ABSTRACT
Increasing rates of chronic and complex conditions create significant demands on health systems to provide more, and increasingly complex, care. Traditional, fragmented models of care delivery focus on which treatments to deliver, which tests to order, and which specialists to whom patients should be referred. The patient and family then take on the burden of navigating multiple appointments in different locations. This means significant travel, and can result in needless repeated tests, and other investigations by different providers. In addition, poorly managed transitions of care can lead to suboptimal disease management and missed opportunities for treatment and prevention. Taken together, this can end up with complications and avoidable presentations to emergency departments and admissions to hospitals.
We can do better by placing more emphasis on creating models of integrated care. These models can bring together fragmented healthcare services to provide more effective, efficient, and high-value care according to the individual’s needs. If appropriately planned, co-designed, and implemented, integrated care has the potential to improve patient journeys and experiences, practitioner satisfaction, and system efficiency by delivering the right care, in the right place, at the right time, at the right cost and, we would argue, at a lower environmental cost.
