Establishing a Gerontology Coordination Centre to improve care for the elderly in Monaco

The Ministry of Health and Social Affairs opened the Gerontology Coordination Centre as a dedicated resource to support and provide services to elderly people aged 60 years and over; Monaco's small geographic and population size lent itself to a centralized approach. The initiative created a hub for the coordination of multiple aspects of health and social care for the elderly; services offered by the Centre are holistic, integrated, tailored to individual needs and place strong emphasis on supporting patients’ independence. Comprehensive geriatric assessments evaluating physical, mental and social needs are now available to all people aged 60 years and over; data collection performed by the Centre provides information on emerging needs within the elderly population, enabling data-driven policy responses.

Pioneering integrated organizational models for improving elderly people’s care in Ängelholm, Sweden

A new integrated care organization (Hälsostaden) was established to merge primary and hospital care with elderly and social care. Hälsostaden is jointly managed by its regional and municipal government and employs 600 professionals across health and social sectors; early investments in stakeholder relationships and trust building were essential for securing the future of the initiative and developing a foundation based on teamwork; finding the uniting objective of improving care for elderly people enabled stakeholders to move forward with planning; contextualizing the initiative within emerging political priorities helped generate political support and secure the necessary legal frameworks; identifying individual organizational strengths and pooling resources minimized required investments and supported in-house initiatives.

Integrating health and social care in Highland, Scotland

A lead organization model was introduced in Highland to promote greater integration between health care and social services. This new management structure united previously fragmented professional groups, serving to streamline service delivery and improve working relationships; broad political support for integrated care created a favourable environment for change; strong support from local senior management drove the initiative forward; extensive local engagement across all care levels ensured widespread buy-in for the initiative and reduced resistance to change across stakeholder groups; design and implementation of the initiative was iterative and not every detail was worked out prior to its launch; leaders stressed the need for “balance between diligence and good enough”.

Developing guidelines to reduce under-five child mortality in the Republic of Moldova

The government developed an under-five child mortality reduction initiative and established new standards and protocols for the observation of childhood illness; research conducted prior to the initiative identified the root causes of problems and provided evidence of the need to act; guidance and support from the Ministry of Health led to coordinated intersectoral action Educating and expanding providers’ competencies challenged pre-held attitudes regarding the detection and treatment of childhood illness; joint-sector delivery by health providers and social workers facilitated more comprehensive and coordinated care for patients; national ownership over the initiative was important; activities were fully integrated into national standards and supported with legislation.

Economic evaluation of integrated new technologies for health and social care: Suggestions for policy makers, users and evaluators

With an ageing population there is a move towards the use of assisted living technologies (ALTs) to provide social care and health care services, and to improve service processes. These technologies are at the forefront of the integration of health and social care. However, economic evaluatios of ALTs, and indeed economic evaluations of any interventions providing both health benefits and benefits beyond health are complex. This paper considers the challenges faced by evaluators and presents a method of economic evaluation for use with interventions where traditional methods may not be suitable for informing funders and decision makers. They propose a method, combining economic evaluation techniques, that can accommodate health outcomes and outcomes beyond health. 

The Digital House of Care: Information solutions for integrated care

This paper draws on the recent experience of achieving large-scale data integration accross the boundaries of health and social care, to help plan and commission services more effectively. The purpose is to describe the development of a digital tool in an English county stiving towards a vision of integrated information that is used to underpin and increasingly integrated future of health and social care delivery. 

The SELFIE framework for integrated care for multi-morbidity: Development and description

The rise of multi-morbidity constitutes a serious challenge in health and social care organisation that requires a shift from disease-towards person-centred integrated care. The aim of the current study was to develop a conceptual framework that can aid the development, implementation, description, and evaluation of integrated care programmes for multi-morbidity. The framework structures relevant concepts in integrated care for multimorbidity and can be applied by different stakeholders to guide development, implementation, description, and evaluation. 

