A Digital Maturity Assessment Tool for Integrated Long-Term Care: Enabling Preventive, Value-Based, and Technology-Enhanced Services through Equitable, Person-Centred Innovation 

Background: The European Pillar of Social Rights recognises access to affordable, good-quality long-term care (LTC) as a core principle. While it prioritises home and community-based services, the provision of integrated long-term care (I-LTC) for people in need of assistance remains a major challenge. LTC is inherently complex, combining health and social care, formal and informal provision, and facing persistent gaps in access and adequacy due to the underdevelopment of publicly funded services. Laurel, an EU-funded project, seeks to develop actionable policy recommendations to help care systems address these challenges and build stronger, more integrated LTC services. 

 

Approach: Population ageing is driving increased demand for LTC, making it essential to improve quality, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness. This requires strategies such as health promotion, preventive policies, better integration of services, evidence generation, and the use of digital technologies. Digital innovations have the potential to enable person-centred, community-based care, yet their implementation often encounters barriers, including fragmentation, lack of readiness, or limited trust. 

 

To explore these challenges, Laurel adopted a multidimensional technology assessment framework that considers: (i) the technical maturity and market penetration of applied technologies, distinguishing between consolidated implementations and early explorations; (ii) societal impact, business, and sustainability considerations; and (iii) ethical, trust, and awareness implications. This framework guided the development of the Digital Maturity Assessment Toolkit (DMAT) for LTC services, designed to evaluate, guide, and strengthen the adoption of digital solutions in I-LTC. 

 

Results: The DMAT comprises two complementary questionnaires: 

• Tool 1: Digital Maturity of Organisations – assesses governance, IT capabilities, workforce digital skills, interoperability, strategic planning, data analytics, patient-centred care, cybersecurity, and ethical considerations. It is designed for completion by senior management representatives.
• Tool 2: Digital Maturity of I-LTC Initiatives – evaluates the maturity of specific practices within organisations, examining system readiness, service readiness, technology adoption, business sustainability, and effectiveness of digital solutions. It is targeted to initiative leaders or equivalent representatives.

The prototype of the toolkit has been successfully piloted at regional level in Spain. The current version is being translated into an online tool that will (i) collect structured data from responses; (ii) compute dimension scores and overall maturity levels; (iii) provide instant visual feedback; and (iv) enable benchmarking across organisations and initiatives to derive targeted recommendations for improvement. 

 

Implications: The DMAT is designed primarily as a hands-on resource for implementers of integrated long-term care, offering practical guidance and actionable insights for advancing digital transformation in real settings at global level. At the same time, aggregated results will provide policymakers with an evidence base to inform strategies for digital health and care, while researchers will gain access to valuable data on adoption patterns, barriers, and enablers across Europe. Ultimately, the DMAT aims to foster the development of equitable, sustainable, and digitally enabled LTC systems that are better prepared to meet the needs of ageing populations.