Support through COVID-19
The current COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly impacted every area of our lives and, in particular, is creating an unprecedented challenge to our health and care systems worldwide. Governments across the globe are taking numerous measures to respond to the urgent care needs of those impacted by COVID-19, while at the same time trying to reduce the long-term impact on vulnerable people as much as possible. IFIC recognizes the extraordinary pressures that this crisis has imposed on health and care decision-makers, but particularly on system managers and frontline staff. Our thoughts are with you all.
The International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) is well aware that COVID-19 impacts are highly localized and reflect both the health and care systems and population demographics in each region and country. Since the first COVID-19 cases appeared, countries have developed different strategies and responses to cope with the pandemic. At the same time, we have witnessed a wide range of innovations and willingness to adapt to these challenging times.
Realising the True Value of Integrated Care: Beyond COVID-19 Thought Leadership Report
COVID-19 presents an opportunity to reset our fragmented health and care systems so that they are integrated, driven by people and communities and resilient in the face of future systemic shocks. COVID-19 is changing what we value as a society – we are redefining the meaning of ‘community’, realising that we cannot get through difficult times on our own. We are discovering the importance of undervalued care work. We are now painfully aware of how the social, economic and health inequities, entrenched in the past decades through austerity measures, exacerbate and are exacerbated by the pandemic.
Seizing the opportunity to transform how we think about and design our systems will lead to improving population health and wellbeing and ensure we are better equipped to respond to future crises. This requires unprecedented levels of collective action. It requires tackling the social determinants of health and reducing health inequalities. It requires shifting our focus from hospital-centric, disease-specific approaches to assuming accountability towards a territorially defined population, taking as a start point people’s and communities’ strengths. IFIC proposes nine building blocks to help steer health and care system leaders towards a radically different future where we as one team, one system can achieve a stronger and more resilient society. In shifting sands, Integrated Care provides solid foundations.
The current crisis represents an opportunity to do things better and speed up integration of our health and care systems so that they are more resilient in the future. The Foundation’s latest report “Realising the true value of integrated care: Beyond COVID-19″ describes the issues with and opportunities for strengthening the enablers of integration.