Primary Care Home October 2017

The Primary Care Home programme has gathered huge momentum since its inception in autumn 2015. From 15 original rapid test sites– they now have more than 190 sites across England, covering eight million patients– 14 per cent of the population.

Applications continue to come in – all are very welcome to join what has all the hallmarks of a social movement across integrated care. Its success, they believe, is because it is bringing about the change that clinicians know is right for their patients – something they've always wanted to do. Staff now feel empowered and excited, with the freedom to innovate and drive improvements. It is also about the human scale of the change where people feel they belong, own local challenges and can make a real difference working alongside their patients. Many have started with small changes that have led to early benefits and created a compelling case for ...

Understanding inter-organizational trust among integrated care service provider networks: A perspective on organizational asymmetries

The objective was to explore the factors that influence trust among the integrated healthcare service provider network in the context of seeking combined health and care services in the UK.
Their findings reveal that trust among integrated care service provider networks is influenced by the following factors on various asymmetries: 1) recognition and knowledge asymmetries among care service partners of each other’s skills, expertise and capabilities; 2) capacity and financial imbalances within the network; and 3) organizational differences in management, culture and attitudes toward change.

WHO launches an innovative package of tools to support person-centred and integrated care for older people

On the International Day of the Older Person (1st October) the World Health Organization (WHO) released a package of tools to support the implementation of the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) approach.

ICOPE, based on the WHO Framework on integrated people-centred health services, has been developed in the context of populations around the world ageing rapidly. It enables health and long-term care systems-and the services within them-to respond optimally to the unique, varied and often complex needs of older people.

The package of tools includes: the ICOPE Implementation Framework (guidance for policy makers and programme managers to assess and measure the capacity of services and systems to deliver integrated care at the community level); the ICOPE Handbook, which describes practical care pathways to detect declines in intrinsic capacity and develop personalised care plans; and the ICOPE handbook App, which helps implement ICOPE in community care settings.

Access ICOPE tools ...

Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE)

How to adapt person-centered health services to ageing populations?

Every older person, everywhere, should have access to high quality and person-centred health services. That's why the World Health Organization has published guidelines on Integrated Care for Older People.

Learn more here: https://www.who.int/ageing/health-systems/icope/en/ and here: https://www.who.int/ageing/publications/guidelines-icope/en/

Populations around the world are rapidly ageing. It will increase demand for primary health care and long-term care, require a larger and better trained health workforce and intensify the need for age-friendly environments. These investments can enable the many contributions of older people – whether it be within their family, to their local community or to society more broadly. Universal health coverage for older people means quality health services that are integrated and person-centered.

Societies that adapt to this changing demographic and invest in Healthy Ageing can enable individuals to live both longer and healthier lives and for societies to ...

National Forum on Integrated Care will focus on Lifelong People-centred Care

IFIC Ireland in association with the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC), the UCD Centre for Integrated Care and Improvement Studies (UCD CICIS) and the Health Service Executive (HSE) Ireland presents “Transforming Health and Social Care in Ireland: Delivering Lifelong People-centred Care” on Wednesday, 6 November 2019 in O’Reilly Hall University College Dublin.

The forum is attended by up to 300 delegates from across Ireland and Northern Ireland and includes Health and Social Care Services Mangers, Clinicians and System leads, Academics leading in the field of integrated care, and a wide range of not for profit patient representative organisations and private sector providers of care services.

A number of policy frameworks have been developed in recent years, including the development of Children’s Health Ireland, to support the movement towards a more coordinated and holistic approach to improving population health in Ireland. Particularly, the Sla?intecare report, a ten- ...

