Implementing an integrated cardiology programme in Eastern Lithuania to improve cardiovascular health

The initiative strengthened cardiovascular care in primary and secondary settings, providing new training and equipment to providers to establish infrastructure for improved cardiology care outside of specialist settings; a detailed situational analysis informed the initiative’s design and provided evidence supporting the intervention; strong leadership by senior management at Vilnius University Hospital provided technical expertise and generated stakeholder support, while backing from the Ministry of Health added legitimacy to activities; extensive engagement of providers from the beginning was necessary for overcoming an individualistic culture and building collaborative relationships; distribution of a standardized cardiology equipment package to participating locations established basic quality standards and helped enable providers to implement new training.

How to Ensure Referral and Uptake for COPD Rehabilitation – Part 2: A Case of Integrated Care on How to Translate Findings of Cross- Sectorial Workflow to Improve Cross-Sectorial Rehabilitation

Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can greatly benefit from rehabilitation initiatives, but referral to rehabilitation is sparse. Before we initiated activities to ensure hospital referrals for prevention initiatives at the municipality, we investigated referral patterns and relevant factors in the cross-sectorial workflow.

This study aims to ensure referral to municipality COPD rehabilitation, by simplifying the referral procedures, and by facilitating relational coordination across the two health care settings.