Proactive Telecare - Promoting personal autonomy, improving quality of life and facilitating healthy ageing.
Authors: Pavlickova Andrea , Watson Doreen , Henderson Donna , Quinones Delgado Pablo , Vargas Casas Jose , Baillie Gary 
Published: January 2024

Background: Telecare is defined as support to maintain or improve person's health and wellbeing, independent living and/or to tackle loneliness and social isolation, or to anticipate and prevent crises, provided using an outgoing call made to people's home. Outgoing calls are made regularly based on a person's choice, or in response to a need or another trigger event. Proactive services are tailored to service users' needs, delivering a coordinated mix of several elements of care and support e.g. wellness, check, meal/hydration reminders appointment reminders, birthday calls, etc. Over the last years, the main reason for calling telecare service has been the need for social contact and support. The wellbeing and social support of telecare users has a positive impact on their health status and therefore on the public expenditure.  Given the size and heterogeneity of users, there has been a need to maximise the efficiency and efficacy of the service by adapting it to specific profiles and situations.  This has been achieved by developing specific solutions such as: APPs and mobile devices to improve the accessibility to the service, collection of information and measurement of key indicators on the users general habits and lifestyle; setting gas and smoke detectors to increase the safety of our users; provision of specific campaigns to alert and prevent risk situations such as the flu campaign, heat wave campaign and  preventing isolation through the Christmas campaign;  or support of the health service in the provision of medical appointments and medical advice, specially over the last year with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: This workshop is an opportunity to explore the potential of digital solutions and proactive telecare to promote personal autonomy, improve quality of life and facilitate healthy ageing of elderly people, people with disabilities and people in a dependent situation. It will feature in details the experience from two regions, Scotland and Andalusia, in implementing proactive telecare in real-life settings with citizens at the centre of designing, implementing and evaluating telecare solutions. Each region is at different pace of proactive telecare implementation increasing thus potential for mutual learning and exchange of good practices, including the learning about the practicalities, pitfalls, outcomes and costs of this new way of working.

Format

1.Welcome and Introduction

Donna Henderson, Scottish Government, Scotland [5’]

2.Proactive telecare services in Scotland - What, why and how to deliver proactive services?

Doreen Watson, Scottish Government, Scotland [15’]

3.Proactive telecare services in Andalusia - What, why and how to deliver proactive services?

Pablo Quinones Delgado, Junta de Andalucia, Andalusia [15’]

4.Facilitated discussion & conclusive remarks

Donna Henderson, Scottish Government, Scotland [25’]

Target Audience: A wide spectrum of stakeholders is being targeted: national and regional decision-makers, health and social care authorities, professionals, managers and academia.

Learning/Take away: The proactive telecare enables learning who might benefit most from wellbeing calls, how to have good conversations with people, identify the ‘triggers’ for a decline in health, wellbeing and resilience, and how to support a person to take action if they want to.