In light of Europe’s aging population and the escalating pressure on Long-Term Care (LTC) systems, a critical limitation of traditional care models is becoming increasingly apparent. In a context where expanding the supply of public services is no longer sustainable, the time has come to reassess the way these services are designed and organized. This realization is the starting point for the mapping exercise included in the 8° Rapporto Osservatorio Long Term Care (The 8 th Observatory on Long-Term Care Report, published in Italian) by CERGAS SDA Bocconi . The report singled out 79 innovative European initiatives centering on housing to foster longevity and home care supported by digital technologies.
The analysis of the initiatives in question reveals a common development path: the gradual disappearance of the traditional boundaries between home, care services, community, and technology. In other words, the mapping exercise points to a clear paradigm shift: Innovation lies not so much in introducing new services as in rethinking how older adults live, receive care, and remain connected to their social networks.
Beyond facilities: Housing as a service
The first key finding concerns the growing prominence of innovative housing solutions. Three-quarters of the mapped initiatives fall into this category, indicating that across Europe the conversation on aging is gradually moving beyond the traditional divide between home-based care and residential care toward hybrid models that are more flexible and more personalized.
The most common type of solution is community living with support services: independent apartments located in settings that provide shared services, social activities, and scalable levels of care. Alongside these initiatives, also emerging are intergenerational living models, home-sharing programs between younger and older people, housing cooperatives, dementia villages, and temporary housing arrangements designed to smooth the transition between hospital, home, and residential care.
Despite their diversity, these solutions share several common principles. First, they place the individual at the center, viewing older adults as active participants rather than passive recipients of care. Second, they emphasize the domestic dimension by creating environments that minimize the sense of institutionalization while promoting autonomy and well-being. Finally, they are deeply integrated with the surrounding area and the local community, overcoming the traditional separation between places of care and places of everyday life.
Housing is no longer simply the setting where services are delivered. Instead, it has become a strategic lever to promote prevention, inclusion, and quality of life.
Technology that strengthens relationships
A second key finding from the mapping exercise concerns the role of digital technologies in care services. The cases in the analysis show that the most promising innovations strengthen human relationships rather than replacing them.
These initiatives focus primarily on two objectives. On the one hand, they reinforce social connections through social engagement platforms, video-assisted care services, virtual communities or adult day centers, and tools that connect users, caregivers, and care professionals. On the other hand, they transform organizational models through care management platforms, coordination tools, and systems for collecting and using data, enabling more effective collaboration among the various stakeholders involved in care pathways.
This suggests that the true value of digitalization in LTC does not lie solely in its ability to monitor health indicators or automate tasks, but in the capacity to create services that are more personalized, better integrated, more closely aligned with users’ needs, and more effective at keeping people connected.
Technology therefore emerges as an enabling infrastructure for new models of care rather than as a standalone solution. This is particularly relevant in a context such as Italy’s, where the main challenge is not simply expanding service availability but improving service integration and continuity.
European laboratories of innovation and the leading actors
From a geographical perspective, the mapping exercise highlights a strong concentration of initiatives in Northwestern Europe. Countries such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands stand out as particularly fertile environments for projects that redefine the relationship between professional care, community, and individual autonomy, together accounting for more than 40% of the initiatives identified in the study.
Another noteworthy finding is that many of these innovations emerge from collaboration among different types of organizations: public institutions, nonprofit organizations, private providers, universities, foundations, and local communities. Innovation therefore appears less as the result of isolated initiatives by individual organizations and more as the product of collaborative ecosystems.
At the same time, these new environments are giving rise to professional roles requiring nontraditional skills. These positions include community managers, facilitators, case managers, and professionals capable of coordinating local networks, fostering relationships, and supporting personalized care pathways.
The challenges for Italian providers
For Italian LTC providers, the main lesson from the mapping exercise is likely the need to move beyond a service-centered approach. The most advanced initiatives reveal an increasing convergence between housing policies, health and social care services, digital technologies, and community development. So it seems that the real innovation isn’t a particular technology or a specific housing model. Rather, innovation lies in the ability to build models centered on autonomy, participation, and relationships, using services, spaces, and technologies as tools to support these objectives.
For a system such as Italy’s, historically characterized by a sharp separation between home care, residential care, and housing policies, the message propagating across Europe is particularly powerful: The future of LTC depends not only on introducing new services but, above all, on connecting existing ones in new ways.
Giovanni Fosti , Elisabetta Notarnicola , Eleonora Perobelli (eds), Long Term Care
in trasformazione: casa, servizi e comunità. 8° Rapporto Osservatorio Long Term Care , (in Italian), EGEA, 2026.
