Assigning a Prominent Role to “The Patient Experience” in Assessing the Quality of Integrated Care for Populations with Multiple Chronic Conditions

In response to growing populations of citizens with multiple chronic conditions, integrated care models are being implemented in many countries. Based on our experiences from three EU co-funded actions (ICARE4EU, SUSTAIN, JA-CHRODIS), we notice that users’ experiences are not always taken into account when assessing the quality of integrated care, whereas research shows that it is in this particular domain that quality improvement is most evident.

The greatest value of integrated care for people with multiple chronic conditions may not lie in its potential to improve their health or reduce their use of services, but in its potential to improve their care experience, by strengthening person-centred decision-making and delivering care and support accordingly. Collaborations of care providers, (representatives of) people with multiple chronic conditions and researchers need to develop appropriate methods and measures to include users’ experiences in quality assessment of integrated care.