Goal-Oriented Care: A Catalyst for Person-Centred System Integration

Person-centred integrated care is often at odds with how current health care systems are structured, resulting in slower than expected uptake of the model worldwide. Adopting goal-oriented care, an approach which uses patient priorities, or goals, to drive what kinds of care are appropriate and how care is delivered, may offer a way to improve implementation.

Patients’ perspectives of facilitators and barriers to patient-centred care: insights from qualitative patient interviews

Previous studies on patient-centred care (PCC) and its facilitators and barriers usually considered specific patient groups, healthcare settings and aspects of PCC or focused on expert perspectives. The objective of this study was to analyse patients’ perspectives of facilitators and barriers towards implementing PCC.

A critical realist evaluation of an integrated care project for vulnerable families in Sydney, Australia

Healthy Homes and Neighbourhoods (HHAN) Integrated Care Initiative was established to improve the care of families with complex health and social needs who reside in Sydney Local Health District. HHAN seeks to provide long-term multi-disciplinary care coordination as well as enhance capacity building and promote integrated care. Findings of this study supported the initial programme theory that engagement and trust building with clients, alongside enhanced collaboration and integration of services, improved outcomes for vulnerable families with complex needs.

(Dis)Integrated Care? Lessons from East London

This paper examines one of the NHS England Pioneers programmes of Integrated Care, which was implemented in three localities in East London, covering the area served by one of the largest hospital groups in the UK and bringing together commissioners, providers and local authorities. The partners agreed to build a model of integrated care that focused on the whole person.

This qualitative and participatory evaluation looked at how an ambitious vision translated into the delivery of integrated care on the ground. The study explored the micro-mechanisms of integrated care relationships based on the experience of health and social care professionals ...

Financing of integrated health service networks

The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean need to increase their public resources in health to expand equitable and efficient access to health. The increase should finance a specific model with proven effectiveness, such as integrated health service networks (IHSN) based on primary health care. The global literature has not paid sufficient attention to financing IHSN; rather, it has focused on isolated facilities and agents, as well as on specific mechanisms. However, in the Region of the Americas, their development has been a necessity for years. An IHSN is a group of health organizations that offers coordinated health interventions ...

Understanding Young People and Their Care Providers’ Perceptions and Experiences of Integrated Care Within a Tertiary Paediatric Hospital Setting, Using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

Benefits of integrated care include improved health outcomes and more satisfaction with experiences of care for consumers. For children and young people with chronic and complex health conditions, their care may be fragmented due to the multitude of healthcare providers involved. This paper describes the experiences of integrated care in a paediatric tertiary hospital.

Integrated health and care systems in England: can they help prevent disease?

The National Health Service (NHS) in England plans for the entire country to be covered by integrated care systems (ICSs) by April 2021. The aims of these local health and care partnerships are broad and include improving disease prevention and population health while maintaining NHS financial sustainability. Yet, the evidence for more integrated care leading to better disease prevention is weak.

Although nearly all of the 2016 sustainability and transformation partnership (STP) plans included a prevention or population health strategy, the content varied widely, often lacked detail, and had little on population-level interventions affecting the social determinants of health.

The ...

Integrated ambulatory care in the New Zealand health system: a scoping review

Integrated health systems, according to the World Health Organization (2017) are ''the organization and management of health services so that people get the care they need, when they need it, in ways that are user-friendly, achieve the desired results and provide value for money.'' This is a very important concept in today's day and age, as access to healthcare has become a challenge and the population has never been sicker.

In New Zealand and internationally, emerging trends across health systems include a fundamental shift of care from hospitals to community-based settings and increased integration of services to better link ...

Why communities must be at the centre of the Coronavirus disease 2019 response: Lessons from Ebola and human immunodeficiency virus in Africa

As the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has spread globally, with no effective treatment or vaccine yet available, governments in many countries have put in place social interventions to control the outbreak. Communities are complex and only their members can inform public health experts about their lived realities, the community’s understanding of the outbreak and what will work locally to reduce transmission. 

Health Networks in Action: The experiences of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico

Dioselina is a 54-year-old divorcée who has no children and lives alone in a large city. She has been unemployed for a year and just started receiving welfare six months ago. As for her health, she has long-term obesity, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes. In recent months, she began to develop foot ulcers because her blood sugar was not being monitored properly, which is attributable in part to difficulty accessing healthcare services and getting medications and lab tests. If she does not receive rapid treatment and more specialized care for the ulcers, they could worsen and require hospitalization ...