An ecosystem perspective on care coordination: Lessons from the field

Abstract

The vast majority of research and efforts towards greater care coordination have taken place at the level of single, sovereign organizations, or at the level of networks formed to address the need for cross-organizational collaboration. The recently emerging ecosystem level of analysis and intervention is still under-researched, with few if any available innovation practices that match the complexity experienced at the level of care ecosystems. Beginning with the challenge of care coordination, we discuss what care ecosystems are and how they can be defined and describe the possibilities and opportunities that come when viewing care coordination through an ecosystem lens. We underpin our plea for an ecosystem approach to health and social care coordination with seven lessons, which we draw from an extensive study of 15 care ecosystem cases from seven different countries. We end the paper with an appeal for further research in this promising field.