Long-term care coverage and its relationship with hospital care: Lessons from Italy on coordination among care-settings

Abstract

Long-term care for the elderly is one among the most important challenges for welfare and health care system across the world. Demographic and epidemiological trends are signalling that demand for long-term care will continue increasing in the next future, while public systems investments and efforts to cope with this issue are not enough. One possible strategy could be to reinforce integration between different care settings so to have positive spill over effects. The paper is focussed on Italian long-term care system analysing and assessing its performance at the regional level both in terms of answering citizens’ long-term care needs and integrating with hospital care. The study is based on National health care records and regional data concerning long-term care to assess the state of the arts of in-kind services, and on qualitative focus groups with care providers and policy makers to provide interpretation about the Italian long-term care system performance and weaknesses. Results show that, due to a widespread and important lack of supply and inability to answer to citizens’ needs, integration between long-term care and hospitals is not working, and substitution effect following investment in long-term care settings is not present. The paper introduces different interpretations of the causes of this phenomenon, suggesting to policy makers and managers the possible solutions to be implemented.