The IFIC Podcast

The Family Caregiver Measurement Gap with Sharon Anderson

In this episode of the International Foundation for Integrated Care's podcast series, 'Measuring the Impact of Integrated Care,' Niamh Lennox-Chhugani, is joined by Sharon Anderson, Research Coordinator at the University of Alberta, Canada.
Sharon is passionate about ensuring that health care providers recognize family caregivers and ask them what they need to care and to maintain their own wellbeing.
Her goal is to increase health equity and improve access of care for all through Analytical Skills methods such as evaluation design (using evidence based approaches) in health services management and research methods using big data.
 
 
Key Discussion Points
[3:40] Sharon explains how her experience as a caregiver led her to further studies and research in community rehabilitation, disability studies, and aging family gerontology.
[7:20] A discussion of the difficulties in collecting data on family caregivers, with Sharon noting how electronic medical records often fail to include caregiver information.
[9:45] How current systems collect data more oriented toward what gets financially billed rather than true impact metrics, and the need for better integration of data from different public systems.
[17:00] Sharon argues that if caregiver contributions aren’t measured, they won’t get the necessary attention, and recounts systemic failures where caregiver needs are overlooked.

Democratising Impact Measurement with Karōria Johns and Andrew Terris

In this episode of the International Foundation for Integrated Care's podcast series, 'Measuring the Impact of Integrated Care,' Niamh Lennox-Chhugani, is joined by Karōria Johns and Andrew Terris who discuss the integrated care in New Zealand from the perspectives of lived experience and system measurement.
Karōria Johns (Te Rarawa, Te Aupouri, Ngāpuhi Nui Tonu) is wahine Māori (a Māori woman) who has an extensive lived experience resulting from systemic and environmental challenges she has faced and from being 'disconnected' urban Māori. She brings her journey forward in a way that is friendly, open, accessible and understandable to individuals, organisations, collaboratives and communities seeking support to improve service delivery across a range of populations and locations.
Her current projects include the interconnected areas of health, community-led development and social service delivery, and this is currently concentrated in digital spaces. The inequities across these areas for marginalised populations are obvious globally.
Andrew works at the interface between information, process and policy.  He is a senior associate with IFIC and founding member of the Solutions team at IFIC.  He has worked in a number of projects at national levels including the European Commission sponsored IFIC project for integration of Health and Social Services for Estonia.  He was also the project lead for the national system level measures project for the Ministry of Health in New Zealand.  He has worked on process improvement projects ay the interface between hospital and community settings  in some of the UK Care trusts.  Andrew has been involved in a number of information and data and digital programmes of work and currently heads the regional collaborative Care project in the Northern region of New Zealand. He has a strong interest in the effective information flow and measurement and improvement of care across different settings.
 
Key Discussion Points
(01:00-08:45), Andrew speaks about the difficulty of measuring integrated care and the need for capturing both quantitative data and qualitative patient stories. He recounts his projects in Estonia and New Zealand, emphasizing the importance of seeing the patient journey alongside data to inform policy decisions. Terrace stresses the necessity of strength-based metrics and focuses on system and process measures over purely outcome-based ones.
(08:45-15:30) Karōria reflects on integrated care from a Maori perspective, highlighting the importance of data sovereignty and the significant role of the community in the data collection and analysis process. She emphasizes the need for true partnership and continuous feedback loops in working with the community, ensuring that their voices are authentically represented in the data.
(15:30-25:00) The discussion touches on challenges related to the current reliance on traditional, often deficit-focused metrics and the need for more inclusive measures that reflect community strengths and resilience. Both guests agree on the need to democratise the measurement process, making it more accessible and relevant to the communities served by integrated care.

