Integration, Coordination and Multidisciplinary Care: A Systematic Review

Project Status
Completed

Chief Investigators
Gawaine Powell Davies, David Perkins, Mark Harris, Martin Roland

Associate Investigators
Julie McDonald, Judy Proudfoot

Other Team Members
Karen Larson

Rationale

Integration and coordination are often invisible tasks within the health system that come to notice when the arrangements for coordination fail to support coherent health care in areas where this matters. The complexity of the health system means that integration and coordination will always be problematic in one area or another. New trends in health care need or provision will often give rise to new problems in integration and coordination.

The types of arrangement that are effective for integration and coordination are highly context dependent, depending in part upon the health care issues being addressed, expectations of the public and the characteristics of the system within which they operate.

Aims

To define:
(a) integration, coordination and multidisciplinary care within the Australian health care system and other comparable health care systems;
(b) strategies that have been employed to improve integration, coordination and multidisciplinary care within primary health care, health and health related services.

To determine: Which strategies have been shown to be effective under what circumstances, and the cost of effective strategies.

Design and Method

Narrative Systematic Review

Key Publications

Report: http://www.anu.edu.au/aphcri/Domain/MultidisciplinaryTeams/Final_1_Powell-Davies.pdf

Paper: Powell Davies G, Williams AM, Larsen K, Perkins D, Roland M, Harris M. Coordinating primary health care: an analysis of the outcomes of a systematic review. MJA 2008; 188 (8 Suppl): S65-S68