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”.

July 9, 2019 Global

Reconceptualising Person-Centered Service Models as Social Ecology Networks in Supporting Integrated Care

Efforts to address problems such as mental health, poverty, social exclusion, and chronic disease have often proven resistant to traditional policies or interventions. This paper takes up the challenge and present a pioneering new method of analysis in drawing on theoretical and methodological extensions of two prominent approaches, namely, social network analysis and developmental social ecology. Considered in combination, these two seemingly disparate approaches frame a powerful new way of thinking about person-centred care, as well as offer a methodologically more rigorous set of analytical tools. The conceptual model developed from this combination offers to bridge the apparent disconnect between ...

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June 20, 2019 Europe

Implications of interprofessional primary care team characteristics for health services and patient health outcomes: A systematic review with narrative synthesis

Interprofessional primary care (IPPC) teams are promoted as an alternative to single profession physician practices in primary care with focus on preventive care and chronic disease management. Characteristics of teams can have an impact on their performance.

However, the empirical evidence of the implications of IPPC team design on various aspects of care processes or health outcomes is specific to particular contexts, but a general understanding of optimal team design is not available.

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May 22, 2019 Americas

Patient–Provider Video Telemedicine Integrated With Clinical Care: Patient Experiences

Real-time patient–provider video visits have the potential to engage patients by allowing them to access a clinical encounter without arranging transportation, taking time off from work, or spending time in a waiting room. Although millions of U.S. patients have used direct-to-consumer telemedicine services without in-person facilities, these services may lack integration with electronic health records and with clinicians from whom patients receive ongoing care. Evidence is limited from large-scale implementation of “house call” video visits integrated with ongoing health care delivery and providers in community primary care.

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May 22, 2019 Europe

Development of the ACTIVE framework to describe stakeholder involvement in systematic reviews

Involvement of patients, health professionals, and the wider public (‘stakeholders’) is seen to be beneficial to the quality, relevance and impact of research and may enhance the usefulness and uptake of systematic reviews. However, there is a lack of evidence and resources to guide researchers in how to actively involve stakeholders in systematic reviews. In this paper, we report the development of the ACTIVE framework to describe how stakeholders are involved in systematic reviews

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April 16, 2019 Eastern Mediterranean

Does rural health system reform aimed at improving access to primary health care affect hospitalization rates? An interrupted time series analysis of national policy reforms in Iran

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April 3, 2019 Europe

Continuity of care and referral rate: challenges for the future of health care

Continuity of care could reduce health care consumption by patients and reduce the number of referrals to specialist care, but it is unknown if there is a difference in referral rates to specific medical specialties. The aim was to determine the relationship between continuity of care and both the referral rate (referrals per patient per year) and the medical specialties for which this relationship was strongest.

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March 25, 2019 Americas

Evaluating a Community-Placed and Clinically Integrated Community Health Worker Program

Community health worker (CHW) programs can act as bridges between patients and health care teams, but the complexity and variability of program components and outcomes make them difficult to evaluate. This evaluation used a realist approach to identify underlying mechanisms and contextual factors associated with successful implementation of a community-placed CHW program affiliated with a primary care practice in the Midwest United States. The analysis identified mechanisms by which stakeholders built trust, self-efficacy, and empowerment to improve patient-centered outcomes and experiences.

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March 21, 2019 Global

Citizens as Active Participants in Integrated Care: Challenging the Field’s Dominant Paradigms

Policy makers, practitioners and academics often claim that care users and other citizens should be ‘at the center’ of care integration pursuits. Nonetheless, the field of integrated care tends to approach these constituents as passive recipients of professional and managerial efforts. This paper critically reflects on this discrepancy, which, it contend, indicates both a key objective and an ongoing challenge of care integration;  the need to reconcile the professional, organizational and institutional frameworks by which care work is structured with  the diversity and diffuseness that is inherent to pursuits of active user and citizen participation. 

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March 19, 2019 Global

The role of patient value and patient-centred care in health systems

Patient-centred care, with its emphasis on patient value, is a widespread health system goal. To examine the progress of the evolution towards more patient-centred health care and draw lesson for the future, the Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a survey and interviews on patient representatives, a cohort in which IAPO was present. However, the findings show that despite some progress, especially in Europe and the US, in practice such care often remains more aspiration than reality.

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March 13, 2019 Global

A compendium of tools and resources for improving the quality of health services

In an attempt to consolidate the work of the WHO Department of Service Delivery and Safety (SDS) on quality improvement, a SDS cross-cut team has produced a compendium of tools and resources on quality improvement, developed within the SDS, that are applicable for country support. It includes resources on IPCHS and community engagement among others. It also includes practical examples of how the tools and resources have been applied in-country, including relevant links with other areas, such as measurement.  Ministries of health, facility quality improvement teams, researchers, development agencies and any organization or individual working to improve the quality of ...

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