There is something of an emerging pattern of evaluations of integrated care, care coordination and multidisciplinary care producing counterintuitive and puzzling results where, on occasion, the intervention arm performs less well than the control arm. Bringing together 30-40 diverse stakeholders enabled us to reflect on the design, operation and evaluation of these models, to generate hypotheses for these conundrums and present some new ideas for ways forward.
The seminar stimulated new ways of thinking about integrated care and considered the following:
- Is there a case for a fresh look at integrated care? Should we continue to frame integrated care as an ‘intervention’?
- Is reducing hospital admissions a problematic outcome measure of integrated care?
- Are there problems with the methods being used or the design of the evaluations?
- Are there issues with the characteristics of some of the models used?
This event shed light on this interesting set of problems and provided practical help for people commissioning, delivering and evaluating integrated care programmes. This event was held from 10:00-15:00 at the Health Foundation offices.
If you would like to find out more about the event, please get in touch via events@nuffieldtrust.org.uk.
Chair
The Health Foundation
