Report VALUECARE National Seminar, Island of Vis (2021 – 01 – 02)

November 15, 2021

Report VALUECARE National Seminar, Island of Vis (2021 – 01 –02)

Meeting: VALUECARE National Seminar , Island of Vis, Croatia

Date and Time: October 2, 2021

Moderators (3): Vanja Vasiljev, Lovorka Bilajac & Denis Juraga (MEDRI)

National seminar, as a dissemination activity in the ValueCare, project was held on October 2^nd, 2021. was organized on the Island of Vis, Croatia.

The ValueCare national seminar was divided into three section and moderated by Vanja Vasiljev (Value-based healthcare & Health outcomes evaluation), Lovorka Bilajac (Care integration: Challenges and perspectives) and Denis Juraga (Digital solutions in care integration). In total, 54 participants attended the seminar of which 6 were informal caregivers, 12 representatives from general public, 20 health care and social practitioners and 16 health and social care professionals. During the seminar, using Mentimeter (https://www.mentimeter.com/), the MEDRI research team wanted to evaluate opinions and experiences of the aforementioned target groups regarding the ValueCare concept in general as well as get insight into their point of view about the VALUECARE digital solution that will developed and implemented in seven pilot sites.

The results showed that workplace basic values are teamwork, expertise, empathy, dedication to work and collegiality. In addition, they also emphasize the values of satisfaction, health, and challenges. The existence of such values would greatly affect the improvement of the quality of work, then the quality of life, and at the same time, reduce the workload. Personalized patients care is provided by most health professionals (70%), and the patient progress is monitored by laboratory and diagnostic findings, follow-up examinations and interviews. They talk less often with family members and take lifestyle data. Value-based care includes a personalized patient-centred approach that includes both treatment and time to discuss outcomes that include increasing the patient’s quality of life as well as physician satisfaction. Prevention work is also one of the values of care.

After the presentation of the planned integrated care model within the ValueCare project on the example for the pilot city of Rijeka, the model of digital conceptual design was presented. Participants chose a smartphone as the most ideal access to digital data, followed by a phone or computer, and the least voted were tablets. The presentation of the obtained results of the questionnaire would be most appropriate to be in graphical form, and all participants would like to communicate with colleagues about the patients and their health outcomes.

The opinion of the participants is that the digital solution could improve the integration of health and social care provided to the older adults in a way that improves their accessibility, communication, and personalized monitoring as well as treatment with better cooperation. General public suggestions for older adults were also providing information on available contacts for a particular service, a larger font on smartphones or tablets and actively involving family members.

Successful implementation of the ValueCare approach in the health and social care system would contribute to better treatment outcomes, better patient cooperation, persistence in long-term therapy, longer survival, and better quality of life of patients. The success of the model would be measured by the good user response and indicate the actual connectivity of the system.

In the current health care system, aggravating circumstances are lack of time, large administration and sluggish and outdated hospital information systems, hospital management, insufficient equipment, and data security. In addition, the hospital system is not linked to other specialists, social workers, palliative care, etc. The facilitating factor would be the enthusiasm of employees, educated and professional staff and well-organized units within the system such as heart rehabilitation.

Most healthcare professionals would like to have an insight into all collected data and findings about the patient (from pressure, ECG, blood findings, heart rate and respiratory rate) as well as data on living conditions and quality of life and lifestyle. However, they would like to limit communication with patients to certain terms. Half of health and social care professionals would like to communicate with patients through the platform, and half would not.

The conclusion of the national seminar indicates the great interest of general public as well as various stakeholders from health and social systems for change, integration of care as well as a personalized approach because they believe that such an approach has better long term outcomes. Support was expressed for the continuation of project activities and the desire to participate in its integration.

Picture 1. VALUECARE National Seminar, Island of Vis; October 2, 2021