A 10 Step Framework to Implement Integrated Care for Older Persons

An aging population, whose multi-morbidities and risk of frailty increase with age results in significant health and social care consumption. Increasing complexity amplifies fragmentation of care and results in sub optimal care outcomes. There is growing evidence base supporting effective service responses for older persons. These typically include multidisciplinary, community based teams providing services in or near to the older person’s home (the ‘what’). However, examples of systemic implementation are confined to smaller regions notably in Catalonia (Spain), Scotland and Singapore. This reflects the fact that the implementation of integrated care is problematic at scale. The need to attend to methods that support high autonomy professionals tasked with local implementation (the ‘who’) is a neglected area. This paper proposes a framework to implementing integrated care for older persons. In addition, it offers some initial empirical evidence that this approach has utility among managers and clinicians. In doing so seeks ...

More that unites us than divides us? A qualitative study of integration of community health and social care services

The integration of community health and social care services has been widely promoted in the UK as a vital step to improve patient-centred care, reduce costs, reduce admissions to hospital and facilitate timely and effective discharge from hospital. The complexities of integration raise questions about the practical challenges of integrating health and care given embedded professional and organisational boundaries in both sectors.

This study describes how an English city created a single, integrated care partnership, to integrate community health and social care services. This led to the development of 12 integrated neighbourhood teams, combining and co-locating professionals across three separate localities.

The aim of this research was to identify the context and the factors enabling and hindering integration from a qualitative process evaluation.

Measuring the benefits of the integration of health and social care: qualitative interviews with professional stakeholders and patient representatives

Integrated care has the potential to ease the increasing pressures faced by health and social care systems, however, challenges around measuring the benefits for providers, patients, and service users remain. This paper explores stakeholders’ views on the benefits of integrated care and approaches to measuring the integration of health and social care.

Patient Privacy and Integrated Care: The Multidisciplinary Health Care Team

This article explores legislative provisions in relation to patient privacy in the context of integrated health and social care and the development of multidisciplinary health care teams that include practitioners from private sector and government agencies in the health, education, child protection, family welfare, disability, aged-care, housing, local government and criminal justice sectors. 

Patient Empowerment: An introduction. Patient Empowerment Mini-Series with CEmPaC

Nursing Care Coordination for Patients with Complex Needs in Primary Healthcare: A Scoping Review

Millions of people worldwide have complex health and social care needs. Care coordination for these patients is a core dimension of integrated care and a key responsibility for primary healthcare. Registered nurses play a substantial role in care coordination.

This review draws on previous theoretical work and provides a synthesis of care coordination interventions as operationalized by nurses for complex patient populations in primary healthcare.

1st All-Ireland Conference on Integrated Care “Transforming Health and Social Care across Ireland: Delivering Lifelong People-centred Care”

IFIC Ireland in association with the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) presents “Transforming Health and Social Care across Ireland: Delivering Lifelong People-centred Care” on Thursday, 10 March 2022 in O’Reilly Hall University College Dublin. 

The forum is attended by up to 300 delegates from across the island of Ireland and includes Health and Social Care Services Mangers, Clinicians and System leads, Academics leading in the field of integrated care, and a wide range of not for profit patient representative organisations and private sector providers of care services. 

A number of policy frameworks have recently been developed to support the movement towards a more coordinated and holistic approach to improving population across the island of Ireland. The?Sla?intecare?report, a ten-year strategy for health care and health policy in Ireland, emphasises the importance of integrated care and shifting care out of hospitals and into the primary and community ...

The Leadership of Co-Production in Health and Social Care Integration in Scotland: A Qualitative Study

The involvement of citizens in the production and creation of public services has become a central tenet for administrations internationally. In Scotland, co-production has underpinned the integration of health and social care via the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014. We report on a qualitative study that examined the experiences and perspectives of local and national leaders in Scotland on undertaking and sustaining co-production in public services. By adopting a meso and macro perspective, we interviewed senior planning officers from eight health and social care partnership areas in Scotland and key actors in national agencies. The findings suggest that an overly complex Scottish governance landscape undermines the sustainability of co-production efforts. As part of a COVID-19 recovery, both the implementation of meaningful co-production and coordinated leadership for health and social care in Scotland need to be addressed, as should the development of evaluation capacities of those working across health ...

