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SoCaTel co-creation platform

Twinning solution

Digital co-creation for existing gaps in the long-term care (LTC) service design and delivery

Twinning type

Full adoption

Main policy priority

Digital tools for citizen empowerment and for person-centred care

Originator

Rovira i Virgili University (Spain)

Adopter(s)

Istituto per Servizi di Ricovero e Assistenza agli Anziani (Italy)

Short description

The SoCaTel co-creation platform and its five-step method allow the digital co-creation of long-term care (LTC) services. The particularity is its holistic approach including formal carers (health-care personal), as well as informal carers, such as family members, elderly citizens, and academic researchers in a joint effort to find the best solutions for existing gaps in the LTC service design and delivery. It will result in the development (materialisation) of concrete service(s) addressing the unmet needs of both older adults and care practitioners in the current COVID-19 pandemic context (isolation, lack of integrated care, amongst others). Benefits for end-users, professionals, and healthcare systems are huge, ranging from enhanced citizen participation in decision making about the new and better services, community building, a more efficient organisation of service delivery, improved policies addressing people’’s real needs, and an obviation of the waste of economic and human resources (cost-effectiveness). This Twinning initiative substantially fosters the capacity building of health care institutions in the region of Veneto providing at the same time significant evidence for EU policymaking.

News

Twinning activities

1) Kick off meeting: partners’ presentation, agreement on activities and timeline, planning of training and first webinar date, management of formal issues; 2) Monthly Consortium Meeting: activities management, updates, discussion on current topics; 3) Weekly/bi-weekly meeting among main researchers for internal coordination and training; 4) Internal training on the use of the platform; 5) Internal training for adopting the role of facilitator; 6) Evaluation of the ethical and privacy framework; 7) Technical activities; 8) Presentation of the platform to potentially interested adopters; 9) Creation of support material; 10) Dissemination activities (webinars, use of social media, websites and the newsletter)

Outcomes

The DigitalHealthEurope (DHE) twinning SoCaTel aims to create and implement a multi-stakeholder co-creation platform, which fosters ageing-in-place in a friendly environment and community. Coordinated by Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain) and adopted by ISRAA – Istituto per Servizi di Ricovero e Assistenza agli Anziani (Italy), the SoCaTel platform is an innovative digital tool putting care services in the digital dimension and bringing together families of people with cognitive impairment and professional caregivers. This way, the twinning creates a communication channel encouraging dialogue and exchange of information for better support of the patients with cognitive impairment.

Added value and benefits

During the SoCaTel twinning implementation, the two partners identified several topics of common interest that could benefit both parties. The final choice fell on the digitalisation of the Alzheimer’s Café. The co-creation of the SoCaTel platform has not only provided an opportunity to continue the meetings but also enabled family members and caregivers to bring their suggestions, thus bringing both sides even closer to the real and changing needs stemming from everyday life with patients.

Barriers and success factors

The following barriers were identified: Lacking of digital competences among the involved social actors, scepticism of some stakeholders towards the adoption of digital support as an alternative to face to face discussion sections and difficulties in downloading and run the platform. However, the twinning partners were able to come up with solutions for each of the potential barriers.

Outlook

The successful launch of the twinning made it possible to gather further ideas for creating a digital solution that could be complementary to the original service when the conditions for a relaunch arise. Furthermore, the fact that SoCaTel is an open-source platform that can be adopted, updated and improved opens up new perspectives on “tailored” support to families and their loved ones.

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