[Quality prevention and health promotion programming in long-term care: the QualiPEP Project]

With the demographic shift, the number of persons in need of long-term care is continuing to grow, as is the need for nursing care staff and specialists. Stress levels within the long-term care sector are very high. Multiple legislative reforms have given rise to societal and political awareness of the resulting challenges: Preventive Health Care Act (2015), First and Second Acts and Third Bill to Strengthen Long-term Care (2015-17), Federal Participation Act (2017), and the Bill to Strengthen Nursing Care Staff (2019).To meet these challenges, in May 2017 the four-year project quality-oriented prevention and health promotion in institutions for persons with disabilities and of long-term care (QualiPEP) was founded. It is administered by the AOK-Bundesverband and promoted by the federal health ministry. The project addresses part- and full-stationary residential long-term care settings and residential home settings for persons with disabilities. It pursues three goals: 1. Developing a quality concept to improve effectiveness and sustainability of prevention and health-promotion programming; 2. Strengthening the health literacy of home residents, employees and organizations (therefore, a framework concept will be developed); 3. Expanding upon existing workplace health-promotion measures for employees. The ultimate impact objective is to increase health-related quality of life for the target groups.The process of developing quality indicators begins with a needs assessment, followed by phases of conceptualization, implementation, evaluation and adaptation. The present article illustrates QualiPEP project objectives with a specific focus on long-term care facilities and further describes the project's research design and planned execution.