Category - Blog

Today, 8th March is International Women’s Day and we would like to take the opportunity to once again recognise some of the great women who are advancing the science, knowledge and adoption of Integrated Care around the world. Here is a selection of some of our very best presentations that took place in 2018 from women leaders who are working tirelessly to make excellent patient care and experience a reality for people, their families and communities worldwide.

Jodeme Goldhar made an impact at ICIC18 in Utrecht when she stood alongside caregiver Carole Ann Alloway to deliver an impassioned keynote on Transformation Through Integration

Dr. h.c. Helmut Hildebrandt talks values, Rome-like circus arenas and business models as he sets out the five components required to replicate and transfer Integrated Care experiences.

IFIC’s Director of Education and Training is our third career panellist. Here she talks about her career path, the importance of embracing challenges and opportunities, and how being tenacious really does pay dividends

Hi all. The end of the year is approaching rapidly so it’s time to reflect on how IFICA has progressed over the course of past months and to take a peek at what’s planned for next year.

In the inspiring landscape of Orange, at the Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health of the University of Newcastle a group of integrated care enthusiasts gathered on Monday, 29 October, to start a week-long Accelerated Learning Course on “Designing and Implementing Integrated Care”.

On the 9th November, IFIC Australia hosted a symposium at NSW Parliament House examining international evidence and experience in the organisation, funding and evaluation of integrated care. Led by Dr Apostolos Tsiachristas (Oxford University), Dr Liz Schroeder (Macquarie University), and Dr Viktoria Stein (IFIC) the symposium explored trends and approaches in the organisation of care services to improve population health and sought to put the debate in the context of the Australian reality.

The International Foundation for Integrated Care has developed global reach in the last few years and now boasts a network of approximately 19,000 individuals and organisations across more than 50 countries worldwide. This growth has been particularly strong in the Asia-Pacific region where IFIC has been undertaking conferences

The Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy (MUCHE) is based in Sydney, Australia. It is a University led strategic initiative to undertake innovative research on health, ageing and human services.

Our CEO, Dr.Nick Goodwin, reflects on the prospects for the development of alliances in Australia following the Transformers 3 workshop programme held in Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour between 5th and 8th November 2018 in partnership with the Centre for Healthcare Knowledge and Innovation.

Economic evaluation for integrated care is a peculiar task, perhaps not unlike tunnelling through spaghetti in a black hole, or aptly described by Tsiachristas et al as ‘a stairway suspended somewhere between heaven and hell’

I began my career in the healthcare arena 40 years ago. I hold a pharmacy diploma from Philipps-University, Marburg, Germany, but instead of working in pharmacies I decided to concentrate on community work and prevention.

Making the Case for Integrated Community Care was the first in a series of conferences organised by TransForm, a joint initiative of the Network of European Foundations (NEF) supported by the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC).

The International Foundation for Integrated Care’s Solutions service has embarked on a major project supporting Estonia’s new Social reforms, awarded and funded by the European Commission’s Structural Reform Support Service (SRSS).

In the first of a new career panel Q&A series, Nuria Toro, from the World Health Organisation, based in Geneva, talks about the multiple roads she travelled in her career and offers advice to the next generation of researchers and practitioners in integrated care.

My year with IFIC was a highly enriching experience; I worked closely with Dr Viktoria Stein, IFIC’s Director of Education and Training, on a number of EU projects and was extensively involved in the development and subsequent launch of the Emerging Researchers in Integrated Care (ERIC) network.

A number of families living in our community experience many barriers to accessing health and social care. The problems that these families face are highly complex, often spanning over generations, and cannot be addressed by one agency alone.

Greetings! The past quarter has been a time of steady progress in the development of IFIC Australia (IFICA). Following on from what was a highly successful IFIC conference in Utrecht in May, a teleconference meeting of the Partners was held in June while, expressions of interest from new partners are being followed up, IFICA Webinars commenced and planning for an Accelerated Learning Program during the week of Oct 29th this year has been advanced.

Health services globally are under pressure from rising demand and associated fiscal pressures. It has been clear for some time that simply investing in our current hospital focused model of care is not the answer. To realise true value for investment and improve health outcomes we need to work differently.

As I write, the Australian media has been focussing in depth on drought in Australia for two weeks. It is as if those in metropolitan Australia have suddenly realised that rural farmers and communities are experiencing hardship and are at risk of psychological distress and mental illness.

