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.

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?

Facilitating integration through team-based primary healthcare: A cross-case policy analysis of four Canadian provinces

Team-based care can improve integrated health services by increasing comprehensiveness and continuity of care in primary healthcare (PHC) settings. Collaborative models involving providers from different professions can help to achieve coordinated, high-quality person-centred care.

In Canada, five key components were found that influenced IPHC and integrated health services: patient-centred care; team structures; information systems; financial management; and performance measurement.