Improving health services for European citizens with dementia: Development of best practice strategies for the transition from ambulatory to institutional long-term care facilities

Given the increasing number of patients/consumers with dementia, political action is urgently required to prepare the health care services throughout Europe to deliver cost effective high quality long-term care to people concerned. Currently there is a lack of clinical research data of patients/consumers and informal caregivers to develop best practice strategies for long-term care. RightTimePlaceCare intends to deliver best practice strategies for need-tailored dementia care throughout the dementia care sectors and aims to preserve best available health outcomes for both patients/consumers with dementia and their informal caregivers at affordable cost-benefit ratios. RightTimePlaceCare will describe and analyse the European health, social care and welfare systems, advocacy and informal caregiver support systems for patients/consumers with dementia and intersectorial communication. A European survey will assess the factors influencing the time of admission to institutional long-term nursing care facilities, investigate living conditions and gather clinical data of patients/consumers with dementia and their informal caregivers in long-term formal professional home care and institutional nursing care facilities, and the related economic impact. Consecutively best practice strategies will be developed for intersectorial arrangements needed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of integrated health care in European dementia care systems, and recommendations for best practice models or interventions in long-term care facilities. RightTimePlaceCare will advance the state of the art in health systems research in dementia care and will improve cooperation between researchers to promote integration and excellence of European dementia care research. The knowledge generated by RightTimePlaceCare will empower the policy and decision makers to manage and reform dementia health care systems in view of common challenges and within the common framework of the EU.