Establishing health-promoting structures in professional long-term care through digitization: call for a perspective change

Digitization is becoming increasingly important in health promotion and disease prevention. At the same time, the Prevention Act has contributed to the strengthening of health promotion and disease prevention interventions in various settings. In a lifeworld- or setting-oriented approach, disease prevention and health promotion target both the behavior and the situation around individuals. Although the use of digital occupational health management has increased in working environments in recent years, the potential of digitization is still insufficiently exploited. This is particularly true for health promotion and disease prevention among nursing professionals.Therefore, this discussion paper focuses on health promotion and disease prevention in inpatient long-term care facilities. Since the structured implementation of digital applications in care facilities represents an innovation within the organization, this momentum could be used to simultaneously design structures and processes in a way that promotes health. In this context, health promotion through digitization is understood as an organizational task with a needs-sensitive and diversity-oriented focus. Digitization can thus be a vehicle for substantially advancing the establishment of health-promoting facilities in long-term care.