In the last thirty years, many OECD countries have taken reform paths in the financing and in the delivery of home care integrated services. In particular, the last Italian reform of welfare (Law n. 328/2000) is inspired on a multi-level governance model which involves several institutional levels and actors to help non-self sufficient elderly patients and their families to satisfy their needs better.
Italian municipalities and health districts represent relevant actors in the network of long-term care. However, the integration between them represents the real challenge to face.
After analyzing the existing literature on performance assessment in network settings, we examined the performance of home care integrated services for older people by investigating the case of Apulia region (the South of Italy). We collected survey data from 21 health districts out of 49 in the region (43%), and from 17 out of 45 “local welfare areas” (38%) in the same geographical context.
The research was carried out by means of statistical methods (OLS). The analysis was cross sectional.
Overall, the research may provide empirical evidence to analyze performance of networks in long term care, and it may strengthen findings of previous studies on the matter.
Keywords: Care networks, Performance Measurement, Integration, Information systems, Health care.
