Project INTEGRATE: Addressing Horizontal Cross-cutting Themes: Moving to the next Phase

14^th ICIC 2014 “Taking Integrated Care Forward: People, Policy and Practice” held in Brussels in April 2014, was a great opportunity for Project INTEGRATE to present and share, with international experts on integrate care, case study findings on four integrated care experiences in different systems and organisations: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Hospital Clinic- Spain, Diabetes in Tilburg The Netherlands- Geriatric Conditions in Charité – Germany and Mental Health in Karolinska Institutet- Sweden.

A substantial amount of learning has been brought together to further enhance the next phase of project Integrate. We are working on the methodology to study the exciting and challenging horizontal /crossing-cutting themes. Over the next year we will be collaborating with other experts and building on state of the art findings via IFIC special interest groups and EIP-AHA’s action group B3 on Integrated Care that nicely correspond to our crossing-cutting themes:

•  Care process Design: Hospital Clinic, VUB and IESE are developing a framework to analyse the impact of care process innovation; examining lessons learnt, also from specific care coordination settings; and checking on context dependencies.
•  Workforce Development /Human Resources: Tilburg and USI are exploring the integrated care impact on the workforce and the different professional profiles involved.
• Financial Flows: SINTEF, Charite and VUB are identifying the incentives and barriers in financing models across the different case studies settings, and will provide examples of different instruments and their potential impact on integrated care.
• Patient Involvement: Charite and UT are exploring patient involvement across the different settings, and will conclude success factors of increasing patient participation, and see how this can support the integration of care.
• Information and communication technology (ICT) management: Karolinska and Hospital Clinic are focusing on the ICT systems used for communication, care planning, monitoring and follow-up identified in the case studies, analysing their similarities and differences in terms of their value and usability, and how ICT can support better integrated care management.

All findings will be share with a wider audience –just in time for the 15^th ICIC 2015 in Edinburgh, Scotland!

Lucinda Cash-Gibson