Project INTEGRATE: Developing a Framework to Guide Design, Implementation and Evaluation of People-centred Integrated Care Processes

BACKGROUND: People-centred integrated care is an acknowledged approach to improve the quality and effectiveness of health systems in delivering care around people’s needs and preferences. Nevertheless, more guidance on how to effectively design, implement and evaluate the care process of people-centred integrated care services is needed. Under Project INTEGRATE, a framework was developed to guide managers in the assessment, transformation and delivery of these health service innovations. METHODS: The framework is a product of the synthesis of operations, service and project management literature, relevant health care literature, and the analysis of four good practice integrated care case studies analysed under Project INTEGRATE. A first iteration of the framework was developed and then applied to one of the integrated care case studies to test its validity and utility. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The tool combines a number of important considerations and criteria that have not been previously included in integrated care assessment frameworks, allowing for a pragmatic and comprehensive analysis of the care process. CONCLUSION: This framework can be used as a stand-alone or combined tool to guide managers to plan and evaluate the care process design of people-centred integrated care services; future work should apply this tool to other settings.