This handbook gives profound insight into the main ideas and concepts of integrated care. It offers a managed care perspective with a focus on patient orientation, efficiency, and quality by applying widely recognized management approaches to the field of health care. The handbook also provides international best practices and shows how integrated care does work throughout various health systems. The delivery of health and social care is characterised by fragmentation and complexity in most health systems throughout the world. Therefore, much of the recent international discussion in the field of health policy and health management has focused on the topic of integrated care. "Integrated" acknowledges the complexity of patients´ needs and aims to meet it by taking into account both health and social care aspects. Changing and improving processes in a coordinated way is at the heart of this approach.

Volker Amelung, PhD is a professor of health management and international health services research at the Medical University of Hannover, Germany. His main research interests are managed care, integrated care und payment systems. He is also the president of the German Managed Care Association (BMC) and founded the private institute for applied health research (inav) in Berlin in 2011. Viktoria Stein, PhD is Head of the Integrated Care Academy(c) at the International Foundation for Integrated Care, and Co-Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Integrated Care. She has worked extensively to promote integrated care on the local, regional, national and international levels throughout her career. Her expertise lies in the systemic and organizational prerequisites necessary to promote transformational change, specifically strengthening the competencies of patients, service providers and decision makers to support sustainable integrated care. Nick Goodwin, PhD is the co-founder and CEO of the International Foundation for Integrated Care, and Co-Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Integrated Care. Nick is a social scientist, policy analyst and thought leader in health system integration and person-centered care, with an extensive background in policy and practice to design, implement and evaluate integrated care. He has published widely on the subject and holds a range of educational, research and consulting roles worldwide, collaborating with the WHO and its regional offices, governments and local authorities, as well as universities. Ran Balicer, PhD currently serves as Director of Health Policy Planning for Clalit - Israel's largest healthcare organization, and as the Founding Director of the Clalit Research Institute. Professor Balicer's managerial and research focus is on using extensive datasets and advanced analytics to drive innovation in clinical practice as well as care integration. He also serves as Chair of the Israeli Society for Quality in Healthcare. Ellen Nolte, PhD heads the two London offices of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where she is also an Honorary Professor. Her expertise is in health systems research, integrated and chronic care, international healthcare comparisons and performance assessment. She has published widely in both the international peer-reviewed literature and the wider literature, including 4 books and numerous scientific papers on chronic disease and integrated care. Esther Suter, PhD is the Director for the Workforce Research and Evaluation unit, an applied research unit within the largest provincial health authority in Canada, and an Adjunct Professor with the Faculty of Social Work, University of Calgary. She has more than 25 years of experience in health research. The focus of her work is on interventions to enhance collaborative practice, how to achieve integrated health systems, and the exploration of innovative care delivery models.

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