We asked ourselves a simple question: what do we need to age well at home? We are all well aware of the rapidly ageing population. In many regions, such as Europe, older adults prefer to grow old at home. Governments around the globe look for models that support living independently for longer as a way of containing rapidly rising care costs due to the increased incidence of chronic disease. Ageing at home can be difficult without support. As traditional family structures are breaking down, the help usually provided by family members is shrinking, leaving the elderly to fend for themselves. Nurses and carers are often underpaid and overworked and, unsurprisingly, choose industries with better work-life balance and higher pay. Some solutions, such as 24/7 care provided by migrant workers, are controversial at best. The good news is that support is available in local communities. Hundreds of volunteers, caregivers, nurses and retirees have the time, skills and intention to help. Some have time every week, while others are happy to help in their neighbourhood. The challenge is to structure, organize and utilize the available skills and time, matching them with the older adults. Digital technology makes it possible to do so safely and efficiently, with the help of algorithms, process automation, check-in confirmations, aggregated ratings and feedback, etc.

Older people in general

Health, Labour, Long-term care

Older People's Association, Academia, Health Care, Social Care, Private Sector

Older people were part of the process at multiple or all stages

The Care Hub grew with the help of the local community. The local retiree associations, such as the Union of Pensioners, connected us to their members. The members of their Knitting Club or Chess Club acted as sounding boards for us in the early ideation phase. We continued to co-create together. Their feedback on the early wireframes led to a simplified home screen and higher usability. Once our first care partners joined us, we organized regular onboarding training sessions. A handful of volunteers from the Emergency Response Team of the Timisoara County Hospital taught first-aid techniques to retirees. The social workers in local hospitals became a key source of referrals. They were happy to provide a home care service to their soon-to-be discharged patients. We showcased our services to local NGOs offering palliative care, such as Caritas Hospice, as an option to ensure care continuity at home. We established partnerships with private sector companies. Since 2022, we've been offering blood sampling services to adults who cannot leave home. We partner with two renowned healthcare providers, Regina Maria Healthcare Network and Sanitas Healthcare Clinics, to offer a high-quality, convenient service. More recently, we led international partnerships that research the impact of work in old age through collaborations such as the HEROES Project. Together with the Institute of Ageing Research (St. Gallen, Switzerland), terzStiftung Foundation (Berlingen, Switzerland), and Institute for Applied Research on Ageing (Carinthia, Austria) and rapid user feedback (Vienna, Austria), we are developing an age-inclusive platform for recruiting caregivers.

Our goal of building caring communities translates into three impact areas: Better health and overall well-being for older adults in our communities. We provided 25,000 hours of care to older adults, making it easier for them to live well in the comfort of their own homes. By supporting older adults early on, we prevent accidents and medical interventions, thus decreasing the healthcare costs in the community. We address the UN's SDG 3. 'Good Health and Well Being'. Empower family members, the majority of them women, to pursue their careers. Adult women are the traditional providers of elderly care. Caring for a loved one is emotionally and physically demanding, often overlapping with child-rearing. Women are 'sandwiched' between raising children and caring for parents, on top of working full time. It is well-researched that caring for relatives leads to more work absenteeism or even losing one's job, with a long-term negative impact on retirement and savings. We alleviate the burden and empower women to flourish in their careers while knowing that their loved ones are well. By supporting 425+ families to care for their loved ones, we address SDG 5. Gender equality. Support caregivers and nurses to work independently, as much or as little as they choose. We aim to enable a more caring community-led care model, where part-time nurses, caregivers or retirees can choose to accept the visits that fit their preferences, availability and needs. We provided dignified work opportunities to 125+ caregivers, nurses and retirees addressing SDG 8. Decent work and economic growth.

"Home care" has a loose meaning. Most people think of the well-regulated medical care activities carried out by nurses. "Elderly care" is equally vague. One mostly thinks of nursing homes, where one can spend old age surrounded by competent staff. The 'in-between', care that is neither medical nor provided in a residential setting, is a grey area. Many countries offer social care at home to less fortunate older people. Families traditionally provided such care, yet family support is declining rapidly. The industry is rife with questionable practices and lacks transparency. This 'grey' market poses significant challenges to new entrants such as The Care Hub. Our first challenge was finding the right caregivers. Employing full-time staff proved impossible due to the shortage of care staff. The retirees and nurses in the community wanted to work with us, but only infrequently. Independent, self-employed work seemed to be the right solution that empowers nurses and retirees to work legally on their terms. We developed a suite of services that make it easy for them to set up their legal entity, issue invoices automatically and submit their taxes.

Our first learning is to be rigorous in understanding the needs and flexible in addressing them. Many families request permanent care provided by the same person all week. Most times, the need is different, and so is the solution. We've learned to explore the option of multiple daily visits as an alternative that is affordable for older adults and sustainable for carers. We propose a constant care team instead of a single person. We explore such care options because we want older adults to maintain their independence and because we know how demanding care jobs are for a single person. Secondly, we learned about ageism and how it impacts older adults. Very early on, at our first Christmas gathering, one of the retirees told us that "she likes working with us because we will never ask her to retire". Much later on, in an interview with a representative from the Ministry of Labour, we talked about the pressures older people feel in the workplace as they approach retirement age. Thirdly, the pandemic reminded us of the value of being good neighbours. The carers, nurses and retirees continued supporting older adults in their neighbourhood despite lockdowns. We focused our efforts on minimizing the distance they had to travel as well as the number of older adults each of them supported. We disseminated clear information and provided protective equipment to enable them to continue working safely. We're happy that we provided continuous care to vulnerable adults and without any cases of transmission.

We are a small, grassroots project striving to become self-sustainable. With our limited resources, we improved the quality of life of 425 older adults in the last five years. Imagine the effect of multiplying this small impact in hundreds of cities over the next 50 years. We believe the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing can be the multiplier. By providing us and others like us with a platform to connect, co-create and improve, initiatives can be replicated by hundreds of social entrepreneurs worldwide.