Abstract
Summary: The literature on integrated care depicts many similar challenges across countries, irrespective their systems. It is a concern for governments how to provide personalised care to citizens and patients. In many respects the system has become a problem on its own and governments are constantly restructuring or optimising their system.
The question is whether the systems are the underlying problem or the solution for integration. In this workshop we will take the findings of a study into ten years of integration efforts in the Netherlands as a point of departure. We will discuss similarities and differences with participants from other countries leading to the key question: does the system really matter for integration?
Background: The Netherlands has a highly compartmentalised system of health and social care, with different underlying principles, levels of governance, and stakeholders being involved. We have analysed five large nation-wide programs. We saw limited progress and wondered: does our system matter?
Aims and Objectives: In the workshop we will explore how our findings resonate with other systems. We saw in our study that many integration issues remained unresolved or suboptimal, in spite of a decade of integration programs. Even within sector integration was difficult. Moreover, across the country we saw significant variety of integration, in spite of our highly regulated system. Theoretically, there is ground to believe that lack of integration is generic and system differences don’t really matter. We will compare our findings with those of discussants and participants, and explore what system facilitators do or can matter.
Target audience: We intend to share and discuss our findings with policy makers, health management and health policy researchers, executives of health providing organisations, and people who might benefit most from this workshop: citizens, patients, clients and informal carers.
Facilitators: Henk Nies and Mirella Minkman will jointly facilitate the workshop. They will mutually facilitate the workshop, subsequently taking responsibility for the contents and the process. Their interaction with each other and with the audience will be dynamic and ‘entertaining’ without losing the topical focus out of sight. Two discussants, coming from different countries and systems, will be invited.
Format: We will start with a short wrap up of our findings (10 min). Then, we will have an online survey of participants’ views on three discussion statements (Mentimeter) (5 min). Next, two experts will reflect on the statements in two minutes per statement, one pro and one con (15 minutes). After this, we will engage in a ‘House of Commons debate’ with the audience on site (30 min). The purpose is to collect as much as possible views on the key questions. Finally, the positions of the participants will again be questioned, compared with the initial measurement and discussed (15 min).
Key learnings: Participants can learn about the idiosyncrasies of their system and how to influence lack of integration. The workshop will generate new hypotheses for future integrated care and health policy research. Other participants can learn how they can influence care and support in their own context.