Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The Social Determinants of Health Model acknowledges that policy, planning and programing must cross various sectors and disciplines to effectively address health in a comprehensive and sustainable manner. Although health services integration is a topical issue, integrating services between the health and social care sectors is the next frontier in health services policy, planning and delivery. This is particularly important for vulnerable patient and priority population groups, where social interventions are as critical in impacting health as healthcare interventions. Specifically, the complexity of health and social care needs for older adult patients demands a more whole-of-government approach. Many countries have turned their policy, planning and delivery attention to this area, but it is an emerging area in Canada and the body of knowledge of standardized integration approaches and influencing factors are not fully known, in the context of Canada's health and social care governance system. A study was undertaken that identified common characteristics of successful publicly-funded Canadian health and social services integrated initiatives that serves older patient population groups. This study explores the leadership characteristics taken by Canadian health and social services organizations in this exciting health and social services policy, planning and delivery field. It also explores characteristics associated with client-centeredness, goal-orientation, accountability, culture, measurement, quality, and information. Furthermore, this definition of a successful integrated health and social services initiative will be compared to European initiatives to better understand the Canadian context of government and health and social services governance systems.