A community ICT platform to support the functioning and participation of community-dwelling elderly people: feasibility and impact

Over the last five years various neighbourhood portals have become available. The platform that will be used in this project,“Cubigo” (www.cubigo.com), is a very promising one with several advantages. It is available, already implemented in various municipalities (both in the Netherlands and Belgium), and developed for aged populations. In contrast to nearly all other platforms, it is an integrator platform that can include tools from various organizations and companies; as a consequence it is a flexible platform offering tailor-made solutions for end-users (see section “Implementation” for further details on the platform).
The municipality of Heerlen, the public health organization (GGD Zuid-Limburg), neighbourhood associations and societies for older persons, health and social care organizations, are working together on the implementation of such an ICT platform in three neighbourhoods in Heerlen with a total of 14,000 inhabitants (including nearly 3,000 persons aged 65 or over). The introduction of the platform offers an unique opportunity to monitor the implementation and experiences of older persons and its impact on their functioning and participation. This is the first large scale study in the Netherlands on the contribution of such a platform for aged persons in the community.