Compendium of Health Telematics Projects 94-98 (Draft)
Home Documents Compendium HT Projects 94-98 Updated: Aug 26, 1998 

This is the most recent structured information on this project. Complementary data can be found on previous documents

PLANEC

Planning of the care of the elderly in the European Community

Project code: HC 1039
Project value: 2266.4 KECU
EC contribution: 1500.0 KECU
Number of partners: 7
Number of countries: 5
Duration:36 months
Starting date: Jan 1, 96
               
Contact: Marja Vaarama
STAKES
Social Research Unit
PO Box 220
OO531 Helsinki
Finland

Tel: 358 03 96 72 213
Fax: 358 03 96 72 007
E-mail: marjav@stakes3.stakes.fi
Web Site: www.ehto.be/ht_projects/planec

Overview

The PLANEC-project designs, develops, demonstrates and evaluates an intelligent information system for socio-economic monitoring, evaluation and strategic planning of soscial and health care of the elderly. End-users of PLANEC are actors responsible for organization, administration and economy as well as for planning and development of elderly care (e.g. national, regional and local authorities, care providers, financing agencies) and researchers in the socio-economics of care. The anticipated results of the PLANEC-project are (1) a verificated and demonstrated prototype application with relevant market analysis, (2) standard measures and methods (PLANEC indicators and models), relevant to performance managment and comparative research of care, (3) validated method of OOA&OOD as a collaborative application development process.

The PLANEC-application is developed in an iterative development process involving the end-users, researchers and software engineers to ensure that key requirements such as user friendliness, flexibility and adaptability at the European level will be met. Object oriented Modelling and Design is used as the method for application development. SELECT OMT Professional is used as a method to standardise the research across the countries. The production of welfare -model is used as theroretical framework for development of the PLANEC -indicators.

PLANEC will run on a PC in a Windows-environment, thus enabling the use of the application in distributed computer systems. Generic technology and SPSS statistical package are exlpoited in the development to achieve widest benefits.

Purpose and objectives

The main goal is to develop a practical tool with sophisticated methods for coordination, management and strategic planning of the care of the elderly. This include development and validation of standard measures and methods for evaluation of the performance of care system in terms of cost-effectiveness and needs-effectiveness, for matching demand to supply of services, for evaluation the appropriateness of the current resource use, and for provision of alternative models of care system. The PLANEC models concern topics such as simulation of future needs and needs-related care packages, the effects of various types of substitution policy, efficiency and equity of targeting of services and resources, and the mixed economy of care.

The PLANEC-demonstrator will compose of

  1. a relational database on demographics, socio-economics, demand and supply of care services, resources and finance. Facilities for electronic data interchange linked to the World Wide Web will be included
  2. a module for sosio-economic monitoring and evaluation of care including various system-level performance indexes of effectiveness, economy, equity and efficiency of care system (PLANEC-indicators)
  3. basic modelling facilities for simulation of alternative care systems and their performance (PLANEC-models)
  4. reporting facilities with standard reports and facilities for free reporting.

Results

The anticipated results of the PLANEC-project are
  1. a verificated and demonstrated, marketable prototype application with relevant market analysis;
  2. standard measures and methods (PLANEC-indicators and models), relevant to the performance evaluation and comparative research of elder care
  3. a validated method of OAA&OOM as a collaborative process in application development
The three main ways to exploit the results of the PLANEC project are (1)development of final product, (2) marketing and selling the product and (3) the consultancy, training, maintenance and other services around PLANEC. The first market researchs indicate a clear potential for an application such as PLANEC in European countries. The commercialization of PLANEC application is a joint venture with several partners because the application is not to be sold as an off-the-self computer program but rather as a service package that has several components. First there is the application itself. The plan is to get the PLANEC demonstrator developed into a full-blown product for trans-european use during 1999. Also national versions of the application may be developed. Second there are the marketing and sales support. The PLANEC product needs a solid marketing and support organization as a prerequisite for sales in several European countries. According to our plans this organization is SPSS that has branch offices in many European countries. The involvement of SPSS is strengthened by the fact that PLANEC exploits some software components provided by SPSS and thus SPSS marketing has an added incentive to sell PLANEC. Third we have the PLANEC training and consultancy services. PLANEC will not be a product that will be sold as an off-the-self computer program and then used straight away. PLANEC contains a lot of expertise in the form of data contents and algorithms, but the proper interpretation of PLANEC information will require training. This training can be offered e.g. by the research institutes and concultancy companies. They can also use PLANEC in their research and consultancy work. The maintenance services, including the data provision offers markets for software and data houses. Already the PLANEC database itself is valuable, and can be commercialised as a product. This data could be made accessible via internet e.g. by launching a PLANEC website containing information of PLANEC data, analyses and models as well as all kinds of supporting information for PLANEC users. Exploiting know-how gained in system development is valuable for the PLANEC developers, specially the method of iterative software development used in the PLANEC project can be applied to other large software projects. This know-how can be used to build similar tailor-made applications to other areas, e.g. child protection or disabled.

