Residential care communities are 'booming business'. Increasingly, local residents and informal carers work closely together with care organisations, insurers and housing cooperatives, among others. But what exactly are the preconditions for this new organisational form? Together with Maastricht University, Lander Vermeerbergen, associate professor Organisation Design & Development and Patrick Vermeulen, professor Organisational Design and Development, started two research projects to get a grip on that. 'Because we work across disciplines, we can look at the complete picture.'
It all started with a two-day Future Exploration that Vermeerbergen and Vermeulen set up from Radboud University. During this meeting, 72 experts (from insurers to healthcare professionals and from scientists to informal carers) talked to each other about where long-term elderly care should go. 'There was a very clear realisation that things have to change, because care is getting completely bogged down,' says Vermeulen. Residential care communities could be an important part of the solution, the experts concluded. 'Alternatives do not really exist.'
Residential care communities: the future of elderly care under the microscope
Ageing population, labour shortages and different demand for care
The predictions for care do not look good. 'The situation is already dire,' says Vermeulen. 'The ageing population continues to increase and labour market shortages are worsening.' On top of this, the demand for care is changing. 'The number of elderly people needing heavy, intensive care is growing,' says Vermeerbergen. 'Moreover, baby boomers do not want the same care their parents had. They prefer customised care, with longer periods living at home and short periods in an institution. That demands a lot from care organisations.'
Limburg and parts of Gelderland
Especially in Limburg and parts of Gelderland, things are starting to pinch, because that is where the ageing population is growing the fastest. 'In the Randstad and in the cities outside, it is slightly more balanced, with still relatively many young people working in care,' says Vermeulen. 'In the border areas and rural areas, the gap is wider. Young people have moved away and older people remain.' The research projects, funded by ZonMW and the strategic partnership of Radboud University and Maastricht University, therefore also focus mainly on residential care communities in Limburg and Gelderland.
Benefits of a community
What does such a community actually entail? It involves new initiatives such as courtyards, intergenerational living and collective and small-scale housing. Within a community, local residents and informal carers work together on an equal footing with, among others, healthcare professionals, insurers and housing cooperatives. In the process, they exchange information and take over care tasks. This has several advantages. Vermeulen: 'It takes the pressure off labour shortages. It also solves social isolation. In addition, it can work preventively, for instance when working together with a sports coach.'
Preconditions
The question now is how to properly organise such a community and what tasks a volunteer can handle. At the moment, there is a lack of knowledge about this. As a result, there is often cold feet about starting such an initiative. 'We are going to investigate why an initiative arises in one place and not in another,' says Vermeerbergen. 'And why a particular community form was chosen. If an initiative ends quickly again, we want to know why that is. With all this information, we can start establishing preconditions that will give insight to new initiators.'
Maastricht University
Vermeerbergen and Vermeulen are working intensively for the research projects with Debby Gerritsen, professor of well-being in long-term care at Radboudumc, Hilde Verbeek, professor of long-term care environments, and Bram de Boer, associate professor of long-term care environments at Maastricht University. They look mainly at the social and physical side of communities, such as how to deal with people with dementia and how buildings should be designed. Vermeerbergen and Vermeulen particularly look at the organisational side, at how best to divide the work. 'Because we work across disciplines, we can look at the complete picture,' says Vermeulen. 'Otherwise you stick to your own piece.' Together, they go for action-oriented research. Vermeerbergen: 'We bring theories together, but also go straight into practice with experiments in a few communities. There is no other way, because in the field they are eager for knowledge about these initiatives.'
Social change
When the preconditions of communities become clear, the next step will be social change, Vermeulen expects. Healthcare needs to be shaken up and that requires a different mindset from society. 'That means new challenges for the government. They have to start enabling and paying for it. But employers also have to deal with it. For example, care leave is needed for people who temporarily take on care duties.' The biggest task will be to get everyone on board. 'There are many great initiatives at the moment, but ultimately it needs to be scaled up from a few hundred to tens of thousands of communities.'
Text: Willem Claassen
Contact information
- Organizational unit
- Nijmegen School of Management, Institute for Management Research, Business Administration
- About person
- Dr L.J.G. Vermeerbergen (Lander) , Prof. P.A.M. Vermeulen (Patrick)
