Integrated care: What policies support and influence integration in health care in Australia?

Abstract

Without integration, all aspects of care can suffer. Patients can get lost in the system, needed services fail to be delivered or are delayed or duplicated, the quality of the care experience declines, and the potential for cost-effectiveness diminishes (Kodner and Spreeuwenberg, 2002). Integrated health care has been a focus of national health reform in Australia and internationally. In Australia, this has culminated in the National Health Reform Agreement (NHR Agreement; August 2011) to deliver reforms to the organisation, funding and delivery of health and aged care. Over successive health reform agreements since the National Healthcare Agreement of 2008, there has been a concerted effort to promote integration at the macro level between governments. The NHR Agreement sets out the shared intention of Commonwealth, State and Territory governments to work in partnership to improve health outcomes for Australians and ensure the sustainability of the Australian health system. More recently, the Commonwealth has worked closely with states and territories and primary health care (PHC) stakeholders to develop a National Primary Health Care Strategic Framework (Standing Council on Health, 2013)