Nine international faculty members, 23 participants from 16 countries, 16 World Cup matches and five days of glorious summer sunshine in Oxford. This was the recipe for the 2018 International Summer School on Integrated Care held at Wolfson College, Oxford, UK in June 2018.

The annual International Summer School on Integrated Care (ISSIC) is a special highlight in IFIC’s calendar and this year’s edition was no exception. Held in the last week of June on the premises of Wolfson College, Oxford, and with glorious summer weather, the intensive residential course brought together the most diverse group so far

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.

SUSTAIN is coming to the end of a three-year collaboration between research partners, policy organizations and 13 clinical sites across nine countries including Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain, The Netherlands and the UK

This year’s International Conference on Integrated Care had tremendous provenance for me since it represented IFIC’s 18th birthday as an organisation in its original birthplace in Utrecht. As one of only two of the original members of that initial meeting in Almere to be present (the other being our former Chair, Guus Schrijvers)

Participants of the International Conference on Integrated Care (ICIC) visited Oss during one of the offered site visits in May 2018. Local residents and organizations create new solutions together in the district of Ruwaard, helping themselves and each other. A perfect example of integrated care.

The closing session on May 24 in Nieuwegein/Utrecht of the 18th International Conference on Integrated Care was the end of more than a year closely collaboration with IFIC staff, board, scientific committee. And, without exaggeration, it was a great pleasure! It was the first time that I was a co-host of an international event of this scale

ERIC’s goal is to create a platform for student researchers and young professionals working in, or interested in, the field of integrated care with 0-5 years of experience and/or in the process of doing their Master’s, PhDs or post-docs. Through supporting a community of early-career researchers across organisational and professional boundaries, we hope to not only bring people together to advance the science and knowledge behind integrated care, but also to enhance the adoption of health systems policy and practice.

Brief reflections from the IFIC Study Tour for the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health to Ireland and Catalunya. Recently I had the privilege and pleasure of working with Dr Nick Goodwin co-hosting a study tour for Optimity Advisors and their Client the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health looking at the health systems of Ireland and Catalonia in Spain.

Getting ill oneself is very instructive for a medical doctor (MD). When specializing as a young general practitioner I became quite ill myself. I was taken into hospital and had an operation

In 2008 Machteld Huber reported her research findings to the Health Council and to ZonMw. She had found that there are several possible levels of health. This struck a chord.

Organising comprehensive care for people is important. In healthcare jargon this is known as ‘multidisciplinary or coordinated care’, but this does not really cover it. Nor is the term ‘integrated care’, which connects different realms of life, entirely suitable.

IFIC Australia co-hosted an International Summer School in late March, aimed at supporting organisations to implement their integrated care strategies.

Developed in partnership with North Coast PHN and the Centre for Health Care Knowledge and Innovation, this event in Kingscliff was a sell-out, with a waiting list.

An online search tool to give researchers easy access to internationally published work on different aspects of Integrated Care has been launched.

Developed in partnership with North Coast PHN and the Centre for Health Care Knowledge and Innovation, this event in Kingscliff was a sell-out, with a waiting list.

An increasing number of organisations are looking to affiliate and partner with us, joining the growing ranks of the SW Sydney LHD and PHN, Western Sydney PHN and LHD (see below), North Coast PHN and Centre for Health Knowledge and Innovation, Central Coast LHD, NSW Agency for Innovation (ACI), Children’s Health Queensland and the Mater Research Institute – University of Queensland Centre for Health System Reform and Integration.

Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD) is proud to be a new member of the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC). Improving the way health and social policy service partners work together to improve the health and wellbeing of our population is a high priority in western Sydney

I’m writing this blog following a week’s visit to the NSW Central Coast by our friends and colleagues from IFIC Australia and IFIC. These times are strongly valued by our Local Health District and partners because they provide the opportunity to educate our teams, reflect on our integrated care journey to date and to plan the next steps

As a hospital librarian, I have a particular interest in approaches to searching for published literature on complex topics. And Integrated Care is the most complex topic I have tackled to date! In 2015 the Central Coast Local Health District (CCLHD) in NSW, Australia, where I work, became a demonstrator site for the NSW Ministry of Health Integrated Care strategy and I was asked to do searches of the biomedical literature to support a number of projects.

We had a fantastic first year for IFIC Scotland. We found a new home in the International Centre for Integrated Care (IC4IC), hosted by the University of the West of Scotland, with IFIC and the Health and Social Care ALLIANCE Scotland as our founding partners, and supported by an enthusiastic cross sector Advisory Board.