Co-designing collaborative health deterioration prevention together with older people, civic society, and community health and social care

Abstract

Introduction: As the population ages, the number of older people whose health is at risk of deteriorating is expected to increase. This may imply decreased quality of life for the individual and rising costs for social and health care. This project acknowledges that health in older people is a complex matter, that includes physical, social, and psychological dimensions, and needs to be targeted at individual, societal and structural levels. Thereby, we recognize that collaborative efforts by diverse actors are necessary to prevent the deterioration of health. Development of collaboration, defined as cross-organizational integration in networks, accomplished through agreements, adjustments, and a willingness to work together, requires the substantial efforts of all stakeholders. We therefore use experience-based co-design to develop collaborative prevention. We will present findings from co-design processes aiming at developing collaborative prevention of deterioration of health. 
 Method: This multiple case design study is performed in Stockholm, Sweden. A case is defined as a community social care unit and its interacting partners who currently are – or potentially could be – involved in collaborative prevention. In each of the project’s three cases, a series of six co-design workshops is conducted. Participants in these workshops are older people and participants from community social care, health care, and civic society (e.g., voluntary and faith/religious organisations). In each case, the participants explore their current collaboration, define their collaborative challenges and work together to develop and test ideas and solutions for improved collaboration to prevent deterioration of health for older people. The workshops are led by researchers.
 During the workshops, data on the outcomes and process are collected using audio-recordings and field notes. Between workshops, individual and dyad semi-structured interviews are conducted with participants on their perspectives of the outcomes and process. Data are analyzed with qualitative content analysis. 
 Results: The co-design series are ongoing and at the conference we will present 1) participants’ reasonings about participation, 2) strengths/opportunities/solutions in collaboration identified by the participants, 3) the co-designed collaborative models and 4) factors that were imperative for the development of these new models, 5) the development of collaborative governance regarded as important for sustainability. We will also critically discuss 6) lessons learned about researcher facilitation of co-design processes. 
 Next step: The three cases will be longitudinally evaluated regarding the impact and structures of the collaborative process.