Challenges, progress, opportunities: European and Central Asian health systems

New WHO studies look at health systems across 14 countries in Europe and Central Asia to reveal how to better invest in the health of millions Allowing policy-makers the chance to compare and collaborate, recent studies from the World Health Organization present countries’ health systems at a glance.

Many citizens in the WHO European Region are fortunate to live in countries where the health system can look after them when they fall ill. But sadly, for millions of others, falling ill means having to choose between paying for medical treatment and paying for food, education and other necessities.

In some ...

International comparisons of the quality and outcomes of integrated care: Findings of the OECD pilot on stroke and chronic heart failure

Across OECD countries, two in three people aged over 65 years live with at least one chronic condition often requiring multiple interactions with different providers, making them more susceptible to poor and fragmented care. This has prompted calls for making health systems more people-centred, capable of delivering high-quality integrated care. Despite promising, mostly local-level, experiences, systems remain fragmented, focused on acute care and unsuitable to solve complex needs. Moreover, assessing and comparing the benefits of integrated care remains difficult given the lack of technically sound, policy-relevant indicators. This report presents the results of the first OECD pilot of a new ...

Social workers coordination in primary healthcare for patients with complex needs: A scoping review

Care coordination has been part of social work for some time. It has been recognized as contributing to care coordination for long-term care for the elderly and mental health but less is known about their contribution in primary care with patients with complex health and social needs. As social workers are increasingly present in primary healthcare, this scoping review aims to provide a synthesis of social workers’ coordination activities for patients with complex needs in primary healthcare.

General practitioners' perceptions of distributed leadership in providing integrated care for elderly chronic multi-morbid patients: a qualitative study

Distributed Leadership (DL) has been suggested as being helpful when different health care professionals and patients need to work together across professional and organizational boundaries to provide integrated care (IC). This study explores whether General Practitioners (GPs) adopt leadership actions that transcend organizational boundaries to provide IC for patients and discusses whether the GPs’ leadership actions in collaboration with patients and health care professionals contribute to DL.

Primary care and the older person with complex needs: reflections on the implementation of a primary–secondary model of integrated care

The demand and complexity of the health needs of older people is growing. Traditionally siloed, condition-centric care is no longer appropriate. It is costly to the Australian health system and life-threatening to the individual. In parallel to demographic change is increasing global awareness of the impact of social, behavioural, and environmental factors on health outcomes. Although significant when not addressed, the amenable nature of many personal contextual factors is an opportunity to improve health and quality of life. A move away from reactive, episodic models of health care delivery towards patient focussed integrated care is required to meet the changing ...

Exploring Intra and Interorganizational Integration Efforts Involving the Primary Care Sector – A Case Study from Ontario

he primary care sector is uniquely positioned to lead the coordination of providers and organizations across health and social care sectors. This study explores whether intraorganizational (professional) integration within a primary care team might be related to interorganizational integration between primary care and other community partners involved in caring for complex patients.

All together now – patient engagement, patient empowerment, and associated terms in personal healthcare

Patients as active partners in their personal healthcare are key drivers to reducing costs, securing an effective usage of resources, and ensuring patient-provider satisfaction. Even though these benefits are acknowledged, a theoretical framework for the plethora of concepts used in this context, such as patient engagement, patient empowerment, or patient involvement is missing. Furthermore, the heterogeneous or synonymous usage of these terms leads to miscommunication, missing standard conceptual measures, and a deficiency in theory building and testing. Our objective is to show what the relationships and distinctions between concepts focussing on patients as active partners in their personal healthcare are.

Transformations in the landscape of primary health care during COVID-19: Themes from the European region

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted primary health care (PHC) across Europe. Since March 2020, the COVID-19 Health System Response Monitor (HSRM) has documented country-level responses using a structured template distributed to country experts. We extracted all PHC-relevant data from the HSRM and iteratively developed an analysis framework examining the models of PHC delivery employed by PHC providers in response to the pandemic, as well as the government enablers supporting these models. Despite the heterogenous PHC structures and capacities across European countries, we identified three prevalent models of PHC delivery employed: (1) multi-disciplinary primary care teams coordinating with public health ...

Person-centred care among intensive care unit nurses: A cross-sectional study

Practising person-centred care is crucial for nurses in the intensive care unit, as patients have high physical and psychological care needs. We aimed to identify the predictors of person-centred care among nurses working in intensive care settings.

The principles of person-centredness in quality patient care-Evaluation of the Community Pharmacy Services Quality Guidelines in Estonia

Person-centredness is considered a key component of quality healthcare and the core competence of all healthcare professionals. However, person-centred care (PCC) is not often considered a priority for improving the quality of healthcare. This study aimed to evaluate to what extent the PCC principles are included in the Community Pharmacy Services Quality Guidelines (CPSQG) in Estonia.