Scenario planning in long-term care

The pace at which the world is changing raises many questions for long-term care. Do we remain a solidarity-based society, or is the participation society pushed through to the full? Will we really manage to give integrated answers to the needs of self-determining care users? ActiZ, the trade association of nearly 400 care organisations in the Dutch nursing-home and home-care sector, has spent the last few months working with executives and Jester Strategy on four possible future images for long-term care.

The basis for these scenarios was built through conversations with many experts, from professors to journalists and from healthcare purchasers to executives. Each scenario gives care organisations a very different perspective on the future of long-term care, while all the scenarios are conceivable. The scenarios were discussed in a series of regional sessions with dozens of executives from across the country. Together we looked at which challenges flow out of the scenarios and how an organisation can best respond.

ActiZ and its members are enthusiastic about the scenarios. The future images will be developed further both collectively and individually. A policy paper on cross-domain care will define the joint options and actions ActiZ can take to realise streamlined cross-domain care. A scenario game gives member organisations an instrument to translate the impact of the future scenarios into the strategy of the individual care organisation.