Transforming health care: stories of changemakers across the world

This film weaves together and amplifies the stories from individuals and groups intentionally leading change, wherever they are situated in their respective ‘system’. It reveals some of the many ways that these changemakers have managed to significantly impact their health care environments and improve health outcomes, often through relatively small, local interventions. Their experiences span subjects such as improving patient safety and reducing patient harm; preventing the death of newborns through a model that places parents at the centre of specialized care; transforming mental health programming; addressing the root causes of teenage suicide; saving the lives of babies born with anomalies; or promoting community health and introducing compassion in health leadership. 

 Why transformative approaches in health care?

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the challenging, stressful and highly complex environments that staff working in health and social care must navigate. Health systems are a microcosm of the societies ...

Integrated care systems need to be different - but how exactly?

ICSs are intended to be a fundamental departure from previous NHS structures with a different type of leadership based on partnership, in which local partner organisations hold collective responsibility for resource use and outcomes. However, as ICSs take on statutory responsibilities for the first time later this year (assuming the Heath and Care Bill gains parliamentary approval) there is a risk of recreating established ways of working within the new structures. To live up to their promise, what are the things that should be ‘different’ about ICSs?

First, the concept of equal partnership between the NHS, local government, voluntary sector and others needs to be at the core of how these reforms are implemented. ICSs started their lives as informal partnerships operating through soft power and influence. The Health and Care Bill changes this by putting ICSs on a statutory footing, but partnership-working and collective responsibility need to remain at ...

Healthcare Events The Integrating Health and Social Care Conference 2022

The Convenzis Integrating Health and Social Care Conference is a showcase of best practices from teams across the NHS and provides a platform to meet and engage with sector-leading guest speakers, forward-thinking innovators and 200+ peers from across the NHS.

Integrating Health and Social Services in Finland: Regional Approaches and Governance Models

The study explores regional approaches to integrated care, focusing on regions with regular municipality-based and integrated unified health and social care administration. The aim is to describe a governance approach that supports care integration in the regions.

Integrated care strategy, health and wellbeing board and joint forward plan guidance: what you need to know

Key points

• The Department for Health and Social Care has released guidance for:

1. the preparation of integrated care strategies by integrated care partnerships
2. health and wellbeing boards and how they will work with and within integrated care systems
3. principles for integrated care partnership engagement with adult social care providers
4. principles for integrated care partnership engagement with health overview and scrutiny committees.

• NHS England has released guidance on developing the joint forward plan, to support integrated care boards and their partner trusts to develop their first 5-year joint forward plans.
• Integrated care partnerships may wish to publish an initial interim strategy by December 2022 if they want to align and influence integrated care boards' first five-year joint forward plans.
• Integrated care boards (ICBs) and their partner trusts are required to prepare a joint forward plan before the start of each financial year, and share the final version with their integrated care ...

Collaborative Leadership in Integrated Care Systems; Creating Leadership for the Common Good

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a catalyst for change, but such change can only happen through collaborative leadership which maintains a focus on relationships and purpose rather than solely on outputs or outcomes. This conceptual article explores how health and social care integration has been offered as one potential solution to the challenge of health and social care transformation. Specifically, Integrated Care Systems in England are intended to provide regional governance, to provide public services in a coherent and robust way. We explore this development in relation to three key aspects: the macro-level global policy context; the meso-level organizational behaviour and culture; and the micro-level practice of individual leaders and managers. It is found that, whilst the organizational structure of Integrated Care Systems offers great promise, collaborative leadership is critical to realize truly resilient and sustainable collaborative relationships.

Integrated care for older persons who live with complex health and social care requirements: a core set of indicators

Performance measures are an important mediating mechanism that influences the design and delivery of care. Unfortunately, it is still commonly the case that acute care indicators are employed to assess the efficacy of integrated care. This hinders the ability to accurately assess and continuously improve integrated care efforts for priority populations, including older persons who live with complex health and social care requirements. A core set of indicators is needed from which to assess the quality and impact of integrated care on these older persons and care partners.