Action Coordinator

Target Groups

TARGET GROUPS SECTION
ADVANTAGE JA ambition is to build a common understanding of frailty to be used in all EU Member States (MSs). Therefore, ADVANTAGE JA has a number of complementary target groups:
• policy makers and stakeholders both from the public and private sectors, involved in planning and developing health and social care policies and strategies for older people at local, regional, national and European level;
• those in charge of implementing health and social care policies at different levels of the systems, including those involved in the direct provision of care (formal and informal carers), in knowledge dissemination and in workforce education and training;
• frail older people and their carers, and those at risk of frailty in the EU.

In order to reach this aim, ADVANTAGE JA places strong emphasis on the:
1. communication with stakeholders;
2. awareness-raising activities;
3. dissemination of its results.

Policy-makers
Policy and decision makers from both the public and the private sectors who are involved in the planning and development of health and social care policies for older people. They can be policy-level national representatives or policy bodies, responsible for health and social care policies at both national and regional level.

Who are they? Ministries of Health, Social welfare, and/or Education; other Public Health and Regulatory bodies; EU representatives (such as the EU Parliament members, etc.).

Why are they important? The ADVANTAGE JA aim is to increase awareness of the importance of detection, prevention and management of frailty. The transfer of information to policy-makers and health care planners is important to ensure informed decisions on care planning and health and social policies, especially for the scaling up the frailty prevention approach.

What can they contribute with? Their role in the ADVANTAGE JA is to support future actions and improve the planning of future structures and care personnel, as well as to make sure that there are sufficient resources for health and social care.

Professionals
This target group is represented by those in charge of the implementation of health and social care policies, including those directly providing care and support (e.g. GPs, physicians, nurses, occupational therapists, social workers, etc.). Formal and informal carers belong to this group.

Who are they? Health and Social care organisations, chambers and associations; Health and Social professional organizations; Medical schools, Universities and Colleges; Hospitals, Primary health care centres; Pharmacies; Practitioners, Researchers, Social and Healthcare professionals themselves, Managers of primary care and hospital services at EU, national, regional and local level.

Why are they important? These stakeholders are particularly relevant to the ADVANTAGE JA since they can promote better knowledge, skills and attitudes to manage frailty in order to enable the health workforce to support scaling-up of new models of care, which respond to the needs of frail patients.

What can they contribute with? Their role in the ADVANTAGE JA is to ensure that the results and outputs of the JA are implemented across Europe.

Citizens
ADVANTAGE JA addresses the EU population in general and, specifically frail older people, their carers and those at risk of frailty.

Who are they? NGOs and older people advocacy organisations; Patients associations; carers associations; chronic disease advocacy groups; the EU population at large.

Why are they important? Citizens are the ultimate beneficiaries of the actions and results of the ADVANTAGE JA. Our results will be translated into frailty policy changes and new frailty related policy implementation that will reflect into improved patient care.

What can they contribute with? Awareness on frailty and its management is of key relevance for citizens as it can lead to their empowerment, self-management and to better care for other people in needs within and outside the household.

Our Work

The work to be done for delivering the ADVANTAGE JA is structured in 8 Work Packages (WP).

A WP is a building block of the work breakdown structure that allows the JA management to define the steps necessary for completion of the work. Breaking down the work into WP allows multiple teams to work simultaneously or sequentially on different components of the JA. Each team follows the steps defined in the WP plan and completes them by the specified deadlines. When all teams have finished their individual WP, the whole JA comes together and the objectives have been achieved.

Depending on the kind of tasks, a distinction can be made between content WP, which focus on the tasks that will lead to the JA outcomes (WP4 to WP8), and horizontal WPs, that are concerned with the management of the JA (WP1, WP2 and WP3).

All WPs have a number of key elements. Namely: objectives; activities; timetable and milestones; outputs and deliverables; roles and responsibilities.

Breaking down ADVANTAGE JA into different WPs is a way to manage the steps that are necessary for the completion of the JA. Therefore, it is important to ensure the integration of the work of each WP within the broader JA framework. In this regard the role of WP1 (Coordinator) is fundamental but it cannot be successful without the support of WP leaders and the commitment of all partners.

WPs are divided between the organisations which collaborate in the JA and one of them is in charge of a given WP. Furthermore, it also specifies which tasks will be carried out by whom and with whom, and who in each organisation will oversee the completion of the WP. Their respective work is addressed to achieve certain goals and to produce a number of deliverables in specific dates.

