The “Basque Health Strategy in Ageing and Chronicity: Integrated Care” good practice is a population model based on preventive interventions, patient empowerment, and personalized medical care. It places particular emphasis on the continuity of care, security, adherence and improving the patient experience. It includes “Integrated Care Organizations” (ICO) with Joint Governance bodies for primary care and hospital, with a defined population catchment area; multidimensional assessment and action for people aged 70 or older (Care Plan for the Elderly). It includes risk stratification and care plans based on the needs for a complex patient, new nursing roles (such as liaison nurses and case managers), safety in polypharmacy management, patient empowerment and self-management and social and health coordination. It is supported by an eHealth strategy and a 24X7 Nursing Call Centre.
Next Adopters interested in the Basque oGP
There are eight Next Adopters (NA) from seven different countries interested in adopting Core Features (CFs) from the Basque oGP. Three out of them are interested not only in the adoption of the Basque oGP but also from other oGPs of JADECARE (Catalan open innovation hub on ICT-supported integrated care services for chronic patients (Catalonia, Spain), The OptiMedis Model-Population-based integrated care (Germany) and Digital roadmap towards an integrated health care sector (Region of South Denmark)). These NA are the North Denmark Region (RND), the University Hospital Olomouc (UHO) and the Croatian Institute for Public Health (CIPH). The other five Next Adopters transferring CFs only from the Basque oGP are United Local Health Authority (USL UMBRIA 1) and Regional Health Agency (ARS Toscana) from Italy, Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS) of Portugal, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Serbia (MoHRS) and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH).
Activities carried out in the first year of the project: study visits, scope definition, situation analysis, development of the LGP an LAPs
In the first year of JADECARE the pre-implementation phase has been completed. During these 12 months, the WP5 leaders: Kronikgune Institute for Health Services Research (KG) together with Osakidetza, the Basque Health Service, and also the co-leader: School of Medicine, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), have provided the relevant and key information about the Basque oGP to their Next Adopters, for them to be able to analyse in detail the good practice, so that they were able to select the Core Features they wanted to adopt. They have also given support to these eight Next Adopters in the activities performed in the three steps of the pre-implementation: 1. Needs and scope definition 2. Situation Analysis 3. Local Good Practice and Local Action Plans.
Moreover, as part of Need and scope definition pre-implementation step, the Basque oGP organized three days of study visits, where the three Blocks and eight Core Features of the Basque were presented in interactive sessions and workshops that included real time demonstrations of the tools displayed and implemented in Osakidetza Basque Health Service of the Basque practice. With a total number of 203 attendees, 21 panelists and the participation of all the WP5 Next Adopters. Several experts of the Basque oGP participating in these study visits belonged to Osakidetza, the Public Healthcare Service of the Basque Country that manage all the public hospitals and primary care centers of the Basque Region and that with more than 30.000 professionals can be considered the biggest organization of the Basque Country. These study visits provided the Next Adopter with even more detailed information about the Basque practice, what helped them in the refination of the Core Features that they wanted to adopt.
Now it is the time for the implementation phase to start, where the Next Adopters will execute their Local Good Practices and Action Plans, that they produces as a result of the pre-implementation phase and that summarise their local interventions.