Organizing Care Integration. A Social Systems Based Approach

Organizing Care Integration. A Social Systems Based Approach: 17th International Conference on Integrated Care, Dublin, 08-10 May 2017

Dessers, E.
Dhondt, S.
Annemans, L.
Cambre, B.
Kenis, P.
Hellings, J.
Hermans, K.
Nys, H.
Vanduijck, D.
Vrijhoef, H.J.M.
van Hootegem, G.

2017

Conference Abstract. In 2013, a 4-year research project on integrated care in Flanders (Belgium) was launched: “Care Organisation: a Re-Thinking EXpedition in search for Sustainability” (CORTEXS). The multidisciplinary research team focuses on the challenge of how to organize care integration. Numerous studies convincingly demonstrate the need for care integration, and several conceptual models and evaluation frameworks have been published. However, far less is known about systematic approaches to organizing care integration. CORTEXS developed a social systems based approach for redesigning care systems. A system consists of components that relate to each other, and has a certain openness to its environment. A care system is a social system, of which the elements are activities. Grouping and linking those activities forms the central focus of redesigning care systems. Splitting up care processes in specialized activities, grouped in specialized sectors, organizations, organizational units and occupations, leads to highly fragmented care systems. The number of interactions and dependencies between the many care processes and activities then becomes so high that delivering integrated care becomes virtually impossible. The mere introduction of additional coordination mechanisms leaves the underlying fragmentation untouched, and risks to increase complexity even more. From a social systems perspective, the far-driven fragmentation of processes and activities itself must be tackled.

Care integration
Organisation
Redesign
Preconditions
Systems thinking
Work and Employment
Healthy Living
Life
SP - Sustainable Productivity and Employability
ELSS - Earth, Life and Social Sciences

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:57ca791a-89c7-4110-989f-b69dbe137a9b

https://doi.org/10.5334/ijic.3586

971079

International Journal of Integrated Care, 17 (17), A275

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