The mHealth Area at ICIC 18: The 18th International Conference on Integrated Care, Utrecht (Netherlands)

From May 23^rd– 25^th, the 18^th International Congress on Integrated Care, organized by IFIC (the International Foundation for Integrated Care) took place in Utrecht (Netherlands).

The aim of the congress was to present projects which are already underway which are aimed at achieving an integrated patient care model, with practical and real examples. The integrated care model aims to respond to the growing population with special, complex needs, in order to ensure better planning, adapt clinical management to these demands and have the best provision of social services and of healthcare. In this way, it is intended to guarantee the comprehensive care of people by optimizing the available resources.

A delegation from the TIC Salut Social Foundation attended the congress and also presented a paper on the mHealth strategies that are being carried out in Catalonia in order to improve the lives of patients and therefore achieve a more integrated attention to the individual.

The TIC Social Foundation’s mHealth area presented the various actions that are being developed in Catalonia as a means to promote the deployment of mobility tools within healthcare processes. In particular, there was discussion as to the accreditation model of mobile applications that the Foundation has been promoting for the last two years. There was also discussions as to the evaluation of the usability of apps in a clinical setting, with the presentation of the results of the pilot project conducted at the end of 2017 at four Primary Healthcare centres in the Barcelona area.

During the congress, other projects were presented that are currently being carried out in Catalonia, for example, a presentation by the functional manager of HC3 and LMS, Oscar Solans, who spoke about how in Catalonia patents’ social and clinical history is combined, in order that the various health and social care systems can access it. In addition, David Monterde, of the Institut Català de la Salut [Catalan Health Institute], presented a new stratification tool to evaluate the risk of morbidity groups.

These were also some examples of the projects presented at the Congress. The ICIC is a highly dynamic event, where one can learn of new initiatives and other interesting information, such as the Canadian organisation The change Foundation, which recounted the experience of a patient undergoing multiple surgical interventions as a result of inadequate healthcare management. A practical case study which illustrated the need for correct management integrated with the individual.