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Introduction: Current hospital-based care pathways are generally single-disease centred. As a result, coexisting morbidities are often suboptimally evaluated and managed, a deficiency becoming increasingly apparent among older patients who exhibit heterogeneity in health status, functional abilities, frailty, and other geriatric impairments. To address this issue, our study aims to assess a newly developed patient-centred care pathway for older patients with multimorbidity and cancer. The new care pathway was based on currently available evidence and co-designed by end-users including health care professionals, patients, and informal caregivers. Within this care pathway, all healthcare professionals involved in the care of older patients with multimorbidity and cancer will form a Health Professional Consortium (HPC). The role of the HPC will be to centralise oncologic and non-oncologic treatment recommendations in accordance with the patient's priorities. Moreover, an Advanced Practice Nurse will act as case-manager by being the primary point of contact for the patient, thus improving coordination between specialists, and by organising and leading the consortium. Patient monitoring and the HPC collaboration will be facilitated by digital communication tools designed specifically for this purpose, with the added benefit of being customisable for each patient., Materials and Methods: The GERONTE study is a prospective international, multicentric study consisting of two stepped-wedge trials performed at 16 clinical sites across three European countries. Each trial will include 720 patients aged 70 years and over with a new or progressive cancer (breast, lung, colorectal, prostate) and at least one moderate or severe multimorbidity. The patients in the intervention group will receive the new care pathway whereas patients in the control group will receive usual oncologic care., Discussion: GERONTE will evaluate whether this kind of holistic, patient-oriented healthcare management can improve quality of life (primary outcome) and other valuable endpoints in older patients with multimorbidity and cancer. An ancillary study will assess in depth the socio-economic impact of the intervention and deliver concrete implementation guidelines for the GERONTE intervention care pathway., Trial Registration: FRONE: NCT05720910 TWOBE: NCT05423808., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Objective: We have designed a methodological framework for experts involved in the support of decision-making in public health interventions., Methods: The methodological framework consists of four elements: 1) A series of nine questions, formulated in non-technical terms, relevant to assessment of the usefulness of an intervention, at a given time in a given context; 2) Translation of these questions into concepts related to the evaluation of interventions (definition of the intervention, its target and objective, potential and actual effectiveness, safety, efficiency, and equity); 3) Logical organization of the information needed to address and answer the questions; and 4) An algorithm to translate the available information into recommendations on the real usefulness of the intervention in the context in which the questions were raised., Results: Each step is illustrated by questions raised about road safety interventions, screening, blood transfusion and measures proposed during the COVID-19 pandemic., Conclusion: Decision-making can be facilitated if experts provide decision-makers with a formal summary of the strengths and weaknesses of existing knowledge, based on an analysis of all facets of an intervention's potential usefulness., Competing Interests: Déclaration de liens d'intérêts Les auteurs déclarent ne pas avoir de liens d'intérêts., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Appraising the effects of a complex intervention is one step in a more broadly based research process, from the construction or modelling of the intervention to its actual deployment. It consists in measuring the effectiveness or impact of the intervention, i.e. analyzing its capacity to produce change. The aim of this article is to obtain unbiased measurement of the average effects of an intervention, based on a panel of predetermined parameters and on the assumption of a causal link between the intervention and the measured result. This article is consequently devoted to evaluation of the effects of a complex intervention and focuses on the methodological challenges of its three key stages : 1) modelling of the intervention and feasibility analysis, essential prerequisites ; 2) the choice of study design and of the effects to be measured, that is to say the methodological premises ; and 3) process analysis, carried out in parallel with the evaluation of effects, leading to an indispensable appraisal of the intervention implementation and of the context into which it is integrated. The article is illustrated by five intervention impact assessment projects. A specific objective when evaluating the effects of a complex intervention consists in (a) moving away from a simple search for causality involving the intervention and its effects and (b) toward understanding of the effectiveness mechanisms, once again taking into account the context and the actual conditions of implementation. The challenge is to embrace rather than limit the complexity of the intervention, this being an essential prerequisite for its successful deployment and eventual generalization., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: Health information technology (HIT) can help coordinate health and social actors involved in patients' pathways. We assess five regional HIT-based programmes (' Territoires de Soins Numériques ' or TSN) introduced in France, covering the period 2012-2018., Methods: This was a quasi-experimental controlled before/after mixed design. We used data from the French National Health Insurance database, qualitative and quantitative surveys, and information extracted from project documents and databases. We assessed the impact of TSN using four main impact indicators: emergency room visits, unplanned hospitalizations, avoidable hospitalizations and rehospitalization within 30 days. We also collected qualitative and secondary quantitative data covering perceived needs, knowledge, use, satisfaction, adoption and understanding of projects, pathway experience, impact on professional practices and appropriateness of hospitalizations., Results: TSN implemented a heterogeneous mix of HIT. Implementation was slower than expected and was not well documented. Users perceived the HIT as having a positive but weak overall effect. There were no significant differences in trends for the main impact indicators, nor on the appropriateness of hospitalizations, but favourable trends on secondary polypharmacy indicators., Conclusions: If similar innovations take place in future, they should be based on a logical framework that defines causal, measurable links between services provided and expected impacts.

Background: Because of the limits in conceptualisation of care coordination linked to a large array of care coordination models and definitions available, a care coordination framework is needed with a particular focus on the micro level., Objective: To develop an evidence-based reference framework for person-centred care coordination interventions based on international validated definitions., Methods: This two-step mixed-methods study included first, a scoping review of reviews focus on the impact of care coordination interventions and then, a nominal group technique. The scoping review aimed at identifying the components of the four dimensions of the framework (contexts, activities, actors and tools, and effects). The nominal group technique was to select the relevant components of the dimension 'activities' of the reference framework., Results: The scoping review selected 52 articles from the 1407 retrieved at first. The nominal group selected the 66 most relevant activities from the 159 retrieved in the literature (28 activities of care organisation, 24 activities of care, and 14 activities of facilitation)., Conclusion: This operational framework focused on care coordination at the micro level, is a useful and innovative tool, applicable in any clinical condition, and in any health care system for describing, implementing and evaluating care coordination programmes., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no competing interests., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)