The long term importance of English primary care groups for integration in primary health care and deinstitutionalisation of hospital care

Reforming healthcare systems on a locally integrated basis: is there a potential for increasing collaborations in primary healthcare?

BACKGROUND

Over the past decade, in the province of Quebec, Canada, the government has initiated two consecutive reforms. These have created a new type of primary healthcare - family medicine groups (FMGs) - and have established 95 geographically defined local health networks (LHNs) across the province. A key goal of these reforms was to improve collaboration among healthcare organizations. The objective of the paper is to analyze the impact of these reforms on the development of collaborations among primary healthcare practices and between these organisations and hospitals both within and outside administrative boundaries of the local health networks.

METHODS

We surveyed 297 primary healthcare practices in 23 LHNs in Quebec's two most populated regions (Montreal & Monteregie) in 2005 and 2010. We characterized collaborations by measuring primary healthcare practices' formal or informal arrangements among themselves or with hospitals for different activities. These collaborations were measured based on the percentage of clinics that identified at least one collaborative activity with another organization within or outside of their local health network. We created measures of collaboration for different types of primary healthcare practices: first- and second-generation FMGs, network clinics, local community services centres (CLSCs) and private medical clinics. We compared their situations in 2005 and in 2010 to observe their evolution.

RESULTS

Our results showed different patterns of evolution in inter-organizational collaboration among different types of primary healthcare practices. The local health network reform appears to have had an impact on territorializing collaborations firstly by significantly reducing collaborations outside LHNs areas for all types of primary healthcare practices, including new type of primary healthcare and CLSCs, and secondly by improving collaborations among healthcare organizations within LHNs areas for all organizations. This is with the exception of private medical clinics, where collaborations decreased both outside and within LHNs.

CONCLUSION

Health system reforms aimed at creating geographically based networks influenced primary healthcare practices' both among themselves (horizontal collaborations) and with hospitals (vertical collaborations). There is evidence of increased collaborations within defined geographic areas, particularly among new type of primary healthcare.

Evaluation of the effect of co-financing on collaboration between health care, social services and social insurance in Sweden

In this paper, we present an ongoing research project aimed to determine the impact of co-financing on collaboration around patients with musculoskeletal disorders. A trial legislation that allows the social insurance, social services and health care services to unite in co-financing under joint political steering has been tested in different areas in Sweden. In a series of studies, we compare collaboration processes and health outcome for patients with musculoskeletal disorders between health centres with co-financing projects and control health centres without co-financing projects. In this paper the studies are described and some preliminary results are discussed.

Creating an integrated public sector? Labour's plans for the modernisation of the English health care system

The current Labour Government has embarked on radical public sector reform in England. A so-called 'Modernisation Agenda' has been developed that is encapsulated in the NHS Plan--a document that details a long-term vision for health care. This plan involves a five-fold strategy: investment through greater public funding; quality assurance; improving access; service integration and inter-professional working; and providing a public health focus. The principles of Labour's vision have been broadly supported. However, achieving its aims appears reliant on two key factors. First, appropriate resources are required to create capacity, particularly management capacity, to enable new functions to develop. Second, promoting access and service integration requires the development of significant co-ordination, collaboration and networking between agencies and individuals. This is particularly important for health and social care professionals. Their historically separate professions suggest that a significant period of change management is required to allow new roles and partnerships to evolve. In an attempt to secure delivery of its goals, however, the Government has placed the emphasis on further organisational restructuring. In doing so, the Government may have missed the key challenges faced in delivering its NHS Plan. As this paper argues, cultural and behavioural change is probably a far more appropriate and important requirement for success than a centrally directed approach that emphasises the rearrangement of structural furniture.