Welche Anforderungen haben ältere Menschen im häuslichen Umfeld zukünftig an die Qualität von Dienstleistungsstrukturen? Ergebnisse einer bundesweiten Untersuchung

Abstract

The society still faces extensive challenges in allocation to the demographic change. There is still an existing need for action to meet these challenges in Europe. Likewise, elderly people still do not have sufficient information to support services. The current state of research in relation to the requirements for the future quality of services in the home environment demonstrates that especially the future requirements are not formulated sufficiently. The planned investigation deals with a generalized assessment of future demands on the quality of health care services in the home environment, and the necessary future service structures. The aim is to develop differentiated quality indicators for future home care of the elderly. Methodology and conduct of the investigation The Delphi survey is selected as the survey methodology. The content of the questionnaires results will be identified by the literature analysis. The questionnaires include quantitative and qualitative questions. Experts are identified and recruited for the survey. The study includes four survey waves. The return of the questionnaires reached between 29.23% and 40%. By means of descriptive and exploratory statistics, the results of the assessments and justifications of the experts are evaluated. In addition, the response of the experts will be evaluated against the cluster age to win a differentiation of results. Results The current supply system in domestic environment needs to be expanded for future demands. Care structures, both to ensure the consideration of individual and interpersonal aspects of a relationship and to take on a lawyer tasks for a beneficiary, constitute requirements of future services. In addition to these, to provide care for the home environment with regard to vulnerable groups such as dementia patients should be strengthened. Individual and detailed information about care services and their contractual terms should mainly be carried out in counselling sessions and worked up and funded for seniors. New intelligent technologies will continue to gain in importance. The application and acceptance of new smart technologies will grow with the future generations. They will gain in importance in the domestic supply. Future quality indicators for personal, technological, operational and gratuitous services should be characterized by interpersonal factors. Man should be the focus of future services. The importance or weighting of the quality indicators for different types of services vary and should be considered in the future. Changes in the concepts of life have an impact on the requirements for service facilities and on the quality of services. Conditions of the social environment should be adapted in the future to the respective supply situation. As before, the contacts with relatives and friends are the most importance factors. In the future it should be considered, that these conditions are not always present, In consequence neighbourhood care etc. has to be promoted in future. Discussion The results of the investigation determine and define the future demands on the quality of services and on the structure of future services for the care of the elderly in the home environment. The operationalization of quality indicators in four types of services represents new insights. In addition, it can be demonstrated on the basis of the evaluation by selected quality criteria that the Delphi method can be considered successful.