Coimbra pilot

The Portuguese pilot of the ValueCare project is taking place at Cáritas Coimbra, which is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that supports people and communities with social, health, education and pastoral care, in five districts of the Central Region of Portugal. In total, it has 90 Centres (with 126 different services) and around 1000 employees. It supports around 14,000 people a year.

Target Group:
The project's target groups in the Coimbra pilot are older people (over 65, with little social and family support, at risk of social isolation, with no or mild cognitive impairment, and with physical comorbidities); their families, and other informal caregivers; and a team of health and social care providers.

Stakeholders:
Cáritas Coimbra has a wide range of networks and stakeholders, in the ValueCare project, essentially the institution's care providers will be involved, responsible for forming a multidisciplinary team to monitor the well-being of the participants. The team will be formed by managers, nurses, physical therapists, nutritionists, psychologists, animators, educators, social workers, among others.

Scope:
An individual care plan will be established and coordinated by the multidisciplinary team of Cáritas Coimbra linked to the ValueCare project. The progress monitoring and evaluation of the participants' wellness habits will be done through an application, in which they will share information regarding their daily activities in three specific fields: Emotional Wellbeing, Socialisation, and Physical Wellbeing.

The ValueCare project aims to develop a digital and technological solution for the different levels of caregivers to have differentiated support in the provision of services, as well as to allow them to provide guidance and recommendations related to the user's profile; send alerts, reminders and automatic messages.

So through direct contact with the technology, primary end-users will be encouraged to share their care routines, while caregivers will be able to receive this information to re-evaluate individual care plans in a more informed way in the future, for example.

In further steps, based on the richness and accuracy of the data collected, there is the possibility of developing algorithms to detect patterns of behavior that keep citizens healthy and active at home for longer, or alternatively, detect patterns of behavior that may predict deteriorating health, and even worsen existing states of frailty.