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Objectives: Currently, two classes of oral anticoagulants are available in nursing home residents: vitamin K antagonists (VKA) and direct oral anticoagulants (DOAC). DOACs have a higher net clinical benefit than VKAs but DOACs are about 10 times more expensive than VKAs. The objective of our study was to assess and compare the overall costs of anti-coagulant strategy (VKA or DOAC), i.e., including drugs, laboratory costs and time spent in human capital (nurses and medical time) in nursing homes in France., Methods: This was an observational, multicenter, prospective study including nine nursing homes in France. Among these nursing homes, 241 patients aged 75 years and older and treated with VKA (n = 140) or DOAC (n = 101) therapy accepted to participate in the study., Results: During the 3-month follow-up period, the adjusted mean costs per patient were higher for VKA than DOACs for nurse care (€327 (57) vs. €154 (56), p<.0001) for general practitioner care (€297 (91) vs. €204 (91), p = 0.02), for coordinating physicians care (€13 (7) vs. €5 (7), p < 0.07), for laboratory tests (€23 (5) vs. €5 (5), p<.0001), but were lower for drug costs (€8 (3) vs. €165 (3), p<.0001). The average overall cost for 3 months per patient was €668 (140) with VKA vs. €533 (139) with DOAC (p = 0.02)., Conclusion: Our study showed that in nursing homes despite a higher drug cost, DOAC therapy is associated with a lower total cost and less time used by nurses and physicians for drug monitoring when compared to VKA., Competing Interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: S.Bou., G.P.D., S.Ber., I.B., B.G., A.D.C., S.A., C.B., M.B., F.C., L.K., I.M., S.R., V.S. and A.V. have no conflict of interest. J.S.V. received honoraria for lectures for non-profit medical association from Bayer for lectures. M.P. received personal fees from Bayer Healthcare. O.H. received personal fees from Bayer Healthcare, BMS, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Servier, Astra-Zeneca, Boston Scientific, Vifor, Leo Pharma, Sanofi, Medtronic and Amgen. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials., (Copyright: © 2023 Pisica–Donose et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The concept of integrated services delivery, although dating from the 1990s, has only recently appeared in French public health policy. To clarify the concept and its adaptation to the reality of the French systems of healthcare and social services, the French Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology established an interdisciplinary working group. This article reports that group's findings according to three axes: the definition of integration, the objectives of this organizational approach and the means needed to achieve them. Analysis of the literature indicated that integration is a process that aims to overcome the fragmentation of services for vulnerable people. This process requires a multilevel approach, particularly concerning how to modify public policies and financing systems. Notably, all relevant levels need to develop shared processes, tools, resources, finance, interventions and returns on the latter. Indeed, this sharing is the ultimate proof of evolution towards integration. In the second part of the position paper, its authors have developed arguments that could lead professionals and non-professional caregivers to adopt integrated care as an answer to their aspirations. Policy-maker perspectives and politicians are also analyzed. Bearing in mind that integrated care necessarily will always involve a human component which may find expression during individual case-management; relations between integration and case managements are clarified. Finally, lessons learned from national and international experiments are examined. Results suggest that integrated care must to be accompanied by a local pilot. Results of recent experiments have shown that it is possible to initiate a dynamic towards integrated care in France and hence join the international movement towards adapting our healthcare systems to new challenges.

Introduction: The concept of integration, although dating from the 1990s, has only recently appeared in French public health policy. It must be linked with 'coordination', which is the base of most French public policies applied to geriatrics since the 1960s. Herein, we report the French Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology working group's findings according to three axes: definition of integration, objectives of this organisational approach and the means needed to achieve them., Discussion: Integration is a process that aims to overcome the fragmentation of services for vulnerable people. This process requires a multilevel approach, particularly concerning how to modify public policies and financing systems. Notably, all relevant levels need to develop shared processes, tools, resources, financing, interventions and action-reports on the latter. Integration must be accompanied by a local dedicated professional (the 'pilot'). Results of recent experiments showed that it is possible to implement integrative dynamics in France.

The concept of integrated services delivery, although dating from the 1990s, has only recently appeared in the French public health policy. To clarify the concept and its adaptation to the reality of the French systems of healthcare and social services, the French Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology established an interdisciplinary working group. This article reports the group's findings according to three axes: the definition of integration, the objectives of this organizational approach and the means needed to achieve them. Analysis of the literature indicated that integration is a process that aims to overcome the fragmentation of services for vulnerable people. This process requires a multilevel approach, particularly concerning how to modify public policies and financing systems. Notably, all relevant levels need to develop shared processes, tools, resources, finance, interventions and feed-back on the latter. Indeed, this sharing is the ultimate proof of evolution towards integration. In this first part of the position paper, its authors analyzed integrated care definitions used in international literature in view of designing the most important components of integrated care. The examination of this concept must be articulated with the idea of "coordination" which has been the cornerstone of the majority of public policies applied to the field of geriatrics and gerontology since the 1960s in France. The components of integrated care highlight that it is an ambitious process leading to real systemic modification. The authors also have proposed to open up a dialogue between citizens' aspirations and integrated care objectives with the aim to verify that the latter respond to the needs as expressed by the targeted group.