Project INTEGRATE - a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in Europe
<strong>Background: </strong>The use of case studies in health services research has proven to be an excellent methodology for gaining in-depth understanding of the organisation and delivery of health care. This is particularly relevant when looking at the complexity of integrated health...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Ubiquity Press
2014-12-01
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| Series: | International Journal of Integrated Care |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.ijic.org/articles/1980 |
| _version_ | 1818551730741182464 |
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| author | Lucinda Cash-Gibson Magda Rosenmoller |
| author_facet | Lucinda Cash-Gibson Magda Rosenmoller |
| author_sort | Lucinda Cash-Gibson |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <strong>Background: </strong>The use of case studies in health services research has proven to be an excellent methodology for gaining in-depth understanding of the organisation and delivery of health care. This is particularly relevant when looking at the complexity of integrated healthcare programmes, where multifaceted interactions occur at the different levels of care and often without a clear link between the interventions (new and/or existing) and their impact on outcomes (in terms of patients health, both patient and professional satisfaction and cost-effectiveness). Still, integrated care is seen as a core strategy in the sustainability of health and care provision in most societies in Europe and beyond. More specifically, at present, there is neither clear evidence on transferable factors of integrated care success nor a method for determining how to establish these specific success factors. The drawback of case methodology in this case, however, is that the in-depth results or lessons generated are usually highly context-specific and thus brings the challenge of transferability of findings to other settings, as different health care systems and different indications are often not comparable. Project INTEGRATE, a European Commission-funded project, has been designed to overcome these problems; it looks into four chronic conditions in different European settings, under a common methodology framework (taking a mixed-methods approach) to try to overcome the issue of context specificity and limited transferability. The common methodological framework described in this paper seeks to bring together the different case study findings in a way that key lessons may be derived and transferred between countries, contexts and patient-groups, where integrated care is delivered in order to provide insight into generalisability and build on existing evidence in this field. <strong>Methodology: </strong>To compare the different integrated care experiences, a mixed-methods approach has been adopted with the creation of a common methodological framework (including data collection tools and case study template report) to be used by the case studies for their analyses. <strong>Methods of analysis: </strong>The four case studies attempt to compare health care services before and after the ‘integration’ of care, while triangulating the findings using quantitative and qualitative data, and provide an in-depth description of the organisation and delivery of care, and the impact on outcomes. The common framework aims to allow for the extraction of key transferable learning from the cases, taking into account context-dependency. <strong>Conclusion: </strong>The application and evaluation of the common methodological approach aim to distill and identify important elements for successful integrated care, in order to strengthen the evidence base for integrated care (by facilitating cross-context comparisons), increase the transferability of findings from highly context-specific to other settings and lead to concrete and practical policy and operational recommendations. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T09:03:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6b8d99333e014bbcb4468ba77dacfc4d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1568-4156 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T09:03:47Z |
| publishDate | 2014-12-01 |
| publisher | Ubiquity Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | International Journal of Integrated Care |
| spelling | doaj.art-6b8d99333e014bbcb4468ba77dacfc4d2022-12-22T00:29:44ZengUbiquity PressInternational Journal of Integrated Care1568-41562014-12-0114410.5334/ijic.19801724Project INTEGRATE - a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in EuropeLucinda Cash-GibsonMagda Rosenmoller<strong>Background: </strong>The use of case studies in health services research has proven to be an excellent methodology for gaining in-depth understanding of the organisation and delivery of health care. This is particularly relevant when looking at the complexity of integrated healthcare programmes, where multifaceted interactions occur at the different levels of care and often without a clear link between the interventions (new and/or existing) and their impact on outcomes (in terms of patients health, both patient and professional satisfaction and cost-effectiveness). Still, integrated care is seen as a core strategy in the sustainability of health and care provision in most societies in Europe and beyond. More specifically, at present, there is neither clear evidence on transferable factors of integrated care success nor a method for determining how to establish these specific success factors. The drawback of case methodology in this case, however, is that the in-depth results or lessons generated are usually highly context-specific and thus brings the challenge of transferability of findings to other settings, as different health care systems and different indications are often not comparable. Project INTEGRATE, a European Commission-funded project, has been designed to overcome these problems; it looks into four chronic conditions in different European settings, under a common methodology framework (taking a mixed-methods approach) to try to overcome the issue of context specificity and limited transferability. The common methodological framework described in this paper seeks to bring together the different case study findings in a way that key lessons may be derived and transferred between countries, contexts and patient-groups, where integrated care is delivered in order to provide insight into generalisability and build on existing evidence in this field. <strong>Methodology: </strong>To compare the different integrated care experiences, a mixed-methods approach has been adopted with the creation of a common methodological framework (including data collection tools and case study template report) to be used by the case studies for their analyses. <strong>Methods of analysis: </strong>The four case studies attempt to compare health care services before and after the ‘integration’ of care, while triangulating the findings using quantitative and qualitative data, and provide an in-depth description of the organisation and delivery of care, and the impact on outcomes. The common framework aims to allow for the extraction of key transferable learning from the cases, taking into account context-dependency. <strong>Conclusion: </strong>The application and evaluation of the common methodological approach aim to distill and identify important elements for successful integrated care, in order to strengthen the evidence base for integrated care (by facilitating cross-context comparisons), increase the transferability of findings from highly context-specific to other settings and lead to concrete and practical policy and operational recommendations.http://www.ijic.org/articles/1980delivery of health careintegratedintegrated careorganisational case studiesEuropehealth policy |
| spellingShingle | Lucinda Cash-Gibson Magda Rosenmoller Project INTEGRATE - a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in Europe International Journal of Integrated Care delivery of health care integrated integrated care organisational case studies Europe health policy |
| title | Project INTEGRATE - a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in Europe |
| title_full | Project INTEGRATE - a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in Europe |
| title_fullStr | Project INTEGRATE - a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in Europe |
| title_full_unstemmed | Project INTEGRATE - a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in Europe |
| title_short | Project INTEGRATE - a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in Europe |
| title_sort | project integrate a common methodological approach to understand integrated health care in europe |
| topic | delivery of health care integrated integrated care organisational case studies Europe health policy |
| url | http://www.ijic.org/articles/1980 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT lucindacashgibson projectintegrateacommonmethodologicalapproachtounderstandintegratedhealthcareineurope AT magdarosenmoller projectintegrateacommonmethodologicalapproachtounderstandintegratedhealthcareineurope |