Consortium for Assistive Solutions Adoption
Today, regions and governments are faced with an unsustainable situation with increasing pressure on health and social care resulting from demographic changes. With an ageing population, citizens are also increasingly living with chronic diseases and this has serious implications on the future provision of welfare and health services. Chronic diseases now account for an average of two thirds of healthcare costs in the most advanced countries yet about 80% of such diseases are preventable. A new generation of innovative, secure, wearable, interactive health solutions will have to be developed in regions for the care of the elderly, with personalized information and guidance at home or outdoors i.e. a so-called 'personalized healthcare system'.  The CASA network comprising of 13 participating regions will come together to search for joint-up solutions, access best practices and a policy sounding board through the consortia for the deployment of assistive living solutions (AAL).
The CASA partnership, led by Flanders Ministry of Health will organise 9 study visits on the thematics of 'monitoring, safety and self management', 'social interaction', 'chronic diseases', 'healthy lifestyle and rehabilitation ICT', 'informal care', 'telemedecine evaluation model', 'mobility and liveability/ intregated regional policy, business and knowledge development', 'user driven innovation through public/private partnership',  'large scale deployment' and also 2 Knowledge Transfer Conferences in the New Member States, where neighbouring countries will also be invited. Best practice transfer will culminate in the production of a good practice guide on AAL, 28 staff secondments between organisations to embed good practice. A final conference will take place in Brussels with an award ceremony. Ministerial conferences and relevant PR in all participating regions will be a route to dissemination to wider
stakeholder groups. The proposed partnership approach is innovative on two levels: 1. an attempt for  implementation policies moving away from traditional mono-domain policy to work horizontally along the supply chain and across different departments and ministries and 2. the use of the social media in support of the communication and exchange of knowledges & experiences. After 36 months of implementation, the CASA project will allow the participating organisations to mainstream the learning of the exchange of experiences into their regional strategies. Having proven its relevance, it is intended to formalize and 'legalise' this inter-regional CASA network for long term sustainability and to open it to a wider European platform in the future.