Caring network based on community social alarm centers in Slovenia: a country in transition

Elderly, disabled, and sick people should be assisted to remain living in their own homes for as long as possible--this is a generally accepted philosophy of modern societies. A caring network based on community social alarms can significantly improve home-based care coordination, its efficiency, and quality. According to long-term experiences in some developed European countries, this has multifold positive influences on the society. Promising results have encouraged the implementation of such a system in Slovenia--a young mid-european country in transition, where restrictive governmental economic policy also influences social and medical standards that were agreed to under the former socialistic government. In Ljubljana--the capital of Slovenia with 250,000 inhabitants--the first community social alarm center was established in 1992. Based on two years of experience, a national plan for several regional centers, covering the whole country, was prepared. The government should provide a telecommunication infrastructure, but the local authorities and formal service providers should establish local conditions for its implementation. The project has been seeking to obtain its legitimacy as a governmental project.