IFIC Director of Communications Fiona Lyne celebrates the ICIC26 awards and the people, projects and partnerships recognised for advancing integrated care across the world, from community-based innovation and culturally responsive care to digital transformation, lived experience and lifetime leadership.
ICIC26 Awards Celebrate Global Leadership in Integrated Care
From Australia to Argentina, Canada to Singapore, and the United Kingdom to the Netherlands, the awards presented at the 26th International Conference on Integrated Care (ICIC26) reflected the growing international strength of the integrated care movement and the shared ambition to create care that is more connected, compassionate, and community focused.
Presented by the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC), the annual awards recognise outstanding examples of integrated care research, innovation, implementation, and partnership. They celebrate work that improves people’s experiences of care while helping systems work more collaboratively across professional, organisational, and community boundaries.
This year’s awards highlighted projects focused on frailty, dementia, consumer engagement, culturally responsive care, community-based ageing support, digital transformation, and workforce development. Together, they offered a powerful reminder that integrated care is being advanced in many different ways and in many different settings around the world.
Introducing the new Jacqui Browne Memorial Award
A particularly important moment during this year’s ceremony was the introduction of the inaugural IFIC Jacqui Browne Memorial Award.
The award was established in memory of Jacqui Browne, a deeply respected figure within the integrated care community whose work and values left a lasting impact on colleagues across IFIC and beyond. Jacqui was a passionate advocate for person-centred care and believed strongly that people, families, and communities should not simply be consulted by systems, but actively involved in shaping them.
The new memorial award was introduced to recognise work that reflects those same principles. It honours contributions where partnership withpatients, carers, and communitiesis central to the work itself.
The inaugural Jacqui Browne Memorial Award was presented to Anitha Thiraviarajah from The George Institute for Global Health in Australia for the paper From Voice to Outcomes: Consumer Engagement in the Healthy Homes and Neighbourhoods Initiative.
The paper explored how consumer engagement can move beyond consultation to genuinely shape services, build trust, and support culturally safe care. The judges described it as a powerful and authentic example of integrated care in practice and one that strongly reflected the spirit and purpose of the new memorial award.
Although Anitha was unable to attend the conference in person, the award was accepted on her behalf by colleague John Eastwood.
Recognising patient and caregiver leadership
The Runner-Up Patient and Caregiver Award was presented to James Adams from Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom.
His paper focused on improving outcomes for older people through an integrated frailty crisis pathway that brought together acute and community services to respond more effectively to frailty. The judges were struck by both the clear system impact of the work and its potential to be adapted and scaled in other settings.
A second Runner-Up Patient and Caregiver Award was presented to Grace Spiro from McMaster University in Canada.
Using international patient-reported data from the OECD PaRIS survey, her study explored what drives person-centred care within primary care systems. The research highlighted the importance of relationships, communication, continuity, and time in shaping patient experience. Judges praised the quality of the evidence and the practical relevance of the findings for improving day-to-day care delivery.
A delayed award finally presented in person
The ceremony also included a special moment of recognition for a previous award winner whose prize had never been collected in person.
At the 2023 conference in Flanders, Professor Gastón Perman from the Instituto Universitario Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires in Argentina received an award for his paper Integrated care program for patients with dementia and behavioral disorders in the home setting. As he had not been present at the time, the award had remained carefully stored until this year’s conference, where it was finally presented properly.
The paper described an interdisciplinary home-based integrated care programme for people living with dementia and behavioural disorders, combining geriatric expertise, coordinated home follow-up, and tailored support forfamilies and carers. Judges had described it as an excellent example of integrated care improving behavioural outcomes within the home setting while reducing benzodiazepine use.
Best Poster Award highlights cultural perspectives on dementia care
The Best Poster Integrated Care Award went to Heather Campbell-Enns from Canadian Mennonite University in Canada.
Her study explored family-provided dementia care within the Filipino immigrant community, examining the ways culture, family, and community shape the experience and sustainability of care. The judges praised the sensitivity and originality of the work and its contribution to understanding culturally informed approaches to integrated care.
Singapore model recognised for community-based innovation
The Runner-Up Integrated Care Award was presented to Qi Wen Ng from NUHS RHSO in Singapore.
The paper introduced a blended care team model designed to improve health outcomes for Singapore’s ageing population through stronger integration between health and social care services rooted in the community. Using a central coordination hub, the programme supported healthier behaviours, stronger social connections, and moreintegrated care delivery.
Judges highlighted the innovation and relevance of the model, alongside its strong potential for wider adoption.
Best Overall Integrated Care Award goes to These Hands Academy
The Best Overall Integrated Care Award was presented to Tara Marshall from These Hands Academy in the United Kingdom.
The winning paper demonstrated how digital innovation, workforce development, and system-wide collaboration can work together to strengthen integrated care across an entire system. At the centre of the programme was a focus on building confidence: confidence in staff, confidence in systems, and confidence in the ability to deliver safe and coordinated care at scale.
The judges praised the way digital tools were embedded alongside training, workforce support, and cultural change rather than being introduced in isolation. The programme delivered measurable improvements in patient safety, workforce capability, and efficiency, while also demonstrating the importance of sustained partnership working.
What particularly stood out to the judges was that this work came from a smaller and highly innovative organisation. It served as a reminder that leadership in integrated care often comes from organisations willing to move quickly, test new approaches, and work differently. Smaller organisations can play an important role in helping larger systems evolve and adapt by demonstrating what is possible in practice.
Honouring a pioneer of integrated care
Alongside the conference awards, delegates were also invited to celebrate one of the pioneers of the integrated care movement itself.
IFIC presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Professor Guus Schrijvers from the Netherlands in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to the development of integrated care internationally.
For many within the integrated care community today, the field feels well established, with its own shared language, research base, conferences, networks, and educational programmes. But as was reflected during the award presentation, that infrastructure did not exist 25 or 30 years ago.
Together with colleagues including Dr Nick Goodwin and others, Professor Schrijvers helped establish the International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC) and supported the early development of what would later become IFIC itself. In 2000, a small international group gathered in Almere in the Netherlands to explore the creation of an open-access journal focused on integrated care. That small network of around 25 people would eventually grow into the global integrated care community that now gathers annually at ICIC.
The award presentation reflected on the uncertainty of those early years. There was no formal organisation, limited funding, and no guarantee that the work would continue. Yet Professor Schrijvers remained deeply committed to the vision, offering not only intellectual leadership but practical support to help sustain and grow the movement.
Over time, that early work helped lay the foundations for what IFIC has become today: an international network supporting conferences, research, regional hubs, special interest groups, implementation programmes, and professional education across the world.
Alongside his leadership within the field, Professor Schrijvers was recognised for his contribution as a teacher, researcher, writer, mentor, and advocate for making ideas practical and usable within real-world systems.
Reflecting the future of integrated care
From pioneering leaders who helped establish the field internationally, to emerging innovators designing new ways of working with communities and systems, the awards showcased the breadth of talent, commitment, and creativity shaping integrated care today.
They also demonstrated something important about the movement itself. Integrated care is no longer being driven from one country or one model. Innovation is emerging across different cultures, systems, and communities, with shared learning flowing internationally between researchers, practitioners, policymakers, patients, carers, and community organisations.
That international spirit has always been central to IFIC’s mission and was reflected clearly in this year’s winners from Australia, Argentina, Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
Fiona Lyne
International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC)