Integrated Care for Frail Elderly: A Qualitative Study of a Promising Approach in The Netherlands

Introduction: Increasingly, frail elderly need to live at home for longer, relying on support from informal caregivers and community-based health- and social care professionals. To align care and avoid fragmentation, integrated care programmes are arising. A promising example of such a programme is the Care Chain Frail Elderly (CCFE) in the Netherlands, which supports elderly with case and care complexity living at home with the best possible health and quality of life. The goal of the current study was to gain a deeper understanding of this programme and how it was successfully put into practice in order to contribute to the evidence-base surrounding complex integrated care programmes for persons with multi-morbidity.

Methods: Document analyses and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders were used to create a 'thick description' that provides insights into the programme.

Results: Through case finding, the CCFE-programme targets the frailest primary care population. The person-centred care approach is reflected by the presence of frail elderly at multidisciplinary team meetings. The innovative way of financing by bundling payments of multiple providers is one of the main facilitators for the success of this programme. Other critical success factors are the holistic assessment of unmet health and social care needs, strong leadership by the care groups, close collaboration with the healthcare insurer, a shared ICT-system and continuous improvements.

Conclusion: The CCFE is an exemplary initiative to integrate care for the frailest elderly living at home. Its innovative components and critical success factors are likely to be transferable to other settings when providers can take on similar roles and work closely with payers who provide integrated funding.