piloted four service concepts in four places in Europe, all supported by a common approach and technical architecture.

One of the many lessons learned by project participants was the integrated eCare can meet diverse demands from servicer providers, care professionals and clients. You can read more about this here...

Why should it be done?

For Europe and many other countries around the word, the ongoing demographic developments will have significant implications on social care and healthcare systems and the way care services are provided. In the future, there will be more older people in absolute as well as relative terms and more very old people who are likely to be in need of greater and more diverse levels of support. At the same time it is expected that the number of carers will decrease due to several societal and economic reasons. These changes will result in challenges for both care provider organisations but also care professionals themselves who are responsible for the provision of care to older people.

One of the means that have the potential to help addressing the challenges mentioned above is new technology applications. Technology applications can support care professionals in fulfilling their daily work routines and managing their work in a more efficient way. In particular, joined-up information from healthcare and social care systems, easily accessible through an IT platform for example, can support care professionals to get a more holistic view of the client and tailor the support on offer. It increases care professionals’ overview of what has been happening over a period of time rather than just assessing the patients as they appear on the day of their appointment. Access to patient information from health and social care systems can enable carers to give a much better response to increasing needs of their patients, thus providing earlier and more specific care to avoid exacerbations and acute onset of the condition. This in turn influences care professionals’ perception of effectiveness of their work and overall job satisfaction.

What are the benefits for my clients and me?

The evaluation of the CommonWell pilots showed that integrated eCare service can bring about tangible benefits to all involved. Foremost, there are positive impacts on older people, including those with chronic conditions, and their relations with caring responsibility. But also social and health care professionals as well as service providers can benefit from integrated services.

How can I do it?

CommonWell showed that integrated eCare services can be implemented into existing working practice with reasonable effort. It also showed ways how specific types of integrated services can be set up. What is often required is a rethinking of how care is provided as well as patience and open-mindedness when it comes to defining new ways of working.