From April this year, all Local Health Units can voluntarily join and set up teams of nurses to provide care at home to users in situations of addiction, terminal illness or convalescence.
The Government decided to extend the pilot project of Integrated Continuing Care Teams (ECCI) to Local Health Units that want to voluntarily join the model between April 1st and December 31st of 2026.
The decision comes after positive results registered in the five units where the project was tested and which allowed the daily average of monitored users to increase by 46.6%, covering around 550 people per day.
With the application of the model at the national level, it is estimated that another 1,835 patients can be monitored daily at home, reinforcing the response of the National Integrated Continuing Care Network, more than tripling the capacity achieved in the experimental phase.
The project, which led to 12 fewer emergency room visits for every 100 patients followed, also contributed to reduce pressure on emergency services, and could generate a annual savings close to 4 million of euros.
The pilot project allowed, on average, around 550 users over 18 years of age to receive home care daily. As published on the Government website, more than 90% of users and informal caregivers declared themselves “very satisfied” with the support received.
Speaking to the newspaper, the national coordinator of the National Integrated Continuing Care Network (RNCCI), Abel Paivastated that “it was not possible do in six months what hasn’t been done in 20 years”.
“The extension, in space and time, of the pilot project will allow the construction of a solid long-term care model and the definition of a cost model, that is, a mechanism that allows us to know how much it costs, in practice, for a patient in long-term care”, something that, Abel Paiva told the newspaper, was never done in a structured way in Portugal.
