The ‘Service Transformation Outline’ toolkit to assist in the design, comparison and replication of integrated care programmes

PurposeThe author is introducing a toolkit that can assist stakeholders to design, compare and replicate integrated care programmes, by making explicit their view on the transformations of care and cure services, according to a structured template. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachThe toolkit is made of two elements: a classification and a template. The author adopted a step-wise approach of semantic modelling to work out three layers of a classification in the domain of integration needs related to care and cure services. The third layer consists of 23 non-overlapping classes that fully cover that semantic domain. The classes are used to build a template to elicit the stakeholder's standpoint about the transformations involved in the deployment of a programme. The result is the «Outline» of the programme.FindingsSo far, in eight years the author applied the toolkit to 100+ programmes either to design, simulate or evaluate them, either to compare them to similar ones in the same or in different jurisdictions, and we refined the description of the classes according to that experience.Research limitations/implicationsThe objective of the toolkit is not to provide solutions, but to stimulate reflections on the transformations involved in a programme and their practical consequences in a precise context. In fact, the Outlines cannot be generalized: they are conceived to reflect the perspective of the stakeholders and thus are intrinsically subjective; in addition, they must be contingent, as they must depend on the local context in the particular timeframe. In case of similar initiatives in other localities, the Outlines must be filled in again by the local stakeholders; however, a subsequent comparison could help to explore similarities and motivated differences.Practical implicationsIdeally the stakeholders should use the Outline of the actual transformations in a programme as a reference to mediate between the principles and the methodologies provided by the «Models» and «Conceptual Frameworks» in the literature (e.g. Chronic Care Model, Rainbow Model, Development Model of Integrated Care Patient-Centered Medical Home and Maturity Models) and the deeper studies using the specific tools developed in their disciplines (e.g. on information modelling, process modelling, cost–benefit analysis and health technology assessment). The toolkit could have its role also in a multi-annual roadmap made of a sequence of programmes to cope with the urgent challenges on ageing, social changes and technological evolution, in synergy with regulations, budget, context maturity, critical success factors and local priorities.Originality/valueThe author argues that the approach of the structured Outline is unique, as the scoring mechanism to assess the relevance of the transformation within each class on the overall change brought by the whole programme into the health systems.