INTERREG Austria-Hungary: Age-friendly region

New models to improve quality of life across the Austrian-Hungarian borders

AFR

PROJECT CO-ORDINATOR

Rahel Kahlert

PROJECT TEAM AT THE EUROPEAN CENTRE

Kai Leichsenring, Katharine Schulmann, Christian Böhler

EXTERNAL PROJECT CO-ORDINATOR

Christoph Pammer, Sandra Probus, Chance B Sozialbetriebs GmbH

PROJECT PARTNERS

Chance B Sozialbetriebs GmbH (Austria)

United Health and Social Care Győr (Hungary)

Pálos Károly Social Service Centre and Child Welfare Service (Hungary)

Care Centre Zalaegerszeg (Hungary)

Fonds Soziales Wien (Austria)

BACKGROUND

In 2010 the World Health Organisation launched the initiative for an ‘Age-friendly World’. The vision is to reshape all towns and regions into living spaces in which one can grow old. The project ‘Age-friendly Region’ contributed to bringing this vision to the Austrian-Hungarian border region by improving the situation of older people in need of care. The project developed new approaches so that older people in need of care and their relatives can better cope within their familiar context, to enjoy an appropriate quality of life in old age.

AIMS

To raise awareness for creating an ‘age-friendly region’ across all relevant stakeholders.
To establish case and care management as a model to improve quality of life of older people with long-term care needs, and their families.
To learn from each other in improving the organisation of long-term care across the Austrian-Hungarian border region.
To show evidence for improvements in regional care coordination and mutual learning processes.

METHODS

Workshops and trainings
Expert-interviews
Stakeholder surveys (ex ante-ex post)
Clients’ database
Conferences

ACTIVITIES/MILESTONES

Mutually agreed definition of the case and care management concept
Baseline report
Guidelines and standards for case and care management
Evaluation report

FINDINGS

A pre-post survey of 100 health and care experts indicated that networking and collaboration improved during AFR. Also, 230 older clients reported their health status, which they assessed about 3% higher at the end – compared to older people without AFR services.

The evaluation pointed to a positive direction of AFR effectively addressing growing LTC needs and recommended:

Making services participative, integrated & interdisciplinary,
Considering regional differences, and
Continuing AFR sustainably.

The European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research supports the Sustainable Development Goals

FUNDED BY

European Regional Development Fund, European Union

PROJECT DURATION

01/2017 – 12/2019

Evaluation from the perspective of stakeholders (HU)

Evaluation from the perspective of clients (DE)

Evaluation from the perspective of clients (HU)

Evaluation from the perspective of stakeholders (DE)

Video Age-Friendly Region