Supporting emerging care economy, empowering caregivers to provide safe care at home

Research Duration: 26.10.2023-25.10.2027

The Care Economy is a groundbreaking field due to population aging and the increase of non-communicable diseases. Ensuring the provision of safety care at home and helping people to stay in their places as much as possible are current challenges. Caregiving at home has increased in the complexity of care and intensity which augmented the risk of making errors impacting on both, recipients’ health, and caregivers’ wellbeing. In most cases, home care is provided by family members, usually women, which enlarges the gender gap.

This Action joints efforts to ensure an error-free care environment at the homes. It introduces an open dialogue and discussion among all stakeholders about the consequences of caregivers’ errors based on a cross-national collaboration that integrates citizens, end users, different disciplines, and perspectives. It will be built on existing work and will provide opportunities to re-think national, and international deinstitutionalize policies, assuring the same care safety at home as the one received in residential facilities. To assess available resources to meet the qualification threshold and modify the support net available for the management of risk of caregiving and dispensing medications at home. Citizens Science principles will be adopted to open debates and analyses about educational standards, develop of a guideline and case study based on caregivers’ stories, and other materials. Also, to organize and conduct a Training School and Short-Term-Scientific-Mission involving caregivers as ended users and professionals. Health, psychological, social, legal, ethical, and economic issues will be considered and the usability of disruptive technologies as well.

Research goals

Encouraging discussion of the new care economy meaning by the institutionalization and the development of home care support.
Increasing stakeholders’ awareness on the consequences of unsafe care and implications for the institutionalization policies.
Development of theoretical conceptualisation of the care errors at home and developing a common understanding of its implications.
Raising general awareness of the impact of errors on caregivers (considering gender differences) and their consequences in psychological, social, legal, ethical, and economic terms.
Facilitating discussion of the ethical, and organisational gaps while promoting a common understanding of factors underlying the interventions designed to empower caregivers to assure safe care at home.
Agreeing on what to do after the occurrence of adverse events, sharing knowledge about research evidence and methods to tackle with these unsafe events.
Paying attention to the situation of women who take on the care of family members while giving up their personal and professional careers.
Introducing the qualification range of contents, and standards set for caregivers which should be used to capacitate them to provide safe home care.