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”.

Designing a national diabetes plan for Slovenia

The Ministry of Health convened a working group to develop a national diabetes strategy. After several years of deliberation among working-group members, the finalized National Diabetes Strategy was approved by the government in 2010; an active patient association supported patient engagement and involvement throughout the initiative’s planning and implementation process; meaningful stakeholder engagement across professions and institutions helped develop a common vision for the initiative; building trust between stakeholders took time, but was necessary to allow functional teamwork and effective plan development; oversight from the Ministry of Health fostered important linkages across activities, ensuring that changes to service delivery under the initiative aligned with and complemented other parallel reforms.

Effective Organizational Leadership in the Implementation of Integrated Care; Lessons from 9 cases in the iCoach Project

Policy makers in many countries are encouraging the development of integrated care strategies and the development of new models of integrated care. These new models require changes at a clinical or service level, organizational level and system level with strong leadership necessary at all three levels. Despite the key role of leadership in these efforts, there has been only limited study of what organizational leadership approach is successful in different contexts for integrated care. 

Individual determinants of integrated care for indigent patients: an experimental study in Brussels: Pierre Smith

In metropolitan area, socially deprived patients with chronic disease undergo the fragmentation of health and social care services because of their complex needs. Integration of health and social care would benefit these patientes, however, it is not feasible or appropriate to integrate all the services for all vulnerable patients. This study aims at identifying the indicidual determinants of deprived patients´preferences in integration of health and social care. 

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis of Integrated Care Webinar – SELFIE Project

Professionals are increasingly keen to assess the effects of integrated care initiatives and payers and policy makers are keen to ensure that they allocate scarce resources only to services that have proven value for money. When evaluating the added value of complex interventions such as integrated care initiatives, we need to adopt a broad, inclusive method of evaluation and a holistic, person-centered understanding of ‘value’. This is possible with Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). MCDA is a method to improve transparency of decision-making that makes the impact that multiple criteria have on a decision, and their relative importance explicit. It is particularly suited for interventions where multiple, sometimes conflicting, criteria play a role, and the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders about the importance of decision-criteria need to be taken into account. In this webinar prof.dr. Maureen Rutten-van Mölken of the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management of the Erasmus ...

Asia-Pacific Patients Congress: Harmonisation for Patient-Centred Universal Health Coverage in Asia

IAPO’s Asia-Pacific Patients Congress is the 2019 regional event which will bring together the patient movement in the Asia-Pacific region. The Congress aims to bring together around 150 patient advocates from the region to share their insights, perspectives, experiences and best practices on the pressing healthcare issues in the region.

It is also an opportunity for IAPO to promote its mission to help build patient-centered healthcare across the region and to encourage the formation of national alliances of patient groups.

The Congress is organized by IAPO and co-delivered by its regional members the Psoriasis Association of Taiwan (PAT) and the Taiwan Alliance of Patient Organizations (TAPO).