Integrated care for the inhabitants of the city Leuven: Protocol of the ZORGZAAM Leuven integrated care project

In Flanders, the prevalence of chronic diseases is high and still increasing partially due to aging of the population and partially due to other reasons like surviving acute diseases or cancer. The aim of the Zorgzaam Leuven project is to test the impact of the implementation of a complex intervention based on the principles of integrated care for a well defined population of approximately 100.000 inhabitants in Belgium.

Implementing Integrated Community-Based Primary Healthcare: Applying the iCoach-Approach to Case Selection to Denmark

The iCoach approach to case selection focuses on innovative models of community-based primary healthcare (CBPHC) and their contexts. The aim of this study was to assess the possibilities and limitations of the approach based on Denmark, which differs in significant ways from the jurisdictions initially included.

Integrated care systems in the English NHS: a critical view

The intriguing evolution of health policy in recent years has implications for all parts of the health system. With the UK falling behind most high-income countries on many measures of child health and growing evidence of a worrying health gap between UK children in deprived and affluent areas, paediatricians and others working in child health will want to remain abreast of the broader policy backdrop even where child health has not been privileged in policymaking. While the 2012 Health and Social Care Act reinforced the fragmentation of the service through multiple providers in competition with one another, subsequent policy promises ...

A novel approach to integrated care using mobile technology within home services. The ADMR pilot study

The care model for supporting elderly people living independently at home relies on the informal and formal assistance of caregivers. Information and communication technology (ICT) offers new approaches for informal care services for this group.

Evaluation of integrated care services in Catalonia: population-based and service-based real-life deployment protocols.

Comprehensive assessment of integrated care deployment constitutes a major challenge to ensure quality, sustainability and transferability of both healthcare policies and services in the transition toward a coordinated service delivery scenario. To this end, the manuscript articulates four different protocols aiming at assessing large-scale implementation of integrated care, which are being developed within the umbrella of the regional project Nextcare (2016-2019), undertaken to foster innovation in technologically-supported services for chronic multimorbid patients in Catalonia (ES) (7.5 M inhabitants). Whereas one of the assessment protocols is designed to evaluate population-based deployment of care coordination at regional level during the period ...

Person-centred, integrated and pro-active care for multi-morbid elderly with advanced care needs: a propensity score-matched controlled trial

Person-centred care (PCC) focusing on personalised goals and care plans derived from “What matters to you?” has an impact on single disease outcomes, but studies on multi-morbid elderly are lacking. Furthermore, the combination of PCC, Integrated Care (IC) and Pro-active care are widely recognised as desirable for multi-morbid elderly, yet previous studies focus on single components only, leaving synergies unexplored. The effect of a synergistic intervention, which implements 1) Person-centred goal-oriented care driven by “What matters to you?” with 2) IC and 3) pro-active care is unknown.

Digital Health Transformation of Integrated Care in Europe: Overarching Analysis of 17 Integrated Care Programs

Digital health tools comprise a wide range of technologies to support health processes. The potential of these technologies to effectively support health care transformation is widely accepted. However, wide scale implementation is uneven among countries and regions. Identification of common factors facilitating and hampering the implementation process may be useful for future policy recommendations.

The aim of this study was to analyze the implementation of digital health tools to support health care and social care services, as well as to facilitate the longitudinal assessment of these services, in 17 selected integrated chronic care (ICC) programs from 8 European countries.

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 ...

Integrated care: a definition from the perspective of the four quality paradigms

The purpose of this paper is to support the ongoing dialogue and shed light on the different views on integrated care. An overarching definition of integrated care is proposed combining the ways of thinking of the four quality paradigms the authors identify. The idea of epistemic fluency offers a way-out of ongoing discussions about “what integration is”.

The “Patient-centered coordination by a care team” questionnaire achieves satisfactory validity and reliability

Increasing prevalence of chronic conditions and multimorbidity challenges health care systems and calls for patient-centered coordination of care. Implementation and evaluation of health policies focusing on the development of patient-centered coordination of care needs valid instruments measuring this dimension of care. The aim of this validation study was to assess the psychometric properties of the French version of the 14-item Patient-Centered Coordination by a Care Team (PCCCT) questionnaire in a primary care setting.