IPCHS. Integrated People-Centred Health Services

Publications

This growing repository holds WHO documents, scientific publications, policy documents, implementation reports, presentations and others with information and insights about integrated people-centred health services. Share your publication by clicking “Add publication”.

Nov. 7, 2023 Global

Purchasing for quality chronic care: summary report.

Countries are seeking ways to strengthen their financing systems to promote access to quality health services under their commitments to Universal Health Coverage. Chronic conditions account for a large burden of premature mortality, and gaps exist in patient receipt of recommended quality care. The objective of this publication is to describe experiences in purchasing arrangements and payment methods and how they have been used to attain quality of care and health outcomes for chronic conditions.

The publication builds on the existing body of empirical evidence and newly commissioned case studies from Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Germany, Indonesia, South Africa, and ...

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Nov. 3, 2023 Western Pacific

'Walking-the-talk': How to co-design an innovative and sustainable integrated care learning programme

Integrated care facilitates better outcomes for patients and their family, health workforce and health and social care systems. Accordingly, integrated care is a global and inherent area of work for health professionals. Despite this, formal learning programmes for workforce development in integrated care are still rare. In this paper, I have shared lessons about developing an innovative and sustainable integrated care learning programme for teachers, practitioners and learners in integrated care discipline. These lessons are drawn from my experience of leading an integrated care specialisation programme (that sits at Australian Qualification Framework Level 9) at a public university in Australia ...

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Nov. 3, 2023 Americas

Integrated care for older persons who live with complex health and social care requirements: a core set of indicators

Performance measures are an important mediating mechanism that influences the design and delivery of care. Unfortunately, it is still commonly the case that acute care indicators are employed to assess the efficacy of integrated care. This hinders the ability to accurately assess and continuously improve integrated care efforts for priority populations, including older persons who live with complex health and social care requirements. A core set of indicators is needed from which to assess the quality and impact of integrated care on these older persons and care partners.

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Nov. 3, 2023 Europe

Integrated care in a Beveridge system: experiences from England and Denmark

Health systems internationally face demands to deliver care that is better coordinated and integrated. The health system financing and delivery model may go some, but not all the way in explaining health system fragmentation. In this paper, we consider the road to care integration in two countries with Beveridge style health systems, England and Denmark, that are both ranked as highly Integrated systems in Toth's health integration index. We use the SELFIE framework to compare the policies and reforms that have affected care integration over the past 30 years in the two countries. The countries both started their reform ...

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Oct. 27, 2023 Western Pacific

Integrated care for older people with cancer: a primary care focus

Estimates from a 2023 study indicate that cancer will continue to grow as a leading cause of health and economic burden alongside global population ageing.

Consequently, health-care providers, including primary care teams, will increasingly face substantial challenges in caring for older people with cancer who have evolving, complex, and specific needs. More than 60% of new cancer diagnoses occur in adults aged 65 years and older in high-income countries, underpinning the importance of empowering primary health-care providers (including general practitioners, community nurses, allied health professionals, and pharmacists) to provide high-quality care to this at-risk population.

Nevertheless, geriatric oncology remains peripheral ...

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Oct. 25, 2023 Europe

Experiences of implementing the 'Making Every Contact Count' initiative into a UK integrated care system: an interview study

The 'Making Every Contact Count' (MECC) approach is in line with the current National Health Service (NHS) strategy to improve and prevent health conditions in England. Despite its importance and value for preventative healthcare, implementation of MECC varies. The aim of this study was to explore the barriers and facilitators of implementing MECC and MECC training into an integrated care system (ICS).

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Oct. 24, 2023 Europe

Co-design with Integrated Care Teams: Establishing Information Needs

Co-design has been cited as playing a major role in the future of effective integrated care, however, there is a lack of reporting and reflection on the methods used. Information sharing is fundamental when working in integrated care, however sharing across professions, service settings and localities can be complex. Through co-design, we seek to establish a shared understanding of information needs within a newly formed integrated care team. In doing so we aim to inform future practice in the understanding of co-design.

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Oct. 23, 2023 Global

People-centred approach to addressing antimicrobial resistance in human health

This document outlines the concept and content of the WHO people-centred approach to addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the human health sector. The proposed approach recognizes and aims to address the challenges and health system barriers people face when accessing health services to prevent, diagnose and treat (drug-resistant) infections. It puts people and their needs at the centre of the AMR response and guides policy-makers in taking programmatic and comprehensive actions to mitigate AMR in line with a proposed package of core interventions. These interventions are based on a review of four pillars and two foundational steps that are critical ...

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Sept. 28, 2023 Europe

Collaborative Leadership in Integrated Care Systems; Creating Leadership for the Common Good

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a catalyst for change, but such change can only happen through collaborative leadership which maintains a focus on relationships and purpose rather than solely on outputs or outcomes. This conceptual article explores how health and social care integration has been offered as one potential solution to the challenge of health and social care transformation. Specifically, Integrated Care Systems in England are intended to provide regional governance, to provide public services in a coherent and robust way. We explore this development in relation to three key aspects: the macro-level global policy context; the meso-level organizational behaviour ...

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Sept. 27, 2023 Global

A vision for primary health care in the 21st century

In 1978 world leaders, international organizations and health authorities gathered in Alma-Ata (now Almaty), Kazakhstan, and released the Declaration of Alma-Ata on Primary Health Care, which remains a landmark document in the history of global health. The Alma-Ata Declaration established a standard of public commitment to making community-driven, quality health care accessible, both physically and financially, for all. This was the forerunner of the Global Strategy for Health for All by the Year 2000 that was pursued by WHO and its partners for the rest of the 20th century, and of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: “Ensure healthy lives and ...

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