What is integrated care - continuation
Delivering integrated care is essential to improving outcomes for people who use services in low threshold settings. Treatment services are most effective and attractive to PWID patients when they are: easily available; voluntary; unconditional; free of any legal consequences; address individual needs; and different harm reduction and treatment services are available in one place (syringe/needle exchange, OST, ARV, HCV treatment etc). The most successful linkage-to-care rates were seen in settings where testing, care, and treatment are provided in one place.
This test-and-treat model eliminates the need to refer patients to an outside care provider, except in extenuating circumstances. In collaboration with public health agencies and other service providers, community health centers are optimally positioned to play a pivotal role in expanding access to recommended testing, care, and treatment for people who use drugs.
KEY MESSAGE
- Testing + diagnosis + treatment + care + rehabilitation + health promotion = better access, quality, users satisfaction and efficiency.
- Integration means to improve services including access to them, quality, user satisfaction and efficiency.
- "One size does not fit all" - integrated healthcare brings together different treatment approaches for more diversity and effective outcomes for individuals and society as a whole.
People who use drugs (PWUD), including people who inject drugs (PWID), are marginalized and stigmatized in most societies and are often at increased risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV, hepatitis, and other blood-borne pathogens. These populations are hard to reach and often the least able to access and the least likely to utilize HIV prevention, care, and treatment services. Therefore, HIV prevention programs need to be developed or tailored to effectively target, reach, and address the particular needs of PWUD. Any patient whose socioeconomic conditions or lifestyle makes it difficult to access health services, self-administer treatment, and attend regular healthcare appointments.
In addition to the type of integration, strategies for improving the links between services may be linkedwidely varying goals: some strategies are mainly implemented to reduce costs, while others additionally focus on quality, access, and user satisfaction. Integrated care may be deemed successful if it: contributes to better care experiences; improves care outcomes; or delivers services more cost-effectively. Without integration at various levels, all aspects of health care performance can suffer. Patients get lost, needed services fail to be delivered, or are delayed, quality and patient satisfaction decline, and the potential for cost-effectiveness diminishes.