Integrated care networks and quality of life: linking research and practice

<b>Purpose:</b> To report on the development of a project dedicated to improving the quality of life of older people through the creation of integrated networks.<br><br> <b>Context:</b> The project is set within a post-industrial community and against a backdrop of government re-organisation and devolution within Wales. The immediate research context is determined by utilising an approach to the structure of integration derived theoretically.<br><br> <b>Case description:</b> Project CHAIN (Community Health Alliances through Integrated Networks) adopts a network perspective as a means of addressing both the determinants of health and service delivery in health and social care. The Project partners are: healthcare commissioners and providers; local authority directorates including community services and transportation; the voluntary and private sectors; and a university institute. Co-opted participants include fora representing older people's interests.<br><br> <b>Data sources:</b> The Project incorporates an action research method. This paper highlights qualitative data elicited from interviews with health and social care managers and practitioners.<br><br> <b>Conclusions and discussion:</b> The Project is ongoing and we record progress in building five integrated networks.

Abstract licence: CC BY

A person counts once a day per paper. We keep no cookie and no address: a reader is a hash that changes every day. Any month under five reads shows no number.