Investing in Impact Measurement with Prof. Courtney Van Houtven

In this episode of the International Foundation for Integrated Care's podcast series, 'Measuring the Impact of Integrated Care,' Niamh Lennox-Chhugani, is joined by Prof. Courtney Van Houtven from the Department of Population Health Science at Duke University School of Medicine.
Prof. Van Houtven is a Research Career Scientist at the Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT), Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System.
Her research focuses on long-term care policies and economics of aging, especially care at home. She strives to identify pragmatic trials, care models, and policies that optimize the ability of people with care needs to age in place while at the same time supporting their family and friend caregivers.
Key Discussion Points
[01:11-02:30] The intricacies of measuring the impact, outcomes, and value of integrated care, referencing Prof. Van Houtven's research on patient and caregiver experiences, especially in the context of home and inpatient care.
[02:31-10:25] The difficulties of data collection, the importance of scalable and context-dependent measures, and the need for health systems to invest in capturing accurate, comprehensive data.
[10:26-20:55] The balance required between using existing data and implementing new measures without overburdening professionals and caregivers.
[20:56-25:15] The episode concludes with calls for greater international collaboration and integration of formal and informal care systems.

The ValueCare Podcast - E4 - Co-design with Ethan McGrath

ValueCare is an EU-funded project aiming to deliver personalised integrated care using ICT, built around the value-based healthcare model. 
In this series, members of the ValueCare team give us an insight into different aspects of the project from shared decision making with patients to tackling ageism to running a large scale pilot. 
In this episode, we’re joined by Ethan McGrath from University College Dublin in Ireland.
Ethan gives us an insight into the Cork-Kerry pilot and how patients, caregivers and care professionals contributed to the development of ValueCare through a co-design process.

The ValueCare Podcast - E3 - Ageism and policy reform with Sofia Santos Nunes

ValueCare is an EU-funded project aiming to deliver personalised integrated care using ICT, built around the value-based healthcare model. 
In this series, members of the ValueCare team give us an insight into different aspects of the project from shared decision making with patients to tackling ageism to running a large scale pilot. 
In this episode, we’re joined by Sofia Santos Nunes from AGE Platform, Europe’s largest network of non-profit organisations of and for older people.
Sofia tells us how ValueCare tackled ageism by involving older people from the beginning, and tells us about the policy recommendations that care providers can take from the project.  

The ValueCare Podcast - E2 - The pilot process with Prof. Vanja Vasiljev

ValueCare is an EU-funded project aiming to deliver personalised integrated care using ICT, built around the value-based healthcare model. 
In this series, members of the ValueCare team give us an insight into different aspects of the project from shared decision making with patients to tackling ageism to running a large scale pilot. 
In this episode, Prof. Vanja Vasiljev from MEDRI in Croatia tells us tells us how important it was to work directly with stakeholders in order to create a system that met their needs.

The ValueCare Podcast - E1 - An introduction to value-based healthcare with Oscar Zanutto

ValueCare is an EU-funded project aiming to deliver personalised integrated care using ICT, built around the value-based healthcare model. 
In this series, members of the ValueCare team give us an insight into different aspects of the project from shared decision making with patients to tackling ageism to running a large scale pilot. 
In this episode, Oscar Zanutto from Faber ISRAA joins us to introduce the concept of value-based healthcare. 

Niamh Lennox-Chhugani and Apostolos Tsiachristas on ’Demystifying health financing for integrated care’.

This episode features Dr Niamh Lennox-Chhugani in conversation with Ass. Prof Apostolos Tsiachristas, Associate Professor of Health Economics at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences & Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, UK.
Apostolos is an Associate Professor in Health Economics at University of Oxford, where he is leading a programme of research that focuses mainly on the economic evaluation of new models of care, particularly for people with mental health and multi-morbidity, and financial incentives in healthcare.
Follow Apostolos on LinkedIn.
 

Niamh Lennox-Chhugani and Jeroen Struijs on ’Demystifying health financing for integrated care’.

This episode features Dr Niamh Lennox-Chhugani in conversation with Prof Dr Jeroen Struijs, Associate Professor at Leiden University Medical Centre.
Prof Struijs is also a Senior Researcher at the Department of Quality of Care and Health Economics in the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), The Netherlands.

Niamh Lennox-Chhugani and Brendan Walsh on ’Demystifying health financing for integrated care’.

This episode features Dr Niamh Lennox-Chhugani in conversation with Brendan Walsh, Senior Research Officer at Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and Adjunct Associate Professor at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. His research focuses on the interface of social care and healthcare. 
Brendan was previously a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Health Sciences and the City Health Economics Centre at City, University of London working on a project estimating the cost of cancer care in England.
Follow Brendan on Twitter and LinkedIn.