Provider and Manager Perspectives on the Use of an Integrated Clinical Pathway for Community-Dwelling Older Adults: A Qualitative Case Study.

BACKGROUND: Integrated care pathways (ICPs) could improve the organisation and delivery of care for community dwelling older adults. An ICP was developed and implemented in Québec to support home care processes. This study explores the perspectives of home care staff on the use of an ICP to support the organisation and delivery of health and social care to community-dwelling older adults with complex needs. THEORY AND METHODS: A case study based on eleven semi-structured interviews and analysis of documents was carried out in an urban home care unit. The Normalization Process Theory was used for mixed thematic analysis. RESULTS: While its capacity to store data and enhance interprofessional information exchange was appreciated by home care staff, the broad scope, and automated features of the ICP tool were often problematic. Concerns about increased provider workloads, disruption to provider-client relationships during clinical encounters, and difficulties engaging clients in decision-making were main obstacles in the use of the ICP. CONCLUSION: Given the importance of ICPs in advancing clinical integration, it is critical to continuously adjust their design to align with providers' realities in order to optimize their potential in real life contexts.

Does Integrated Care Carry the Gene of Bureaucracy? Lessons from the Case of Québec.

INTRODUCTION: Demographic and epidemiological transitions of industralized countries mean health systems have to integrate health and social services to respond to the changing needs of their populations. Efforts to integrate care involve important policy and structural changes. This paper examines whether integration efforts are lost in translation during the bureaucratic appropriation of models, or, in an allegorical way, do they reveal genes of bureaucracy? DESCRIPTION: Since the 1960s, the health system of Québec has undergone four major structural and progressively integrative transformations, characterized as - modernization, shock of reality, explicit integration, and centralization phases. DISCUSSION: Although integration efforts progressively transformed Québec's health and social services system, embedded bureaucracies impeded the realisation of these projects. Notably, inadequate change management strategies and lack of integrated funding models hindered integration efforts. Furthermore, there was variability in government prioritisation and support of different aspects of the model by making some components happen, helping others happen and letting others happen. CONCLUSION: Drawing insights from bureaucratic obstacles to integration efforts may improve implementation strategies. This paper highlights important policy and administrative challenges that have to be taken into consideration in improving the implementation of integrated care initiatives in a real-life context.

Multiple Perspectives Analysis of the Implementation of an Integrated Care Model for Older Adults in Quebec.

INTRODUCTION: Integrated care models for older adults are increasingly utilised in healthcare systems to overcome fragmentations. Several groups of stakeholders are involved in the implementation of integrated care. The aim of this study is to identify the main concerns, convergences and divergences in perspectives of stakeholders involved in the implementation of a centralised system-wide integrated care model for older adults in Quebec. THEORY AND METHODS: Qualitative multiple-case study. Semi-structured interviews of key stakeholders: policymakers (n = 11), providers (n = 29), managers (n = 34), older adult patients (n = 14) and caregivers (n = 9), including document analysis. Thematic analysis of the views of stakeholders along the lines of the six dimensions of the Rainbow Model of Integrated Care. RESULTS: While patients/caregivers were mostly concerned by their unmet individual needs, policymakers, managers and providers were concerned by structural barriers to integrating care. Stakeholders' diverse perspectives indicated implementation gaps in a top-down implementation context. CONCLUSION: Mandated system-wide integration appears to have structural, organizational, functional, and normative transformations, but its clinical changes are more uncertain in view of the observed divergent perspectives of actors. It will be interesting to explore if the systemic changes are precursors of clinical changes or, on the contrary, explains the lack of clinical changes.

Providers' Perspectives on the Implementation of Mandated Local Health Networks for Older People in Québec.

INTRODUCTION: In many countries, integrated care has been implemented to improve the quality, efficiency and patient experience of services. Understanding how integrated care is adopted in different settings may give insights into where, how and why different components of the organisational design work. The aim of this article is to understand how and why integrated care for older people has been implemented in different contexts from the perspective of providers. THEORY AND METHODS: The study uses an innovative composite framework for the implementation of integrated care models, which posits that structural, organisational, provider, innovation and patient factors influence implementation along six dimensions of integration. A qualitative multiple case study was done of three cases in Québec using document analysis and semi-structured interviews of 28 providers. Descriptive comparisons and thematic analysis were performed. RESULTS: Providers considered that structural (government policy) and organisational (mergers) factors highly influenced the implementation of organisational and functional dimensions of integration, at the detriment of clinical integration. Provider, innovation and patient factors mildly or moderately influenced the implementation of integration. CONCLUSION: Structural and organisational factors were necessary conditions for the implementation of administrative components of integration, with great variability in the implementation of some clinical components.

Reorganising health and social care in Québec: a journey towards integrating care through mergers.

