As numbers of chronically ill patients with complex healthcare needs are increasing, primary care professionals will be challenged to deliver integrated care. Integrated care is about ‘delivering seamless care for patients with complex long-term problems cutting across multiple services, providers and settings.
Leaders are needed to address healthcare changes essential for implementation of integrated primary care. What kind of leadership this needs, which professionals should fulfil this role and how these leaders can be supported remains unclear.
The management of people with multiple chronic diseases challenges health care systems designed around single disease. Patients with multimorbidity often receive highly fragmented care that may lead to inefficient, ineffective and potentially harmful treatments and neglect of essential health needs. A more comprehensive, person-centered approach is advocated for persons with multiple morbidities. However, examples on how to provide more person-centered care and evidence of its impact are scarce.
The aim of this study was to develop a proactive person-centered care approach for persons with (multiple) chronic diseases in general practice, and to explore the impact on ‘Quadruple aims’: experiences of patients and professionals, patient outcomes and costs of resources use.
Whole-person care (WPC) is a core value of general practice and is particularly relevant with increasing population multimorbidity. However, WPC has lacked consensus definition, and some argue that it is not consistently practised. The aim of this study was to determine Australian general practitioners' (GPs') understanding of WPC and factors affecting its provision. This article (the first in a three-part series) describes GPs' understanding of WPC.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP’s) A fresh approach to general practice online conference, 11-12 February 2021, provides GPs and other primary healthcare professionals with an opportunity to join together to understand how the future of general practice will impact on everyday practice and how to adapt.
Some of the programme points:
Healthcare authorities worldwide search for ways to develop integrated care and interprofessional collaboration. In Belgium, Medical-Pharmaceutical Concertation (MPC) was introduced as a format to promote constructive dialogues between GPs and community pharmacists (CPs) with a focus on pharmacotherapy.
This study aimed to evaluate the implementation of MPC from the perspective of healthcare authorities and GPs/CPs.
Patients, providers and health care organisations benefit from an increased understanding and implementation of patient-centred care (PCC) by general practitioners (GPs). This study aimed to evaluate and advance a theoretical model of PCC developed in consultation with practising GPs and patient advocates.
Integrated care (IC) is a term commonly adopted across the world underpinning a positive attitude against fragmentation of healthcare service provision. While the principles supporting IC are simple, their implementation is more controversial.
Integrated care pathways can help to avoid unnecessary admissions to hospital and improve the overall quality of care for frail older patients. Although these integrated care pathways should be coordinated by GPs their level of commitment may vary.
General practice has always been the foundation and gateway to the NHS. However the problems are mounting up: a stretched and increasingly burnt-out workforce, no systematic reporting or analysis of activity and demand, fragmentation with secondary care, and confusing and dated contracting and reimbursement mechanisms. The status quo is increasingly unacceptable to both patients and GPs. There is now a consensus that changes are needed, including to the small-scale independent contractor model, to ensure that primary care can thrive in the future.
Policy Exchange has set out a pragmatic proposal for reform. Addressing issues around integration, workforce, digital transformation and scaled provision, we argue that a new model of general practice is required to better meet the needs of patients and the taxpayer – so it feels increasingly at their service.
Throughout the world, healthcare policy has committed to delivering integrated models of care. The interface between primary–secondary care has been identified as a particularly challenging area in this regard. To that end, this study aimed to examine the issue of integrated care from general practitioners’ (GPs) perspectives in Ireland.
To reduce the burden of chronic diseases on society and individuals, European countries implemented chronic Disease Management Programs (DMPs) that focus on the management of a single chronic disease. However, due to the fact that the scientific evidence that DMPs reduce the burden of chronic diseases is not convincing, patients with multimorbidity may receive overlapping or conflicting treatment advice, and a single disease approach may be conflicting with the core competencies of primary care. In addition, in the Netherlands, care is shifting from DMPs to person-centred integrated care (PC-IC) approaches.