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Introduction: Discussions of integrated care have ranged in focus from large-scale health system transformations, to discrete interventions intended to enhance local continuity of care. Beyond these variations in scale and focus, literature on integrated care has used a variety of conceptual frameworks to explain various activities and elements necessary to achieve integrated care. Existing frameworks have helped to advance research and practice; yet the complexity of changing practice required to achieve integrated care across the policy, organizational, and clinical levels complicates efforts to represent or implement these innovations in straightforward ways. Aims Objectives Theory or Methods: In this paper, we present a novel strategy for conceptualizing integrated care as developing through a series of milestones observable at the organizational level. Based on analysis of four integrated care organizational case studies in Canada and New Zealand, we outline how this approach to conceptualizing integrated care both resolves the tension of crossing the macro, meso, and micro levels of analysis, and generates new practical insights to guide policy and practice. Methods consist of qualitative interviews, observation, and document analysis across cases, and qualitative data were analyzed temporally to identify milestones as indicated by participants over time. Highlights or Results or Key Findings: We define a milestone as the occurrence of a salient event that is perceived by respondents to facilitate or disrupt efforts towards the development of integrated care. We synthesize these events at the organizational level, suggesting that the organizational level of analysis is the most appropriate level to represent the significance of these milestones. Our analysis identified six categories of milestone: (1) Strategic relational milestones, referring to building relationships between stakeholders. (2) Strategic process change milestones, referring to efforts to improve quality in practice. (3) Structural (intra-organizational) milestones, referring to changes in organizational structure. (4) Structural (inter-organizational) milestones, referring to changes in the legal, operational, or leadership structures that facilitate relationships between organizations. (5) Environmental milestones, referring to changes in the social or natural environment. (6) Political milestones, referring to changes in the control and allocation of resources. Conclusions: Our results generate a new conceptual framework for understanding the achievement of integrated care as occurring through a series of milestones. This approach enhances the focus on achieving integrated care "in the wild", in the actual environments in which leaders, clinicians, policymakers, patients, and caregivers work to implement integrated care. Implications for applicability/transferability sustainability and limitations: Our model emphasizes two practical points. First, that there is no single series of sequential steps that must be taken to achieve integrated care. Second, that policy efforts to support integrated care ought to encourage organizations and their collaborators to work toward milestones that facilitate the development of integrated care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 communitybased 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Community based primary health care (CBPHC) organizations are critical providers of integrated care for complex patients. Exemplar cases exist, but efforts to scale up and spread successful models continue to face major challenges. While scale and spread has become a popular topic, there are still significant gaps in our understanding of what components or activities of integrated care models should and can be spread from one locale or jurisdiction to the next, and to what degree we allow for local adaptation of those activities. Theory/Methods: To address this identified gap we developed a survey for managers and providers in CBPHC organizations that allows respondents to specify which activities require local adaptation for their scale up and spread and which need to be more standardized. The survey builds on learning from the iCOACH project, a study analyzing 9 integrated models of community-based primary health care (CBPHC) in Ontario, Quebec and New Zealand. To develop the survey we carried out 1) a targeted literature review identifying existing reviews of key activities of integrated CBPHC; 2) a workshop session with CBPHC managers and providers to validate the approach and aim of the survey; 3) mapping the findings of the literature review to coded qualitative data from the iCOACH study to validate identified activities; and 4) validation and initial testing of a pilot survey. Results: The literature review yielded 32activities of integrated CBPHC, each of which were found to be present in iCOACH case studies. The workshop session was run in January 2018 with 17 participants. from 3 case study sites. Participants identified all activities as important to models of integrated care; but reported varying needs for standardization or adaptation for specific elements. Discussion from the workshop was used to refine survey wording and structure. The draft survey was tested with managers and providers in CBPHC organizations using cognitive interviewing techniques to refine the instrument. Small scale testing of the survey will be undertaken with staff in 2 CBPHC sites. Discussion: Multiple methods were used to validate the key activities of integrated care; however, the ways in which these activities are implemented in scale and spread efforts are nuanced and context dependent. Conclusions: The survey tool developed will help us to unpack these nuances and contextual influences, with the aim of clarifying core versus peripheral activities of integrated care at different stages of the scale and spread process (e.g., whether early or later stages of adoption). Lessons learned: One critical finding from the symposium was that conceptualizations of fidelity and adaptation are widely varied and needs to be clearly stated in any assessment. Ensuring clarity of these terms was central to the development of this survey. Limitations: While the survey has strong content validity due to our development methodology, additional work will be required to test reliability and other components of validity prior to wider adoption of the survey. Suggestions for future research: Following testing in Canadian settings, we plan to deploy the survey to CBPHC organizations internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frameworks for understanding integrated care risk underemphasizing the complexities of the development of integrated care in a local context. The objectives of this article are to (1) present a novel strategy for conceptualizing integrated care as developing through a series of milestones at the organizational level, and (2) present a typology of milestones empirically generated through the analysis of four cases of integrated community-based primary health care (ICBPHC) in Canada and New Zealand. Our paper reports on an analysis of 4 specific organizational case studies within a large dataset generated for an international multiple case study project of exemplar models of ICBPHC. Drawing on earlier analyses of 359 qualitative interviews with patients, caregivers, health care providers, managers, and policymakers, in this article we present a detailed analysis of 28 interviews with managers and leaders of local models of integrated care. We generated a detailed timeline of the development of integrated care as expressed by each participant, and synthesized themes across timelines within each case to identify specific milestone events. We then synthesized across cases to generate the broader milestone categories to which each event belongs. We generated 5 milestone categories containing 12 more specific milestone events. The milestone categories include (1) strategic relational, (2) strategic process change, (3) internal structural, (4) inter-organizational structural, and (5) external milestones. We propose a comprehensive framework of developmental milestones for integrated care. Milestones represent a compelling strategy for conceptualizing the development of integrated care. Practically, policymakers and health care leaders can support the implementation of integrated care by examining the history and context of a given model of care and identifying strategies to achieve milestones that will accelerate integrated care. Further research should document additional milestone events and advance the development of dynamic frameworks for integrated care., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: The concept of "mechanism" is central to realist approaches to research, yet research teams struggle to operationalize and apply the concept in empirical research. Our large, interdisciplinary research team has also experienced challenges in making the concept useful in our study of the implementation of models of integrated community-based primary health care (ICBPHC) in three international jurisdictions (Ontario and Quebec in Canada, and in New Zealand)., Methods: In this paper we summarize definitions of mechanism found in realist methodological literature, and report an empirical example of a realist analysis of the implementation ICBPHC., Results: We use our empirical example to illustrate two points. First, the distinction between contexts and mechanisms might ultimately be arbitrary, with more distally located mechanisms becoming contexts as research teams focus their analytic attention more proximally to the outcome of interest. Second, the relationships between mechanisms, human reasoning, and human agency need to be considered in greater detail to inform realist-informed analysis; understanding these relationships is fundamental to understanding the ways in which mechanisms operate through individuals and groups to effect the outcomes of complex health interventions., Conclusions: We conclude our paper with reflections on human agency and outline the implications of our analysis for realist research and realist evaluation.