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 18, 2018 Europe

Barriers and Facilitators to Workforce Changes in Integrated Care

Health systems are faced with an ageing population and an increase in chronic conditions. These challenges require more appropriate approaches than the current largely single-disease and acute-care focussed health care systems. Integrated care is seen as one of the most promising of these approaches by targeting the health system, patient-provider relationships, care process design, communication infrastructures, community resources, and how care is delivered by health professionals. The aim of the study is to investigate the barriers and facilitators to the implementation of workforce changes implemented as part of integrated chronic care interventions.

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July 18, 2018 Americas South-East Asia

A Qualitative Study on Primary Care Integration into an Asian Immigrant-specific Behavioural Health Setting in the United States

 Integrating primary care and behavioural health services improves access to services and health outcomes among individuals with serious mental illness. Integrated care is particularly promising for racial and ethnic minority individuals given higher rates of chronic illnesses and poorer access to and quality of care compared to Whites. However, little is known about integrated care implementation in non-White populations. The aim of this study is to identify facilitators and barriers to successful implementation of primary care-behavioural health integration in a multilingual behavioural healthcare setting.

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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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June 28, 2018 Africa

Scaling community-based services in Gauteng, South Africa: A comparison of three workforce-planning scenarios

The introduction of community-based services through community health workers is an opportunity to redefine the approach and practice of primary health care. Based on bestpractice community oriented primary care (COPC), a COPC planning toolkit has been developed to model the creation of a community-based tier in an integrated district health system

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June 13, 2018 South-East Asia

Developing and deploying a community healthcare worker-driven, digitally- enabled integrated care system for municipalities in rural Nepal

Integrating care at the home and facility level is a critical yet neglected function of healthcare delivery systems. There are few examples in practice or in the academic literature of affordable, digitally-enabled integrated care approaches embedded within healthcare delivery systems in low- and middle-income countries. Simultaneous advances in affordable digital technologies and community healthcare workers offer an opportunity to address this challenge. This article describe the development of an integrated care system involving community healthcare worker networks that utilize a home-to-facility electronic health record platform for rural municipalities in Nepal.

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June 13, 2018 Eastern Mediterranean

Communication and integration: a qualitative analysis of perspectives among Middle Eastern oncology healthcare professionals on the integration of complementary medicine in supportive cancer care

The use of complementary and traditional medicine (CTM ) in Middle Eastern countries is widespread, including among patients with cancer. Perspectives of oncology healthcare professionals (HCPs) in this region regarding the integration of CTM within conventional supportive cancer care were explored

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June 6, 2018 South-East Asia

Aspects of Multicomponent Integrated Care Promote Sustained Improvement in Surrogate Clinical Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

The implementation of the Chronic Care Model (CCM) improves health care quality. This study examined the sustained effectiveness of multicomponent integrated care in type 2 diabetes. Despite the small effect size of multicomponent integrated care team-based care with better information flow may improve patient-provider communication and self-management in patients who are young, with suboptimal control, and in low-resource settings. 

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June 4, 2018 Eastern Mediterranean

Barriers to, and opportunities for, palliative care development in the Eastern Mediterranean Region

The 22 countries of WHO´s Eastern Mediterranean Region are experiencing an increase in the burden of non-communicable deseases (NCDs), including cancer. Of the six WHO regions, the Eastern Mediterranean Region is projected to have the greatest increase in cancer incidence in the next 15 years. With increasing numbers of deaths from cancer, palliative care should be available to relieve suffering in patients with advance desease and at the end of life. However, in the Eastern Mediterranean Reion, the palliative care available is variable and inconsistent. 

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May 24, 2018 South-East Asia

International healthcare worker migration in Asia Pacific: International policy responses

The growth of the international migration of health workers in recent decades has taken place in the context of the transnationalisation of healthcare provision as well as of governance and policy responses. This paper examines international policy responses to cross-border health worker migration in the Asia Pacific region. These include multilateral (global and regional) and bilateral policy agreements, policy dialogue, "circular" and key themes of health workforce planning and management.

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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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