Sustainable health and social care

"This briefing provides a summary guide for busy commissioners and health and wellbeing board members."

Sustainable health and social care: a briefing for commissioners and health and wellbeing boards
Social Care Institute for Excellence
May 2012

Read more here.

Factors that promote and hinder joint and integrated working between health and social care services

"This is an update of a previous systematic review on the factors that promote and hinder joint working between health and social care services."

Factors that promote and hinder joint and integrated working between health and social care services
A Cameron, R Lart, L Bostock, C Coomber
Social Care Institute for Excellence
April 2012

Read more here.

New organisational models for delivering health and social care

"This briefing paper pulls together information on the development of employee ownership and social enterprises in health and social care and has been produced as part of the Health and Social Care Partnership South East’s work programme."

New organisational models for delivering health and social care: briefing paper
Health and Social Care Partnership South East
February 2012

Read more here.

Health and Social Care Bill explained

The Department of Health has published a series of factsheets on the Health and Social Care Bill to explain particular topics contained in the Bill, including its key themes.

Access the factsheets here.

Improving health and social care in London

"A strong emphasis of the government’s health and social care reforms has been on supporting integration across health, public health, social care and other support."

Improving health and social care in London: supporting integrated commissioning
London Councils
January 2012

Read more here.

Health care quality improvement: there's an app for that

"Disease management apps, in particular, can improve communication between patients and providers and promote adherence to recommended care."

Health care quality improvement: there's an app for that
Quality matters
The Commonwealth Fund
October/November 2011

Read more here.

Economic regulation in health care

"This paper is essential reading for policy-makers considering the role of economic regulation in health care, and those tasked with implementing the new system of regulation in England."

Economic regulation in health care: What can we learn from other regulators?
A Dixon, T Harrison, C Mundle
The King's Fund
November 2011

Read more here.

Facilitating the use of research evidence

"Facilitating the use of research is the topic of a newly published virtual issue of The Milbank Quarterly. The issue includes, in chronological order, twenty-two articles and two commentaries that were published in the Quarterly between 2001 and 2011."

Facilitating the use of research evidence
Milbank Quarterly - 2011 Milbank Memorial Fund
Edited by Bradford H. Gray
2011

Read the whole issue here.

Experience-based co-design

"This toolkit outlines a powerful and effective way of improving patients' experiences of services."

Experience-based co-design: working with patients to improve health care
The King's Fund
2011

Read more here.

Getting out of hospital? The evidence for shifting acute inpatient and day case services from hospitals into the community

This report examines and updates the review of evidence of underpinning the policy drive to transfer acute inpatient and day-case services from hospitals into the community and the effectiveness of this to improve quality of care and save money.

Getting out of hospital?
The Health Foundation
June 2011

Download the full text here (PDF).

Ten years of jointly commissioning health and social care in England

"This article reviews the experience of joint commissioning across health and social care over the past decade in England."

Ten years of jointly commissioning health and social care in England
B Hudson
International Journal of Integrated Care 11, Special 10th Anniversary Edition

Read more here.

Three success factors for continual improvement in healthcare

"The objectives of the Breakthrough Series Collaborative are to close the gap between what we know and what we do, and to contribute to continuous quality improvement (CQI) of healthcare through collaborative learning."

Three success factors for continual improvement in healthcare: an analysis of the reports of improvement team members
A Skard Brandrud, A Schreiner, P Hjortdahl, G Saevil Helljesen, B Nyen, EC Nelson
BMJ Quality and Safety, 2011 20(3):251-259

Read more here.

Improving healthcare quality at scale and pace

This is the full report describing the lessons learned from The Productive Ward: Releasing time to care programme.

Improving healthcare quality at scale and pace
King's College London and NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement
2010

Read more here.

Discovering - and lowering - the real costs of health care

Professors Robert Kaplan and Michael Porter, at Harvard Business School, are conducting pilot projects set in major health care delivery organisations. They are investigating total costs for a number of medical conditions, and also comparing total costs incurred to treat the same medical condition by two different providers, one in the U.S. and one in Germany.

Discovering - and lowering - the real costs of health care
ME Porter
Harvard Business Review
2011

Read more here.

Putting the value framework to work

"'Value' is a word that has long aroused skepticism among physicians, who suspect it of being code for 'cost reduction'."

Putting the value framework to work
TH Lee
New England Journal of Medicine, 8th December 2010

Read more here.

Measuring health outcomes: the outcome hierarchy

"Measuring, reporting, and comparing outcomes is perhaps the most important step toward unlocking rapid outcome improvement and making good choices about reducing costs."

This framework paper is Supplementary Appendix 2 to Porter ME. What is value in health care? N Engl J Med 2010; 363:2477-81

Read more here.

Value in health care

"Value should be the preeminent goal in the health care system, because it is what ultimately matters for customers (patients) and unites the interest of all system actors."

This framework paper is Supplementary Appendix 1 to Porter ME. What is value in health care? N Engl J Med 2010; 363:2477-81

Read more here.

What is value in health care?

"Achieving high value for patients must become the overarching goal of health care delivery, with value defined as the health outcomes achieved per dollar spent."

What is value in health care?
M.E. Porter
The New England Journal of Medicine 8th December 2010

Read more here.