Different Contexts Similar Challenges. SUSTAIN’s Experiences with Improving Integrated Care in Europe

摘要

In 2019, we finalized a four-year EU-funded research project on integrated care for older people called ‘SUSTAIN’ (see Textbox 1 below). We initiated the project to help address the challenges faced by those practicing integrated care, including how to successfully collaborate with organisations and professionals from different sectors; how to incorporate integrated working in one’s service delivery; and how to provide integrated care tailored to the needs of one’s older service users [1,2,3,4,5]. The SUSTAIN project was designed to support the development of integrated care for older people living at home with health and social care needs. Its objectives were twofold: 1. To support and monitor improvements to established integrated care initiatives and 2. To contribute to the adoption and application of such improvements to other health and social care systems and regions in Europe. The project adopted a participatory implementation approach, meaning that stakeholders from thirteen established integrated care initiatives across Europe collaborated with SUSTAIN researchers to develop and implement a wide variety of activities to improve integrated care delivery within a number of domains: person-centredness, prevention-orientation, safety, efficiency, and coordination. Throughout the project, SUSTAIN researchers evaluated progress and outcomes of these improvement processes [6].