CONTEXT: Two reforms (2014, 2015) characterised by the merger of public health care establishments profoundly shaped the current organisation of Quebec's healthcare system. In 2015, 22 megastructures called Integrated Health and Social Services Centres/Integrated University Health and Social Services Centres (IHSSC/IUHSSC), were created and mandated to organise care delivery to their local populations. OBJECTIVE: To describe the service configuration of the 2015 healthcare system reforms, emphasising on how it shaped the organisation of primary health care (PHC) in Quebec. RESULTS: With the creation of IHSSCs/IUHSSCs, Quebec's healthcare system passed from three to two levels of governance, leading to a centralisation of decision-making powers. Most health services are delivered by the new organisations, while most PHC is delivered by semi-private medical practices, mainly Family Medicine Groups (FMGs). The FMG model is the preferred strategy to develop interdisciplinary team-work and inter-organizational collaborations with other PHC services. CONCLUSION: mechanisms through which centralised healthcare systems achieve community oriented integrated care (COIC) need to be properly understood in order to improve meaningful clinical outcomes. Mergers may not sufficiently achieve integration of services in all its dimensions. These reforms should be monitored and evaluated on their capacity to mobilise all providers as well as physicians to participate in COIC.

Using information communication technology in models of integrated community-based primary health care: learning from the iCOACH case studies.

BACKGROUND: Information communication technology (ICT) is a critical enabler of integrated models of community-based primary health care; however, little is known about how existing technologies have been used to support new models of integrated care. To address this gap, we draw on data from an international study of integrated models, exploring how ICT is used to support activities of integrated care and the organizational and environmental barriers and enablers to its adoption. METHODS: We take an embedded comparative multiple-case study approach using data from a study of implementation of nine models of integrated community-based primary health care, the Implementing Integrated Care for Older Adults with Complex Health Needs (iCOACH) study. Six cases from Canada, three each in Ontario and Quebec, and three in New Zealand, were studied. As part of the case studies, interviews were conducted with managers and front-line health care providers from February 2015 to March 2017. A qualitative descriptive approach was used to code data from 137 interviews and generate word tables to guide analysis. RESULTS: Despite different models and contexts, we found strikingly similar accounts of the types of activities supported through ICT systems in each of the cases. ICT systems were used most frequently to support activities like care coordination by inter-professional teams through information sharing. However, providers were limited in their ability to efficiently share patient data due to data access issues across organizational and professional boundaries and due to system functionality limitations, such as a lack of interoperability. CONCLUSIONS: Even in innovative models of care, managers and providers in our cases mainly use technology to enable traditional ways of working. Technology limitations prevent more innovative uses of technology that could support disruption necessary to improve care delivery. We argue the barriers to more innovative use of technology are linked to three factors: (1) information access barriers, (2) limited functionality of available technology, and (3) organizational and provider inertia.

Implementing Community Based Primary Healthcare for Older Adults with Complex Needs in Quebec, Ontario and New-Zealand: Describing Nine Cases.

The aim of this paper is to set the foundation for subsequent empirical studies of the "Implementing models of primary care for older adults with complex needs" project, by introducing and presenting a brief descriptive comparison of the nine case studies in Quebec, Ontario and New Zealand. Each case is described based on key dimensions of Rainbow model of Valentijn and al (2013) with a focus on "meso level" integration. Meso level integration is represented by organizational and professional elements of the Rainbow Model, which are of particular interest in our nine case studies. Each of the three cases in Ontario and three in New Zealand are different and described separately. In Quebec, a local health services network model is presented across the three cases studied with variations in the way it is implemented. The three cases selected in the three jurisdictions under study were not chosen to be representative of wider practice within each country, but rather represent interesting and unique models of community-based primary healthcare integration. Similarities and variations in the integrated care models, context and dimension of integration offer insights regarding core component of integration of services, offering a foundational understanding of the cases on which future analysis will be based.

Educating families about end-of-life care in advanced dementia: acceptability of a Canadian family booklet to nurses from Canada, France, and Japan.

BACKGROUND: The families of people with late-stage dementia need to be informed about the course of the dementia and the comfort/palliative care option. A booklet was written for that purpose and can be provided to family members by physicians and nurses. METHODS: The acceptability of the booklet for nurses was tested in Canada (French and English version), France (French Canadian version) and Japan (translated and adapted version). RESULTS: Overall, 188 nurses completed a survey questionnaire. The booklet was accepted best in Canada and less so in France and Japan. Despite regional variation, the majority of the nurses perceived the booklet as useful for families. The French and Japanese nurses also reported a greater need for palliative care education in advanced dementia. CONCLUSION: The booklet may help nurses educate families about end-of-life issues in dementia palliative care, but local adaptation of the booklet content and physician engagement are necessary.