Social Experiments with the Budget for Nursing Care (2004-2008) - Conception of the Evaluation Design
This article introduces the evaluation design for the ongoing social experiments with the so called personal budget for nursing care. This personal budget is a cash benefit which can be used by long term care patients and their relatives for buying individually tailored care services. In the future, the budget for nursing care could amend the existing cash and non-cash benefits if the social experiment proves its cost-effectiveness. International experiences with personal budgets, especially in the Netherlands and Great Britain, indicate that personal budgets in the amount of non-cash benefits increase the quality of nursing care due to individually tailored home care arrangements By developing the evaluation design, two German specifics must be pointed out. On the one hand, the budget for nursing care will be connected with the consulting service of a case manager. On the other hand, the existing incentive system already contains cash and non-cash benefits. The budget for nursing care is to be tested between 2004 and 2008 in seven locations in Western- and Eastern-Germany with randomized control groups as social experiment.