SUSTAIN is a cross-European research project and stands for sustainable tailored integrated care for older people in Europe. It aims to concretely improve the way care services for older adults are organised and delivered across Europe, and especially for those who have multiple health and social care needs. 

The project started from the observation that in all European countries, care for older people is often poorly coordinated. This prevents care from adequately meeting the needs of older adults, and it shows that quality of care and outcomes could be much improved. 

Concretely, the project will:

• Analyse the 14 care services by gathering data and by interviewing several persons who are involved (practitioners, users, policy makers, health insurers etc.).
• With a group of organisations (associations, groups, etc.) at local level, design and implement a set of improvements of the care service, with regards to key principles and values for quality of care.
• Assess the improvements and gather information on this experience, share best practices between countries and build lessons for future stakeholders who would like to improve integrated care delivery.
• The tips and tricks, recommendations and tools will all come together in a product that we call an online roadmap, designed to show how to improve care services and deliver ‘integrated care’. The roadmap will be a key outcome of the project.

For more information: SUSTAIN or join the online discussion using the hashtag #SUSTAINeu.