Alison McKinlay
Integrated care has been given many names over the years, including holistic care and person-centred care, referring to joined up health and social care that suits the needs of an individual. The supply of integrated care has been linked to numerous positive outcomes; however, there is ongoing need to develop the evidence base in this area. In the Optimising Integrated Care Services project (known as OptICS), the work being carried out will focus on one area of integrated care services, support for people affected by cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and ‘mild-to-moderate’ mental health concerns (i.e., depression and anxiety). CVD risk factors include physical inactivity, smoking and alcohol misuse, diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol and hypertension. The work produced by the OptICS team will result in analysing all of the systems, called a whole systems analysis, with a focus on reducing these CVD risk factors and promoting enhanced mental wellbeing. To meet project milestones, OptICS will draw on a range of methods seen in behavioural science, including the Behaviour Change Wheel approach, over a series of six individual work packages that will be outlined during this discussion. This project aims to generate findings that will aid the optimisation of integrated care by proposing system-wide transformation.
Further details about OptICS can be found online: https://behscipru.nihr.ac.uk/our-projects/optimising-integrated-care-services-optics/
Alison McKinlay, a.mckinlay@ucl.ac.uk
