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”.

Sept. 12, 2023 Europe

Towards an equitable people-centred health system for Spain

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on Spain and its devastating effects on health and health care have been felt across various domains, including the social, economic, and political spheres. Among the sectors hardest hit were the health system and its dedicated health professionals. Consequently, there has been a growing recognition among the Spanish population that the health system, often regarded as an efficient and high-quality system, requires strengthening and modernisation.

Spain held its national elections on July 23, 2023, in a context of high polarisation of public opinion and absence of clear majorities of parties in the ...

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Feb. 14, 2023 Europe

Health and Social Care Reform in Scotland – What Next?

This paper analyses the important enablers, barriers and impacts of country-wide implementation of integrated health and social care in Scotland. It offers insights for other systems seeking to advance similar policy and practice. Landmark legislation was based on a shared vision and narrative about improving outcomes for people and communities. Implementation has involved coordination of multiple policies and interventions for different life stages, care groups, care settings and local context within a dynamic and complex system.

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Feb. 14, 2023 Americas

Integrated Health and Social Care in the United States: A Decade of Policy Progress

Over the last decade in the United States (US), the burden of chronic disease, health care costs, and fragmented care delivery have increased at alarming rates. To address these challenges, policymakers have prioritized new payment and delivery models to incentivize better integrated health and social services. This paper outlines three major national and state policy initiatives to improve integrated health and social care over the last ten years in the US, with a focus on the Medicaid public insurance program for Americans with low incomes.

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Feb. 14, 2023 Europe

Integrated Care in Switzerland: Strengths and Weaknesses of a Federal System

Switzerland’s fragmented healthcare system mirrors its federal structure and mix of cultures and languages. Although the Swiss have a higher life expectancy than most of their neighbours, their healthcare system faces similar challenges that call for more integrated care (IC). This article aims to provide insight into the specificities of and latest developments in Switzerland’s healthcare system and how they may have influenced the development and implementation of IC there.

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Feb. 14, 2023 Americas

Does Integrated Care Carry the Gene of Bureaucracy? Lessons from the Case of Québec

Demographic and epidemiological transitions of industralized countries mean health systems have to integrate health and social services to respond to the changing needs of their populations. Efforts to integrate care involve important policy and structural changes. This paper examines whether integration efforts are lost in translation during the bureaucratic appropriation of models, or, in an allegorical way, do they reveal genes of bureaucracy?

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Jan. 16, 2023 Europe

How can skill-mix innovations support the implementation of integrated care for people with chronic conditions and multimorbidity?

  • The increasing and changing demands of complex patients (with chronic conditions and multimorbidity), combined with growing workloads and shortages of primary care providers, demand the reorganization of services for more patient-centred and more efficient care.
  • Reorganizing health and social care services to integrate care requires that the health workforce adopt “skill-mix changes” including reskilling; a different approach to sharing tasks and roles; and improved coordination.
  • Skill mix changes typically involve innovative re-allocation of tasks between professions; new supplementary roles; and/or the introduction of greater teamworking and flexibility.
  • The most promising skill-mix innovations for improving integration of care of patients ...

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Nov. 23, 2022 Europe

Skill-mix Innovation, Effectiveness and Implementation: Improving Primary and Chronic Care

What are skill-mix innovations and why are they relevant? This systemic analysis of health workforce skill-mix innovations provides an overview of the evidence and lessons for implementation across multiple countries.

The authors focus on six core segments of health systems: health promotion and prevention, acute care, chronic care, long-term and palliative care, as well as access for vulnerable groups and people living in underserved areas.

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Nov. 23, 2022 Europe

Fit for the Future: a new plan for GPs and their patients

General practice is the cornerstone of the NHS, helping around 50 million people in England every year, carrying out 370 million consultations last year. So, when GPs and their patients tell us that general practice is in crisis, we should all be concerned.

In 2022, the RCGP launched Fit for the Future: a new plan for GPs & their patients to put pressure on politicians and decision makers with responsibility for the NHS in England to commit to a bold new plan to provide GPs and patients with the support that they need.

This campaign follows our 2019 Fit for the ...

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April 5, 2022 Global

The Lancet Global Health Commission on financing primary health care: putting people at the centre

Executive summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the need for well-functioning primary health care (PHC) into sharp focus. PHC is the best platform for providing basic health interventions (including effective management of non-communicable diseases) and essential public health functions. PHC is widely recognised as a key component of all high-performing health systems and is an essential foundation of universal health coverage.
PHC was famously set as a global priority in the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration. More recently, the 2018 Astana Declaration on PHC made a similar call for universal coverage of basic health care across the life cycle, as well as ...

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