News & Publications

Challenges faced in the field of integrated health

Interview with Athanasios Zoutsos, Mayor of Pallini, Greece

The main challenges faced by Pallini in the field of integrated care can be identified at both national and local level. At national level, we should stress the lack of a nation-wide implemented patients files that would provide coherent and structured information on the physical, psychological and medical condition of the patient. This lack of information is an insurmountable handicap for policy planners when designing integrated care intervention and prevention programs matching to our citizens' needs.

One fall can make you old in a second!

It is exciting to see that the UHCE project is in the centre of developments in relation to active ageing On the spotline, an interview with Dr Lieve Fransen, Director for Social Policies in the Directorate for Employment and Social affairs at the European Commission. She will brief us on the Active Ageing Index, a tool to rank European countries in relation to their capacity to use the full potential of older people.

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International UHC2.0 meeting Pallini

26/27.05.2016

The Mayor of Pallini Athanasios Zoutsos welcomed and opened the General Assembly Meeting of the Urban Health Centers’Consortium on the 26th of May, 2016. On the first day after a brief overview of the state of affairs, each pilot site reported about its participation rate, progress of execution and local care provision in the falls, polypharmacy, loneliness and medical care pathways.

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Editorial

The UHCE consortium identified and improved evidence-based interventions (regarding frailty, integrated care pathways, polypharmacy, prevention of falls), and subsequently implemented these intervention is the real-life context of 5 European cities (Rijeka, Croatia; Pallini, Greece; Valencia, Spain; Manchester, UK; Rotterdam, Netherlands). Circa 1250 older citizens were involved in these implementation projects. Their experiences are being compared with those of circa 1250 other older citizens in the same cities who receive ‘usual care’.

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Innovation in Integrated Care, opportunities of the demographic change

Demographic change and ageing societies are widely accepted as major challenges facing Europe on an unprecedented scale. With regard to health and care systems, there is evidence that today's healthcare systems are not sustainable: More people will be dependent on others to care for them, fewer people will be productive and active in the economy. We expect a shortage of 20 million care-workers in the EU by 2020.

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Interview with: Boel Bolwig, mun. of Eskilstuna

Across Europe, we are facing a great challenge to develop the best possible health care for our elderly. It takes a holistic approach of the efforts that will be needed, ie integrating health care with social care. The result of the UHCE 2.0 project should be designed so that it is possible to transfer to the local conditions in each country on the basis of the organization and culture that prevails.

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Interview with: Joeri De Ren, Zorgbedrijf

Often toolboxes are quite academic and therefore hard to implement. A good toolbox aims at being applicable deep into the organization and has to facilitate understanding and insight for all staff involved in sharing and later implementing best practices. Therefore, a good toolbox is designed as to transferring knowledge in a short span of time, in a practical and even game-like fun way.

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Implementation of the “Falls pathway” @ Pallini

In Pallini case, during the first assessment of the individuals and by completing the questionnaire (T0) , we used the algorithm score in order to access if seniors needed to be integrated in the falls pathway or not. In few cases, there were indications for falls prevention from the clinical examination with MD, despite the case there was no indication from the questionnaire.

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Implementation of the “Falls pathway” @ Valencia

In the Valencia pilot site we have designed and implemented our own intervention programme to reduce risk of falling and falls among elderly. A physiotherapist has collaborated with the Polibienestar team on the programme design and implementation. This collaboration was based on the idea that physical exercise should be supervised by a professional, as well as the programme must be based on exercises that have demonstrated being effective on falls prevention.

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Implementation of the “Falls pathway” @ Rijeka

Risk analysis of falling was performed according to the generally accepted criteria. Preliminary assessment was performed with the questionnaire and measurement results done by patronage nurses. According to the results of questionnaire, 31,2% of participants experienced fall, and 56% of participants have a fear of falling. The decision making process was done according to the nurses’ opinion, experience and taking into account the points raised in the questionnaire.

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Better chances and opportunities for all citizens

From the 27th to the 29th of June 2016, the City of Rotterdam and three leading networks of the European authorities working in social care: European Network for Social Authorities (ENSA), European Local Inclusion and Social Action Network (ELISAN), and the Youth Care Platform had the pleasure of hosting the conference: “Innovation in care: better chances and opportunities for all citizens”. The conference, opened by the Mayor of Rotterdam, Mr. Ahmed Aboutaleb, sought to tackle challenges in health care services worldwide due to the changing social structure.

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Innovation in Care 2017 Brussels

The Urban Health Centers Europe project together with three leading networks of European authorities working in health care: EUROCITIES, ENSA (European Network for Social Authorities) and ELISAN (European Local Inclusion and Social Action Network) have the pleasure to invite you to a two day event entitled “Innovation in care: Urban ageing with Integrated Care in European cities” that will take place in Brussels on the 18th and 19th of May 2017.

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News from the EU

The second European Summit on Innovation for Active and Healthy Ageing took place in Brussels from 5-8 December 2016 . Last year's event looked into how digital innovation will "Transform the future of health and care in Europe" and unveiled a shared-vision on how the Digital Single Market can turn demographic change into an opportunity for social development and economic growth in Europe.