Integrated Care’s New Protagonist: The Expanding Role of Digital Health

Digital health technologies hold significant promise to advance both functional and normative health and social care integration. The COVID-19 pandemic has created a window of opportunity to rapidly advance the adoption of digital solutions which can improve activities that support integration at clinical, professional, organizational and system levels. Global examples demonstrate how the pandemic has also created opportunities to use technology to address core values of integrated care like person-centredness and coordination. However, rapid and reactive changes could lead to increased fragmentation and exacerbate health inequity. This perspective paper outlines some of the opportunities and threats to advancing integrated care ...

Becoming part of an upwards spiral: Meanings of being person-centred in nursing homes

Previous research suggests that person- centred care is positive for people living in nursing homes, but less is known on what motivates people working in nursing homes to be person- centred. Previous research has focused on person-centred care in relation to people in need of care, which may lead to a risk of viewing person- centred care as a means to achieve quality of care, and not as a means in itself. This study highlights health aspects of being person- centred from the perspective of people working in nursing homes, and complements previous research that describes the impact of person- ...

Person-centred care: looking back, looking forward

An interdisciplinary group of clinical and non-clinical academics in Sweden created a research centre for the study of person-centred care (PCC) in long-term illness. The GPCC steering committee formulated a position paper with three ‘simple routines’ to initiate, implement, and safeguard PCC in daily clinical practice. 

Philosophical knowledge is warranted for the successful implementation of person-centred care

One potentially restrictive environment of person-centred care might be the intensive care unit (ICU) where RNs working in ICUs on a daily basis are caring for critically ill patients in a highly technological and stressful milieu. Nursing care for critically ill patients at the ICU is described as task-oriented and mainly based on the patient’s medical needs. The purpose of this contemporary issue paper is to suggest that a photograph of the patient could be used as a tool to support RNs working in ICU in applying person-centred care and their understanding of the philosophical underpinnings for person-centred care. 

Person-centred care in TB

The WHO End TB Strategy includes integrated patient-centred care and prevention within one of its three pillars and has global targets aimed at ending the TB epidemic by the year 2030. Here, we describe the tensions and challenges that may undermine the approach and explore opportunities to align person-centred care with other health system goals. 

Main factors affecting perceived quality in healthcare: a patient perspective approach

Delivering patient-centered healthcare is now seen as one of the basic requirements of good quality care. In this research, the impact of the perceived quality of three experiential dimensions (Physical Environment, Empowerment and Dignity and Patient–Doctor Relationship) on patient´s Experiential Satisfaction is assessed.

Between Social Inclusion and Exclusion: Integration of Daycare Guests in the Nursing Home Setting

In integrated daycare, community-dwelling older people in need of care join existing groups in residential care facilities during the day. This study focuses on how nursing home residents experience the integrative care approach, exploring opportunities for social inclusion and mechanisms of exclusion.

Intrinsic Capacity predicts adverse outcomes using Integrated Care for Older People screening tool in a senior community in Beijing

The World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the concept of intrinsic capacity in order to create a multidimensional model to maintain individual's functional ability. Intrinsic capacity is the composite of all the physical and mental capacities that an individual can draw on at any point in time, and represents the amount of resources one can tap into during his life(WHO, 2015). By interacting with the surrounding environment, intrinsic capacity determines functional ability largely. Considering and organizing the retrieved evidence, five domains are proposed to define the intrinsic capacity: cognition, locomotion, vitality, sensory, and psychosocial, each of which is composed ...

Has COVID-19 changed the workload for primary care physicians? The case of Spain

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a massive over-exertion of doctors, multiplying their work intensity, overload and stress. Work overload and the emotional state of health workers is one of the many repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results derived from this study may be useful in formulating policies and practices related to the workforce development, funding streams to prepare for the next wave of COVID-19 infections as well as for future public health emergencies.

Integration of mental health counselling into chronic disease services at the primary health care level: Formative research on dedicated versus designated strategies in the Western Cape, South Africa

To explore health care providers’ views on the acceptability and feasibility of two models for integrating facility-based counsellor delivered mental health counselling into chronic disease care, and how such an approach could be improved in South Africa.

Although study participants unanimously agreed that counselling for common mental disorders should be integrated into chronic disease services, they had differing views on the type of model that should be adopted.