Integrated care includes initiatives seeking to improve outcomes of care through linkage of e.g., social and health care or co-ordination of services of providers along the continuum of care. It thus overcomes the challenges of fragmentation between sectors and services.
Integrated care can be defined, in the context of health, social care and support services to deliver person-centred coordinated care as follows:
I [the patient] can plan my care with people who work together to understand me and my carer(s), allow me control, and bring together services to achieve the outcomes important to me.[19]
And from a systems perspective:
Integrated care is an organising principle for care delivery with the aim of achieving improved care through better coordination of services provided.[20]
Integration is the combined set of methods, processes and models that seek to bring about this improved coordination of care.[21] [19] Lewis R., Rosen R., Goodwin N. & Dixon J. (2010): Where next for integrated care organisations in the English NHS? London: The Nuffield Trust. [20] Nuffield Trust (2011): An overview of integrated care in the NHS. What is integrated care?, p.7, London: Nuffield Trust. [21] Ham, C & Walsh, N. (2013):?Making Integrated Care Happen at Scale and Pace, p.1, London: Kings Fund.