Measuring the Impact of Digitalization on the Performance of Long-Term Care Organizations: A Systematic Literature Review
Aging of population and increasing patient fragility pose to Long-Term Care (LTC) systems the challenge of ensuring economic and organizational sustainability without compromising the quality of care. In such a context, digitalization represents a strategic lever for improving quality, efficiency, and integration of healthcare services. Nevertheless, the literature appears fragmented and lacks coherent measurement models. Adopting a theoretical approach based on organizational performance, the study conducts a systematic literature review (PRISMA protocol) of articles indexed in Scopus, selecting 38 contributions. The analysis highlights the prevalence of US studies, the centrality of the quality of care as the main macro-dimension of the performance, and the poor measurement of economic and organizational sustainability.
The main result is the development of an integrated theoretical framework to measure the degree of digitalization of a residential LTC facility and its impact on the quality of care, incorporating experiential and organizational dimensions to capture the relational value of LTC services. The model provides the basis for comparative and longitudinal studies and, theoretically, implies the evolution towards a multidimensional performance measurement paradigm able to integrate technological, organizational, and network aspects in a sustainable and data-driven perspective.
Keywords: Digitalization, Performance, Measurement, Long-Term Care