List of deliverables

Year 1

Reference
number 		Title of deliverable Delivery date
in months
from start 		Restricted/
Public
3.1 & 4.1 Research Protocol 3 R
2.1 Congress paper 6 P
2.2 Demonstration on PLANEC 6 P
3.2 Inventory study on User needs / annexes:
  • annex 1: common glossary of elderly care services in four countries
  • annex 2: a consolidation of national reports of user needs in FIN, NL, E and UK
  • annex 3: The National report on investigations of user needs: FIN
  • annex 4: The National report on investigations of user needs: E
  • annex 5: The National report on investigations of user needs: UK
  • annex 6: The National report on investigations of user needs: D
7 R
8.1 Preliminary Inventory of Market Intelligence 7 R
extra deliverable PLANEC-brochure 9 P
3.3 Preliminary dataset model 10 R
4.3 Preliminary specification of functional requirements of PLANEC 10 R
4.4 Preliminary technical outline of the PLANEC -system 10 R
4.2 Preliminary user interface 10 R
3.4 SWOT-analysis of IT use and potential in planning, monitoring and evaluation of the care of the elderly 12 R
4.5 Functional specification of the PLANEC -system
  • Appendix 1: The user enquiry on functionality of PLANEC
  • Appendix 2: (Finland)
  • Appendix 3: (The Netherlands)
  • Appendix 4: (Spain)
  • Appendix 5: (United Kingdom)
  • Appendix 6: Technical description of dbTool
12 R

Year 2

Reference
number 		Title of deliverable Delivery date
in months
from start 		Restricted/
Public
5.1 & 5.2 Specification of PLANEC dataset-model
Specification of PLANEC -analysis and models
  • Technical User Guide (prototype version 1.0)
  • Installation Guide (prototype version 1.0)
  • User Manual (prototype version 1.0)
  • Testing Protocol and Exercises (prototype version 1.0)
16 R
3.5 Analytical framework for User Typology research 16 R
4.6 Theoretical specifications and analytical framework for comparative socioeconomic research of care 16 R
5.3 Technical specification of the demonstrator 18 R
2.3 Congress paper 20 P
4.7 Piloted Key Indicators for comparative socio-economic research of care (draft report) 23 R
2.4 Demonstration of PLANEC 24 P
6.1 Documentation on PLANEC 24 R
6.2 Documentation of Analysis and Modelling Systems 24 R
6.3 Documentation of user-interface 24 R

Year 3

Reference
number 		Title of deliverable Delivery date
in months
from start 		Restricted/
Public
6.4 Demonstrator 28 R
7.1 Verificated demonstrator 30 R
6.5 Draft user manual 30 LI
6.6 System documentation 30 R
7.2 Implementation guidelines 30 R
2.5 Congress Paper 31 P
4.8 PLANEC -indicators 31 R
2.6 Demonstration on PLANEC 33 P
7.3 Validated demonstrator 35 R
8.2 Market analysis 35 R
8.3 Information material 35 P
4.9 PLANEC -indicators and models in evaluation and simulation of performance of the care of the elderly 36 P
6.7 User feed-back analysis 36 R
7.4 Validation report 36 R
8.4 Technology implementation plan 36 R
1.8 Final report 36 P

List of participants

Name: Dr Marja Vaarama
Organisation: National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (STAKES)
Address: P.O. Box 220
00531 Helsinki
Country: Finland
Tel: +358 9 3967 2213
Fax: +358 9 3967 2007
E-mail: marjav@stakes.fi
Name: Drs Bing Teng
Organisation: Institute for Applied Gerontology
Address: Faculteit SCW
de Boelelaan 1081c
1081 HV Amsterdam
Country: The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 444 6809
Fax: +31 20 444 6810
E-mail: HB.Teng@scw.vu.nl
Name: Dr. Andrew Sixsmith
Organisation: University of Liverpool
Address: Institute of Human Ageing
P.O. Box 147
Liverpool L69 3BX
Country: United Kingdom
Tel: +44 151 794 5080
Fax: +44 151 794 5077
E-mail: P.R.Sharples@liverpool.ac.uk
Name: Mr Ari-Pekka Kitinoja
Organisation: Winleap Ltd
Address: Tekniikantie12
02150 Espoo
Country: Finland
Tel: +358 9 8045 1352
Fax: +358 9 8045 1333
E-mail: ap.kitinoja@winleap.fi
Name: Drs. Pieter Huijbers
Organisation: Netherlands Institute of Gerontology
Address: P.O. Box 9383
3506 GJ UTRECHT
Country: The Netherlands
Tel: +31 30 2620 404
Fax: +31 30 2661 052
E-mail: huijbers@nig.nl
Name: Mr Ton Koster
Organisation: SPSS Benelux
Address: P.O. Box 115
4202 AC GORINCHEM
Country: The Netherlands
Tel: +31 35 5828 750
Fax: +31 35 5826 787
E-mail: koster@euronet.nl
Name: Dr. Sara Pupato Ferrari
Organisation: The Hospital of Móstoles
Address: 28035 Móstoles
Madrid
Country: Spain
Tel: +34 16 24 30 23
Fax: +34 16 47 19 17
E-mail: gerencia.spupatof@chm.es
Name: Prof. Richard Pieper
Organisation: University of Bamberg
Address: Urbanistik und Sozialplanung
Feldkirchenstrasse 21
96045 BAMBERG
Country: Germany
Tel: +49 951 863 2562
Fax: +49 951 863 2563
E-mail: richard.pieper@sowi.uni-bamberg.de

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