In the surroundings of Cuneo, starting from the second half of february, a new professional figure will be experimented which could end up modifying the overall structure of home help in the region of Piemonte. We are speaking about the Family and Community Nurse who will be responsible for helping elderly people to live autonomously in their own place as long as possible. They will indeed offer support on an everyday basis, promote social inclusion, support the prevention of domestic accidents and contribute to the supervision of health indicators and various therapies.
In all territories where this experiment takes place – Val Maira and Val Grana – a Family and Community Nurse will be partnered with residents over 65. With the help of a standard check-list made by the family doctor and eventual family members, the nurse will evaluate the individual needs of every assisted person. Depending on the necessities, the nurse will establish periodic domiciliar visits. In order to have a realistic account of the needs that 65 years elderly people can have, both sick and non-autonomous people and those in good health conditions will be involved in this initiative. The number of nurses that will be involved will depend on the territory’s characteristics (how dispersive it is, isolation, drivability) and on the type of activity that will be carried out. In any cases, there won’t be more than 500 available nurses.
The project will be realized as part of the Interreg 2014-2020 Alpine Space program, which involves national, regional and local actors for the realisation of transnational initiatives that sustain the Alpine’s area sustainable development. The European program involves different regions of Italy, France, Germany, and the entire territory of Austria and Slovenia and is part of the most ample Europe 2020 strategy. In order to understand whether with a 2 millions euro budget, the experiment of the Family and Community Nurse is indeed a possible plan, the Regione Piemonte will collaborate with sanitary public and academic institutions from other members of the project.
By reducing hospitalization admissions, the Council member responsible for Health program at the regional level, Antonio Saitta, has affirmed that we can expect such a model to reduce health care costs. Moreover, it is expected that people’s quality of life will be improved. “For this reason, since the very beginning we will develop a model which will study the population in an efficace way. Considering a series of indicators such as mortality, people hospitalization, institutionalisations, quality life indicators, the territory that comprises the surroundings of Cuneo will be confronted with other bordering areas. Moreover, an analysis of direct and indirect cost containments will be done”.