Models of Integrated Care: The global experience

This Global Experience Paper on Integrated Health Care was developed to provide the Primary Health Care Institute (PHCI) in Libya with insights as it designs and develops its plans to rebuild primary health care (PHC). The findings are informed by a review of recent international literature, and by insights provided by selected international experts. The paper uses the Framework on Integrated, People-Centered Health Services from the World Health Organization to structure the analysis of global experiences. Overall, there is no single model of integration that can or should be adopted in countries seeking to develop primary health care. There is ...

How can Ireland mobilise social care community networks across the island to better support people to live healthily and ‘age in place’ throughout the life course?

Population aging is a phenomenon affecting almost every developed country worldwide and one that is increasingly prevalent in many of the globe’s most advanced economies such as Japan, USA and Europe. In seeking to address the impact of this issue, policy-makers are often heavil  focussed on the social and economic consequences of aging populations, such as a reduction in economic growth or increased pressures on public expenditure. However some have argued that policy should instead be more future-focussed, supporting states to build greater resilience to demographic changes and ensuring resources are redistributed to maintain wellbeing across the life course.

Citizen Leadership & Integrated Care Report

Integrated care is at its heart about health, social care and wider services being better coordinated around people, families, and communities. This requires those who plan, design, and deliver services to understand what is important to people on an individual and collective basis. People’s circumstances and aspirations may change with their health conditions and social situations and through new challenges arising in wider society. It is therefore important that opportunities to influence and co-produce services are not a one-off exercise, but rather are ongoing and responsive to people’s interests and perspectives.

Professor Robin Miller and Dr Caroline Jackson ...

Primary Care for Everyone: An Urgent To-Do List for Reform

Worldwide, the health systems with the best outcomes are the ones that get primary care right. Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments are recognizing the critical importance of improving primary care in their recent funding agreements.

The time for bold action is now. New federal funding is entering the system as bilateral agreements are being signed with provinces and territories. “Family health” is front and centre, with all levels of government and people across the country on the same page. It’s time to supercharge the reform.

The Public Policy Forum’s Taking Back Health Care project is a ...

Silver Opportunity - Building Integrated Services for Older Adults around Primary Health Care

We live in a rapidly aging world, in which people who are age 60 and older outnumber children under the age of five. This book reveals large and growing gaps in care for older adults in countries at all income levels and shows how to leverage reforms for improving health outcomes for older adults and create healthier, more prosperous communities. Aimed at policy makers and other health and development stakeholders who want to promote healthier aging, Silver Opportunity compiles the latest evidence on care needs and gaps for aging populations. It argues that primary health care should be the cornerstone ...

Promoting Integrated Care Across the World

International comparisons of the quality and outcomes of integrated care: Findings of the OECD pilot on stroke and chronic heart failure

Across OECD countries, two in three people aged over 65 years live with at least one chronic condition often requiring multiple interactions with different providers, making them more susceptible to poor and fragmented care. This has prompted calls for making health systems more people-centred, capable of delivering high-quality integrated care. Despite promising, mostly local-level, experiences, systems remain fragmented, focused on acute care and unsuitable to solve complex needs. Moreover, assessing and comparing the benefits of integrated care remains difficult given the lack of technically sound, policy-relevant indicators. This report presents the results of the first OECD pilot of a new ...

Implementing High-Quality Primary Care Through a Health Equity Lens

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of centering health equity in future health system and primary care reforms. Strengthening primary care will be needed to correct the longstanding history of mistreatment of First Nations/Indigenous and racialized people, exclusion of health care workers of color, and health care access and outcome inequities further magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a report on Implementing High-Quality Primary Care: Rebuilding the Foundation of Health Care, that provided a framework for defining high-quality primary care and proposed 5 recommendations for implementing that definition. Using the ...

Community-oriented primary care for National Health Insurance in South Africa

This is a report on Chiawelo Community Practice (CCP) in Ward 11, Soweto, South Africa, a community-oriented primary care (COPC) model for National Health Insurance (NHI) in South Africa, developed by a family physician.

A shift to capitation contracting for primary health care (PHC) under NHI will carry risk for providers – both public and private, especially higher number of patient visits. Health promotion and disease prevention, especially using a COPC model, will be important. Leading the implementation of COPC is an important role for family physicians in Africa, but global implementation of COPC is challenged. Cuba and Brazil have implemented ...

State of Commitment to Universal Health Coverage

The State of commitment to universal health coverage (UHC) provides a multi-stakeholder consolidated view on the state of progress being made towards UHC at country and global levels.

The review is political, country-focused and action-oriented in nature and complements the more technical and global UHC monitoring report focusing on UHC indicators on service coverage and financial protection.

The State of UHC Commitment  follows the UHC Political Declaration’s Key Targets, Commitments and Follow-up Actions and support national accountability and advocacy processes to ensure political leaders are held accountable for their UHC commitments.

The synthesis report summarises the state of UHC ...