IFIC 9 Pillars of Integrated Care
Aligned payment and funding
Financial structures, payment and funding mechanisms are designed to incentivise integration, collaboration and delivery of shared health outcomes at scale, ensure fair and equitable resource allocation and value-based care.
Financial structures, payment and funding systems that encourage fragmentation are removed, phased out or mitigated.
Aligned payments and funding mechanisms incentivise collaboration between all care providers and encourage teamwork across sectors to support care coordination, reduce fragmentation, and improve the quality of care.
For people and communities
People and communities’ benefit from payment and funding mechanisms that enable more personalised, equitable, coordinated and continuous care and include resource sharing with community sector organisations. Wider determinants of health are considered, and funding systems incentivise health promotion and prevention, as well as care quality and safety. By promoting collaboration among care providers, including community sector organisations, funding mechanisms support people and communities by improving their access to health and care, together with their experiences and outcomes.
For care providers
Payment models are redesigned with all care providers to encourage collaboration across sectors and team-based care, removing silos and promoting joint efforts for comprehensive care. Care providers understand the effect of these mechanisms on behaviours that incentivise care integration actions and coordination across organisations and adjust accordingly.
Care provider leaders monitor the performance of alignment against the goals of integrated care to ensure the alignment fosters more efficient, person-centred care delivery, improving both population outcomes and collective provider and community sustainability.
For system-level decision-makers
By aligning or pooling funding and payment flows at the system level, according to a people-centred perspective and aiming to advance coordinated and continuous care, policymakers facilitate the context for adopting integrated care and improving equity. Policy and decision-makers advocate for policy changes to remove barriers to integrated funding, ensuring that regulations support financial arrangements that in turn enable fair and equitable resource allocation among partners and resulting in funding following the care pathway journey of the person.
Public, private, and voluntary sector partners are incentivised to work toward collective shared purpose and goals, with systems that reduce fragmentation and avoid conflicting financial incentives. System decision-makers monitor alignment to ensure cost-effectiveness and sustainability goals are met.