Care Living Labs Flanders: Have they incorporated the policy program goals?

Introduction. In 2012, the Flemish government launched a call for Care Living Labs (CLL) targeting on innovation in the care for older adults. Six CLL were selected, comprising 23 projects. Main goals of the Flemish government for the CLL are to live independently as long as possible, to improve the home environment and to counter social isolation. The aim of this study is to analyze if the CLL have incorporated the policy program goals .

Methods. An inductive analysis was performed to explore the presence of the policy program goals in the CLL and their projects, based on document analysis of the submitted proposals and semi-structured interviews with CLL and project coordinators.

Results. All CLL mentioned the 3 main goals. Nevertheless, projects focused on certain goals. Projects with a social focus, such as neighborhood care and social cohesion, mentioned explicit the 3 goals. In total 8 projects mentioned all the program goals whereas 1 project didn't describe any of the policy goals. Moreover, to live independently emerged 17 times explicitly and 4 times implicitly, to improve the home environment respectively 14 and 6, and to counter social isolation respectively 5 and 3 times.

Conclusions Despite the same policy call, a diffuse pattern of goals is seen. This finding might induce some risk but also opportunities with regard to health care for older adults.