Long-term institutional care or home care? What is the best solution for the Canton of Vaud?

A study has been carried out in the Canton of Vaud (Switzerland) with the economic objectives of evaluating the efficiency of long-term care at home and of defining the necessary conditions as well as the groups of population for which this efficiency would be optimal. This paper gives a summary of the basic optimisation model which has been developed and the principal results gathered during the study. These results confirm the economic advantages of home care in comparison with long-term stay in nursing homes, but they deviate from one of the principal hypotheses of the model.