WP7 Models of care to prevent or delay progression of frailty and enable people to live well with frailty

Models of Care to prevent or delay progression of frailty and enable people to live well with frailty

The main focus of WP7 is to analyse models of care and draw conclusions on how to best prevent or delay progression of frailty and enable people to live well with frailty. WP7 will also establish how to transfer information and knowledge to specific target groups, building on the work previously done by the EIP-AHA (A3 AG and Reference Site activities).

Tasks for the WP7 Team include the following:
- collect and describe examples of person-centred coordinated care and support to prevent and tackle frailty in primary care settings;
-collect and describe the experience and functional outcomes of comprehensive assessment and care in hospitals and at times of transition between home and hospital;
- describe how social care providers can implement enabling approaches at home or in care homes to delay progression of frailty and improve the quality of life and functional outcomes for older people and their caregivers;
- analyse good established models of integrated care and support for chronic conditions in terms of their impact on the prevention or management of frailty.
- assess outcomes, resource use and costs for the health and social care systems to inform the business case for investing in early interventions to prevent frailty and functional decline;
- analyse the transferability and scaling-up of the models of care - transfer to stakeholders information and knowledge from lessons learned from specific examples to models of excellence.

WP7 results will be discussed in an Expert Panel (EP) meeting to draw conclusions and refine content. Following the EP comments, a state of the art report (SoAR) describing established models of chronic care and their contribution to the prevention and management of frailty will be finalised. The SoAR will be subsequently incorporated into the final Frailty Prevention Approach (FPA) document.

WP7 Leader: National Health Service Lanarkshire

WP7 co-leader: Consejería de Salud de la Junta de Andalucía

WP8 Extending and expanding the knowledge on frailty to foster innovative policy on frailty

Extending and Expanding the knowledge on frailty to foster innovative policy on frailty

WP8 will address the role of training and research to increase the health workforce capacity to care for frail older people and to expand the knowledge about frailty. The focus will be especially on scaling up the frailty prevention approach.

To this end WP8 will follow two complementary routes, both important for policy makers, professionals, as well as patients and their carers:
1. improving the training of the health workforce by identifying existing gaps and developing recommendations for a competence based educational approach on frailty, adjusted to MSs public healthcare systems. This will enable the health workforce to support scaling-up of new models of care which respond to the needs of frail patients;
2. developing mechanisms that ensure appropriate procedures to promote amongst stakeholders better knowledge, skills and attitudes to manage frailty.

WP8 will build on these ideas and the results and recommendations from the previous WP4 to WP7. Information will be transferred to policy decision-makers and health care planners to ensure informed decisions are taken on future plans and services dedicated to frail, or at risk for frailty older people.

WP8 recommendations and results will be discussed in an Expert Panel (EP) meeting to draw conclusions and refine content. Following the EP comments, a state of the art report (SoAR) will be finalised. The SoAR will be subsequently incorporated into the final Frailty Prevention Approach (FPA) document.

WP8 Leader: Medizinische Universitat Graz

WP8 co-leader: Fundación para la Investigación del Hospital Clínico de la Comunitat Valenciana, Fundación Incliva

WP1 Coordination of the JA

Action Coordinator

The JA Coordinator is responsible of WP1. He is supported by a Deputy Coordinator.

They give technical and management support to help the partners in developing their own work. In practical terms it means the overall supervision of contents, activities, role of partners involved, and production of deliverables and achievement of established milestones for each WP that will lead to the achievement of the expected aim and results of ADVANTAGE JA.

Typical tasks for the Coordinator Team include the following:

- Coordinate and manage JA work.

- Monitor JA progress and performance.

- Ensure that JA outputs are delivered on time.

- Identify risks, problems, and issues, and escalate them as appropriate.

- Manage communication within the JA.

- Prepare progress and other reports.

- Arrange meetings and write the minutes.

- Manage JA resources, including the budget.

- Coordinate work on any legal agreements (e.g. Consortium Agreement).

- Set-up the Governance Structure.

- Set-up the methodology for work and the management structure.

- Prepare background documents.

- Maintain JA documentation and archive.

WP1 has set-up the ADVANTAGE JA Secretariat to support on the organization of the different parts of the JA and to make partners and things work in a controlled and efficiently way to achieve the expected results as scheduled.

Coordinator (WP1 Leader): Hospital Universitario de Getafe, SERMAS.

WP1 co-leader: Fundación para la Investigación del Hospital Clínico de la Comunitat Valenciana, Fundación Incliva.

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