TransForm – Integrated Community Care (ICC) from aspiration to reality

Abstract

Introduction: As we face crises after crises (climate, geopolitical, health, financial), each one increasing inequalities and impacting most on people and communities in vulnerable situations, we need to come up with better ways of living and caring for people and the planet. Most challenges we face today are complex and interrelated and to solve them requires participation from communities and citizens.
 As part of this, the mere concept of care needs to be redefined towards a social capacity and activity involving the nurturing of all that is necessary for the welfare and flourishing of life. The current system of care was designed in and for the industrial era and it has reached the limits of what it can achieve. Today’s diseases are chronic and complex and require different responses. We need to reimagine and create a system designed for the problems we face today. 
 Integrated Community Care (ICC) is a concept that has evolved and is based on a range of important innovations and efforts in the field, such as people centred care, community primary care, integrated care, social determinants of health, goal-oriented care, amongst others. ICC acknowledges that each of these, although important, are not enough on their own and brings them together. In ICC, local organizations, community members, professionals, and policy makers come together in a continuous process of co-developing health, care and social support infrastructures to enhance the quality of life, social cohesion and resilience of a territorially defined community. It is not a prescriptive approach, but rather a set of principles that guide a range of existing practices that are changing the way health and care are organised.
 Aim: to inspire and better equip policy makers and practitioners to make ICC the new norm by sharing learnings and experiences of the TransForm community, including defining what ICC is, its benefits and demonstrating how to put the theory into practice.
 Audience: Citizens, policy makers, practitioners, academics that realise that the multiple crises we face are an opportunity to create something better. It is for anyone seeking for more effective ways to truly care for, about and with people and communities. 
 Who did we involve and what we did? 
 Since 2018, through a series of research activities, international conferences, site visits to ICC initiatives, workshops among experts, activities within a Changemakers Forum, TransForm has developed a learning journey (co-production of knowledge with stakeholders – academics, policymakers, decisionmakers, practitioners, people with lived experience, citizens) that has identified key values – ingredients – challenges- for ICC. An important part of this learning journey is the contribution of ICC changemakers, investing in locally anchored innovation and making the difference again and again in the daily lives of people.
 What are the next steps? TransForm will create an open-source collection of knowledge on ICC.