The Silver Deal - Person-centred health and care in European regions

Expected Outcome:

This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several impacts of destination 1 “Staying healthy in a rapidly changing society”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim for delivering results that are directed at, tailored towards and contributing to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Citizens and patients will get effective, preventive, integrated, coordinated, evidence-based and people-centred high-quality health and care services to identify and tackle or prevent multi-morbidities, frailty, biologically or mentally reduced capacities, (sensory) impairments, dementia and/or neurodegeneration, fostering mental and physical health, wellbeing and quality of life. These could include, but are not limited to, assistive technologies, nutrition and physical activity, adaptation of work and workplace, health-promoting age-friendly working, home and community environments, better equality of access to health and care services through community-based and integrated care models, also digitally enabled.
• Primary and community-based health and care services will be better equipped to early identify people at risk of developing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and multi-morbidities. They will have integrated and cost-effective intervention tools to help prevent, monitor and manage progression of age-related diseases, conditions and disabilities, while promoting healthy lifestyles, ageing in place^[1], as well as physical and mental wellbeing among the elderly.
• Older people, including those receiving long-term care, will be empowered to take an active role in the management of their own physical and mental health, as well as increase their social interactions and wellbeing through better health literacy, educational programmes, trainings and platforms, including with the help of innovative and digitally enabled solutions.
• Citizens, all relevant stakeholders, public authorities, cities and rural environments, as well as health care providers will be engaged to ensure the introduction to and the integration of age-friendly, mental and physical health promoting innovative care pathways and digitally enabled solutions into the daily life and wellbeing of the ageing population, with the aim of leaving no-one behind.

The proposals should provide appropriate indicators to measure performance and progress towards the relevant expected outcomes.

Scope:

This topic aims to implement strategies and actions in line with the Green Paper on Ageing^[2], the EU Long-term care report^[3], the ‘Healthier Together’ – EU Non-Communicable Diseases Initiative^[4], the new EU Care Strategy^[5], which strive to address demographic change and enable better health and care for Europe’s growing ageing societies, as well as to harness the potential of the Silver Economy^[6]. NCD prevention is highly relevant to reduce the need for long-term care. New tools and integrated care models are needed, reinforcing primary, community- and home-based health and long-term care provision, through better early detection and management of diseases among older people in an increasingly ageing society and overburdened health and care systems.

The topic encourages the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as of European, national and regional authorities and civil society, in order to strengthen the scientific and technological expertise of SMEs in the health and care domain, promote the European Health- and Age-Tech; and improve the uptake of innovative health and care solutions in the EU and Associated Countries.

The applicants should ensure that the developed solutions, technologies and adoption policies are driven by the needs of citizens and patients of old age and ensure their involvement. Co-creation, co-design with end-users and particular consideration of the diversity of the needs, mental and physical abilities, living and socio-economic conditions as well as life-situations of older people are required, including provision of training to citizens, patients, formal and informal carers.

The proposed research and innovation should focus on all of the following aspects:

• Consolidate high-quality effective, integrated, innovative and digitally enabled person-centred health and long-term care services and solutions, both in primary care, hospital and home settings, around older people's needs for physical and mental health, care and wellbeing, strengthened disease prevention, rehabilitation and for staying active and healthy as people age. Such integrated and holistic solutions could include, but are not limited to, integrated care solutions, serious games, connected wearables, ambient sensors, social robots, assistive technologies, age-friendly environments, diagnostic screenings, self-monitoring devices, robotics and others^[7], tackling age-related physical and mental diseases and co-morbidities.
• Develop and provide evidenced-based new approaches, coordinated care models and pathways, for delivering effective, person-centred health and long-term care solutions at the system and community level. These should be based on the needs of healthy and vulnerable older people for increased physical, mental and nutritional resilience vis-à-vis inequality of access to health and care, rapidly changing societies and health and care systems, and ensure better skills, empowerment and improved health and digital literacy through appropriate trainings and activities.
• Support adoption and market innovation of novel health and care solutions, co-created with and designed for older age-related health conditions. The support could be provided through large-scale testing and deployment piloting, guidance on relevant HTA and CE procedures, demonstrating cost-effectiveness, as well as through stakeholder involvement and policy collaboration on European^[8], local, regional^[9], and international^[10],[11] level, exchange of best practices (twinnings), and, when relevant, collaboration with the EC-funded large-scale pilots on Active and Healthy Living^[12] and the Reference Sites Collaborative Network.

This topic addresses consortia including research partners and innovative technology providers, such as SMEs and/or organisations that can offer the range of activities required to address the objectives of the topic; the latter could for example be based on Digital Innovation Hubs, digital health accelerators, incubators and knowledge hubs, Centres offering Pilot Lines or similar technology, business and/or knowledge transfer organisations.

The proposals should be highly integrated, ambitious, go beyond simple networking and provide appropriate indicators to measure progress, impact, cost-effectiveness and adoption in the Europe. Dissemination and involvement of policymakers, both at national and regional level, as well as civil society organisations in a European wide geographical balanced matter is essential, as the results of this action are expected to have European wide impact.

Selected projects under this topic are strongly encouraged to participate in joint activities as appropriate. These joint activities could, for example, take the form of clustering of projects and involve joint coordination and dissemination activities such as the participation in joint workshops, the exchange of knowledge, the development and adoption of best practices and adoption strategies on regional, national and European level. The details of these joint activities will be defined during the grant preparation phase with the European Commission. Applicants should plan a necessary budget to cover this collaboration.

This topic requires the effective contribution of social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

Applicants envisaging to include clinical studies should provide details of their clinical studies in the dedicated annex using the template provided in the submission system. See definition of clinical studies in the introduction to this work programme part.

[1] ‘The ability to live in one's own home and community safely, independently, and comfortably, regardless of age, income, or ability level’.

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/1_en_act_part1_v8_0.pdf

[3] https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=8396

[4] https://ec.europa.eu/health/non-communicable-diseases/overview_en

[5] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/theme-promoting-our-european-way-of-life/file-european-care-strategy

[6] A new multi-policy approach is recommended by the “Silver Economy Study”: the ageing population promises more economic growth and jobs. Silver Economy Study: How to stimulate the economy by hundreds of millions of Euros per year | Shaping Europe’s digital future (europa.eu)

[7] EU-funded large-scale pilots on Active and Healthy Ageing https://www.opendei.eu/healthcare-sector/

[8] https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/eip-aha and http://www.aal-europe.eu/ and http://www.rscn.eu/

[9] Such as the Reference Sites Collaborative Network, http://www.rscn.eu/

[10] International cooperation EU-Japan: Digital health and ageing Smart living environments for ageing people. September 2021; DOI: 10.2759/13059; Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union: ISBN 978-92-76-38187-7

[11] ^{https://idih-global.eu}

[12] https://www.opendei.eu/healthcare-sector/