The new frontier of strategic alliances in health care: New partnerships under accountable care organizations

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) and similar reforms aim to improve coordination between health care providers; however, due to the fragmented nature of the US health care system, successful cordination will hinge in large part on the ability of health care organizations to successfully partner across organizational boundaries. This article findings suggests that the success of the ACO model will hinge in large part upon the success of new partnerships, with important implications for understanding ACO readiness and capabilities, the relatively small savings achieved to date by ACO programs, and the path to providers bearing more risk for population health management. 

The new frontier of strategic alliances in health care: New partnerships under accountable care organizations

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) and similar reforms aim to improve coordination between health care providers; however, due to the fragmented nature of the US health care system, successful coordination will hinge in large part on the ability of health care organizations to successfully partner accross organizational boundaries, however, little is known about new partnerships formed under the ACO model. 

Assessing the feasibility of community health insurance in Uganda: A mixed-methods exploratory analysis

Community health insurance (CHI) aims to provide financial protection and facilitate health care access among poor rural populations. Given common operational challenges that hamper the full development of the scheme, there is need to undertake systematic feasibility studies. These are scarce in the literature and usually they do not provide a comprehensive analysis of the local context. The present research intends to adopt a mixed-methods approach to assess ex-ante the feasibility of CHI. 

Using the Project INTEGRATE Framework in Practice in Central Coast, Australia

Integrated care implies sustained change in complex systems and progress is not always linear or easy to assess. The Central Coast integrated Care Program (CCICP) was planned as a ten-year place-based system change. This paper reports the first formative evaluation to provide a detailed description of the implementation of the CCICP, after two years of activity, and the current progress towards integrated care.

Finding the Person in Electronic Health Records. A Mixed-methods Analysis of Person-centered Content and Language

The co-creation and sharing of documentation of person-centered care is important, but challenging in clinical practice. Online access to health records is considered essential to increase patient participation and empowerment in person-centered care provision.

The aims of this study were (1) to identify the extent of person-centered content in medical inpatient records and discharge letters; (2) to describe the characteristics of the language and rhetoric used in discharge letters.

Established norms for documentation in healthcare are a barrier to person-centered documentation. Patients’ needs and preferences about documentation should be explored to increase understanding of how person-centered documentation can be achieved in clinical practice.

General Practitioners and Community Pharmacists’ Collaboration in Primary Care: Small Steps for a Major Change

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.

Webinar: Unpacking the causes and manifestations of rural health inequities: the use of mixed methods research

Evaluation of the North West London Diabetes Foot Care Transformation Project: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation

Diabetes foot ulceration presents an enormous burden to those living with diabetes and to the local health systems and economies. There is an increasing interest in implementing integrated care models to enhance the quality of care for people living with diabetes and related complications and the value of co-production approaches to achieve sustainable change.

This paper aims to describe the evaluation methodology for the North West London Diabetes Foot Care Transformation project.