Co-designing integrated care for high-needs clients: the Help Team for school-aged children

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe a Finnish pilot project aiming to support high-needs clients in their everyday lives by developing an integrated care approach based on the multi-sectoral collaboration of care professionals. The Help Team for school-aged children will be described as an example of the integrative practices developed on the project.

Design/methodology/approach

Altogether 250 professionals from primary and secondary health care and social care and from the education sector were designated to collaborate in 37 local, multi-sectoral teams, aiming to develop integrated care practices for high-needs clients. Teamwork was supported by coaches and project seminars, the Breakthrough method and other LEAN methods. The project was evaluated internally by means of a survey and interviews with the participants.

Findings

As a result of the project, all 37 teams developed a specific collaboration model for their selected target group comprising different kinds of high-needs clients.

Research limitations/implications

The sustainability of the outcomes of the project depends on how managers and decision-makers are committed to applying the collaboration models in future.

Practical implications

Many of the collaboration models developed in the project will be implemented in practice in a wider area.

Social implications

The project highlighted the need to pay attention to the problems of people with multiple care needs and the challenges they pose for integrated care.

Originality/value

The project was based on the client-centered development work done by frontline professionals. Due to the high level of involvement of the professionals themselves, the project proved highly instructive for them. It is extremely important to engage frontline level professionals in development work and support them in collaborating beyond the traditional “silos”.

Citation

Tuominen, T., Harju, M., Oksman, E. and Hujala, A. (2019), "Co-designing integrated care for high-needs clients: the Help Team for school-aged children", Journal of Integrated Care, Vol. 27 No. 2, pp. 123-130. https://doi.org/10.1108/JICA-05-2018-0036