How to accelerate scaling up of integrated care in context?
Many stakeholders consider integrated care as fundamental in the reform of health and care systems in order to address the challenges associated with population ageing, the rising burden of chronic diseases and constraints in public resources. Countries in Europe and elsewhere are attempting to drive transformation of their health and social care systems, with many implementing some form of integrated care even though the nature and scope of the related approaches differ.
One key lesson learned from the successful cases of implementation and scaling-up of integrated care is that it matters a lot how integrated care is designed and implemented to fit the local context and needs. The healthcare systems are shaped by the context, and features of particular integrated care interventions need to “fit” in this context appropriately. If not done effectively, the intervention(s) may not deliver the expected benefits of integrated care.
SCIROCCO (Scaling Integrated Care in Context) is the EU Health Programme funded project that demonstrates the importance of the local context for integrated care, through improved understanding about how, and under what circumstances, the successful implementation of a good practice and/or integrated care programmes is possible in a particular healthcare system. For this purpose, the SCIROCCO self-assessment tool, based on the Maturity Model of the B3 Action Group of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, has been validated and further developed throughout the project. The outcomes of the validation process were published in the International Journal for Integrated Care on 25 January 2018.
Maturity may be regarded as a measurement of the ability of a health system to progress towards the healthcare delivery. As such, the SCIROCCO Maturity Model and its online self-assessment tool is not an objective measurement with the intention of comparing regions in terms of their performance in integrated care. Instead, it serves as a tool to facilitate very complex, multi- stakeholder discussions in order to guide regions in how to improve their capacity and readiness for the implementation and scaling-up of integrated care.
The SCIROCCO tool is currently being tested as a self-assessment tool that: (a) provides an indication of the readiness and maturity of care authorities to adopt and scale-up integrated care and (b) supports them to improve their capacity to deploy integrated care services by identifying their strengths and weaknesses and thus (c) provides an opportunity for them to share good practices in integrated care and promote learning between each other.
The SCIROCCO self-assessment tool has been available online since the outset of the project to allow early interaction and co-design of the tool based on its users’ needs. The Tool is available in four different languages (Czech, English, Italian and Spanish) and users are supported by a number of illustrative guiding tools on how to apply the SCIROCCO tool that can be accessed on SCIROCCO website
Currently, over 46 European and international regions have used the SCIROCCO tool which demonstrates the need for, and interest in, frameworks and models that can support health and care authorities to better understand how they can improve their progress towards implementation and scaling-up of integrated care.
Find out more information about the project here
If you are interested to access and test SCIROCCO tool please contact Dr Andrea Pavlickova, International Engagement Manager, Technology Enabled Care and Digital Healthcare Innovation, Scottish Government at andreapavlickova@nhs.net