Simulate before you implement

Implementing an integrated eCare services requires anticipating numerous positive and negative impacts on a range of stakeholders. SmartCare's Service Implementation Simulator teaches you how to do just that.

"22"...that is the number of regions that have committed themselves to the challenging task of joining up care provision to older people: 7 regions in the BeyondSilos project, 6 regions in the CareWell project and 9 regions in the SmartCare project. They, as others engaging in care integration, have to plan ahead in order to anticipate how the complex new interventions they put into place will affect care recipients, informal carers, service providers, care professionals, payers and others.

All three projects use a series of methods and tools to facilitate this process, including requirements analysis, common care pathways and the development of sustainability models for each deployment region.

As part of the sustainability workstrand, the Service Implementation Simulator – Integrated eCare was created as part of SmartCare. The Simulator allows the different parties to be involved in joined-up health and social care delivery to systematically anticipate what positive and negative socio-economic impacts can be expected to flow from new forms of collaboration. The Simulator is a learning tool associated with the ASSIST method adopted in SmartCare.

The Service Implementation Simulator can be used to explore potential configurations of ICT-supported, integrated care services. With its help, different ways of setting up a service (in terms of stakeholders involved, service processes, etc.) can be chosen. Using the tool, assumptions can be made for different types of service-related costs and benefits, ranging from direct revenue models to high-level societal goals. Both short- and long-term consequences of each design choice can be explored immediately.

Furthermore, the Simulator can be used to get acquainted with the general ASSIST method. This can be of help to stakeholders planning on using the ASSIST tool in the development of their own service concept.

The Simulator will also be used in the framework of BeyondSilos and CareWell and project partners hope that if can be of similar use in other regions in Europe and elsewhere in the world.

The Simulator can be downloaded from the SmartCare website...