Systematic review on policies, programmes and interventions on high quality people-centred integrated care

Abstract

High quality people-centred integrated care conducive to universal health coverage (UHC) is a construct for which there is no universally agreed conceptual framework available. This systematic literature review provides a comprehensive overview of policies, programmes and strategies that are of relevance in relation to this construct, either directly of indirectly. The review was done as part of work commissioned by the World Health Organization (WHO) to inform the development of WHO's People-centred and Integrated Health Services Strategy. A parallel search strategy was performed via Medline, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library of Systematic Reviews, CINAHL, and PRE CINAHL, complemented with a reference review of key articles that resulted in a total of 442 articles. The search strategy included a combination of Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms with regard to patient-centered and integrated care. English articles as from January 1, 2007 until August 31, 2013 were selected that examined the effects of patient-centered and/or integrated care policies/programmes/interventions with regard to different services, in different settings, for different patients' needs, for different life stages, countries, and goals set. We appraised policies/programmes/interventions on high-quality patient-centered and integrated care, using a pre-defined set of attributes of high quality patient-centered and integrated care. The review revealed a set of 12 distinct categories of policies that deal with 1. the integration of people-centred, integrated care as a strategic direction for health system reform, 2. the development of inter-sectoral action programmes, 3. the integration of the financial allocation system with a performance evaluation system, 4. investments in public private partnerships, and, 5. academic and healthcare partnerships, 6. the integration of service levels and providers, 7. the integration of different professional disciplines into professional (post-graduate) education, 8. the World Congress on