IPCHS. Integrated People-Centred Health Services

Publications

This growing repository holds WHO documents, scientific publications, policy documents, implementation reports, presentations and others with information and insights about integrated people-centred health services. Share your publication by clicking “Add publication”.

July 2, 2018 Europe

The patient perspective in health care networks

Health care organization is entering a new age. Focus is increasingly shifting from individual health care institutions to interorganizational collaboration and health care networks. Much hope is set on such networks which have been argued to improve economic efficiency and quality of care. However, this does not automatically mean they are always ethically justified. A relevant question that remains is what ethical obligations or duties one can ascribe to these networks especially because networks involve many risks. Due to their often amorphous and complex structure, collective responsibility and accountability may increase while individual responsibility goes down

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May 7, 2018 Europe

Are low and high utilization related to the way GPs manage their practices? An observational study

General practice care plays a key role in keeping healthcare effective and cost-efficient. However, variation in the utilization rates of practices may reveal variation in practice performance. This research goal is to investigate whether the socio-demographic profile of the patient´s area of residence and practice organization characteristics influence the low or high utilization of general practice care. 

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April 5, 2018 Europe

Building Competencies for Integrated Care: Defining the Landscape

As the discussion in integrated care moves from "what needs to be done?" to "how to do we achieve sustainable change?" one of the key questions is "how do we get people to change?". Electronic health records, budgetary processes and governance structures are all important building blocks but achieving the transformation required will ultimately stand or fall on changing how we act. Therefore at the heart of this complexity are two more simple, yet profound questions: how do we learn? And who do we learn from?

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March 19, 2018 Europe

Communities and health

The role of communities in improving health is receiving increasing, and long overdue, attention in health policy and practice. Stronger recognition of the role communities can play and greater involvement are needed if there is to be a successful move to population health systems. As part of this shift in focus, sustainability and transformation partnerships and integrated care systems need to take the role communities can play in improving and sustaining good health seriously. 

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March 19, 2018 Europe

Reimagining community services: making the most of our assets

The purpose of this research was to understand the current state of community services and to explore how the health and care systems needs to change to enable these to meet the needs of the population now and in the future

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March 7, 2018 Europe

Identification of influencing factors and strategies to improve communication between general practitioners and community nurses: a qualitative focus group study

As the number of patients with complex healthcare needs grows, inter-professionaal collaboration between primary care professionals must be constantly optimized. General practitioners (GPs) and community nurses (CNs) are key professions in primary care; however, poor GP-CN communication is common, and research into the factors influencing its quality is limited. 

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Feb. 19, 2018 Europe

Using Complexity and Network Concepts to Inform Healthcare Knowledge Translation

Many representations of the movement of healthcare knowledge through society exist, and multiple models for the translation of evidence into policy and practice have been articulated. Most are linear or cyclical and very few come dose to reflecting the dense and intricate relationships, systems and politicis of organizations and the processes required to enact sustainable improvements. This study illustrates how using complexity and network concepts can better inform knowledge translation (KT) and argue that changing the way we think and talk about KT could enhance the creation and movement of knowledge throughout those systems needing to develop and utilize it. 

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Jan. 15, 2018 Europe

How to assess and prepare health systems in low- and middle-income countries for integration of services—a systematic review

Despite growing support for integration of frontline services, a lack of information about the pre-conditions necessary to integrate such services hampers the ability of policy makers and implementers to assess how feasible or worthwhile integration may be, especially in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs). This article adopted a modified systematic review with aspects of realist review, including quantitative and qualitative studies that incorporated assessment of health system preparedness for capacity to implement integrated services. 

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Dec. 12, 2017 Europe

The Joint Action on Health Workforce Planning and Forecasting: Results of a European programme to improve health workforce policie

Health workforce (HWF) planning and forecasting is faced with a number of challenges, most notably a lack of consistent terminology, a lack of data, limited model, demand based, and future-based planning and limited inter-country collaboration. The Joint Action on Health Workforce Planning and Forecsting (JAHWF, 2013-2016) aimed to move foward on the HWF planning process and support countries in tackling the key challenges facing the HWF and HWF planning. This paper synthesizes and discusses the results of the JAHWF. Ti is shown that the JAHWFhas provided importatn setps towards improved HWF planning and forecasting across Europe. 

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Dec. 11, 2017 Europe

Enhanced health in care homes: learning from experiences so far

Enhanced health in care homes can be achieved by close co-ordination between care homes and the range of health services required to meet the needs of older people living in the care homes. When these services work closely together – for example, through regular GP visits to care homes and regular comprehensive assessments – they can actively promote good health rather than just reacting to ill health.

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