Defining Coordinated Care for People with Rare Conditions: A Scoping Review

To coordinate care effectively for rare conditions, we need to understand what coordinated care means. This review aimed to define coordinated care and identify components of coordinated care within the context of rare diseases; by drawing on evidence from chronic conditions. Coordinated care is multi-faceted and has both generic and context-specific components. Findings can help to develop and eventually test different ways of coordinating care for people with rare and common chronic conditions.

Improving Person-Centredness in Integrated Care for Older People: Experiences from Thirteen Integrated Care Sites in Europe

Although person-centredness is a key principle of integrated care, successfully embedding and improving person-centred care for older people remains a challenge. In the context of a cross-European project on integrated care for older people living at home, the objective of this paper is to provide insight at an overarching level, into activities aimed at improving person-centredness within the participating integrated care sites. The paper describes experiences with these activities from the service providers’ and service users’ perspectives.

Shifting care from hospital to community, a strategy to integrate care in Singapore: process evaluation of implementation fidelity

Accessibility to efficient and person-centered healthcare delivery drives healthcare transformation in many countries. In Singapore, specialist outpatient clinics (SOCs) are commonly congested due to increasing demands for chronic care. Through collaborations between SOCs at the National University Hospital and primary and community care (PCC) clinics in the western region of the county, the program was designed to facilitate timely discharge and appropriate transition of patients, who no longer required specialist care, to the community.

Cohort Profile: Effectiveness of a 12-Month Patient-Centred Medical Home Model Versus Standard Care for Chronic Disease Management Among Primary Care Patients in Sydney, Australia

Evidence suggests that patient-centred medical home (PCMH) is more effective than standard general practitioner care in improving patient outcomes in primary care. This paper reports on the design, early implementation experiences, and early findings of the 12-month PCMH model called 'WellNet' delivered across six primary care practices in Sydney, Australia.

Adult patient perspectives on receiving hospital discharge letters: a corpus analysis of patient interviews

UK government guidelines and initiatives emphasise equity in delivery of care, shared decision-making, and patient-centred care. This includes sharing information with patients as partners in health decisions and empowering them to manage their health effectively. In the UK, general practitioners (GPs) routinely receive hospital discharge letters; while patients receiving copies of such letters is seen as “good practice” and recommended, it is not standardised. Most patients value receiving copies of hospital discharge letters, and should be consistently offered them. 

Family medicine in times of ‘COVID-19’: A generalists' voice

The novel coronavirus epidemic is transforming the world in which we live. This pandemic will bring sweeping changes everywhere, not least in the field of primary care medicine. Overall, this pandemic has genuinely demonstrated the medical professional’s power to adapt, evolve and thrive, even in these times of unprecedented crisis. Family medicine, dealing with both the emotional and the scientific side of medicine on a daily basis, plays a central role in tackling this pandemic. Taking responsibility for both care and research on COVID-19 will redefine the importance of family medicine for public health care. 

A narrative review of gaps in the provision of integrated care for noncommunicable diseases in India

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) account for a higher burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCD) and home to a higher number of premature deaths (before age 70) from NCDs. NCDs have become an integral part of the global development agenda. This paper reinforces the need for an integrated comprehensive model of NCD care especially at primary health care level to address the growing burden of these diseases.

Relationships among Structures, Team Processes, and Outcomes for Service Users in Quebec Mental Health Service Networks

Few studies have identified and compared profiles of mental health service networks (MHSN) in terms of structures, processes, and outcomes, based on cluster analyses and perceptions of team managers, mental health professionals and service users.

This study aimed to understand how different configurations of mental health service networks and teams impact on service user outcomes, by identifying through cluster analyses specific categories of associated variables within three Quebec MHSN, based on interrelationships among:

1) Mental health settings, including territorial and organizational features (structures);

2) Characteristics of mental health professionals, including team process variables (e.g., team support, team autonomy);

3 ...

Human-centered design as a guide to intervention planning for non communicable diseases: the BIGPIC study from Western Kenya

Non-communicable disease (NCD) care in Sub-Saharan Africa is challenging due to barriers including poverty and insufficient health system resources. Local culture and context can impact the success of interventions and should be integrated early in intervention design. Human-centered design (HCD) is a methodology that can be used to engage stakeholders in intervention design and evaluation to tailor-make interventions to meet their specific needs.

Collaboration for Impact: Co-creating a Workforce Development Toolkit Using an Arts-based Approach

The identification, communication and management of health risk is a core task of Community Health Workers who operate at the boundaries of community and primary care, often through not-for-profit community interest companies. However, there are few opportunities or resources for workforce development. Publicly funded researchers have an obligation to be useful to the public and furthermore, university funding is increasingly contingent on demonstrating the social impact of academic research. Collaborative work with participants and other stakeholders can have reciprocal benefits to all but may be daunting to some researchers, unused to such approaches.