Integrated Health Systems Case Study

Integrated Health Care Systems
Institution
Date
Introduction
As the world grows, and systems change, the health care sector also evolves by integrating new approaches that can match the changes. One of the steps that the health care industry is changing is in the formation of integrated systems of delivery. This approach calls for hospitals to form links with other healthcare facilities such as insurers, physicians, and other providers. Integrated health care is about networks and connections between organizations that have corporate to scale up health delivery approaches around patients and populations. The only factor that makes health care integration unique is the sharing of critical information among the collaborative members related to strategies created for patient care.
The types of integration involved
When Nirit had visited a local hospital called Unitown General Hospital, he discovered there were a number of services offered in the facility that would meet the needs of his family. He discovered that the Health facility had a Health and Wellness Centre that integrated hospital run clinics, physician offices, and other health related services. Within the facility, there was a Family Health Team that was run by a group of twenty health care practitioners. Several nurses, social workers, and other health care workers were also found within the facility. Several of these health care practitioners also had the capacity to communicate in a variety of languages. Nutritional counseling services, family, and children mental health counseling, health promotion services among other services were also available within the facility. The clinical integration approach in the health facility therefore provided a system that ensured continuity of healthcare, good communication among caregivers, disease management, a smooth transfer of information and records, eradication of duplicated tests and procedures and making sure that the services were running smooth in the facility (AlHamad, Al Omari, &AlHamad, 2014).
When health providers connect, they are in a position to facilitate the integrative measures that seek to provide value to clients. Achieving this, however, requires that these facilities change their cultural and organizational approaches that bring on board proper frameworks geared towards changing the way health professionals and organizations work together. By this, clients can get better services at appropriate costs. This approach creates an opportunity for clients and health practitioners to manage the costs of health care through disease management programs in which professionally trained health care workers help in performing duties that would have been done by doctors (Bouamrane, &Mair, 2014). An example is given in the case where patients can be helped in managing their illnesses by a team of medically professional practitioners including nurses, nutritionists, and educators.
These personnel provide lifestyle educative coaching’s, mentor and carry out routine checks, things that doctors were left to handle at higher costs. Through the functional integration process, the health facility was in position to establish a system that enabled patients to have a tele-home care program that en...