Search results

Integrated care has emerged as a vital approach to address the growing complexities of healthcare systems worldwide, particularly in managing the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, aging populations and socioeconomic disparities. Integrated care generally involves the alignment of health and social services to provide patient-centered, coordinated and efficient care, ensuring continuity of care, optimizing resource allocation and improving patient outcomes during crises. Despite these recognized benefits, significant variability exists in how integration is conceptualized and implemented globally. This review aims to explore the diverse definitions, types and implementations of integrated care, comparing international health models and their impacts on patient and system-level outcomes.

A comprehensive literature review was conducted using PUBMED, MEDLINE, Google Scholar and Science Direct. Eligible studies included original research and reviews without time or regional restrictions. Search terms included “integrated care,” “integrated health and social care” and “integration”. Manual screening of references supplemented data collection. Studies were included based on relevance to the research question, focusing on the definitions, types and national policies regarding integrated care.

Integrated care models were categorized into vertical, horizontal, functional, clinical and service integration, each with distinct benefits and applications. Integrated care is defined by various authors as collaboration of various pillars of health and social care systems either at administrative, professional or infrastructural levels to obtain optimum health and economic outcomes. Different types of integration have been adopted worldwide depending upon the level of supply chain as well as level of healthcare collaborating with volunteers. Different countries adopted one or more type of integrated care models with some of evidence favoring vertical integration regarding patient outcome. The cost of integrated care in terms of distribution of resources and financial consumption and output may be same or more or less than conventional care model.

Integrated care models enhance patient outcomes, resource efficiency and system-level collaboration. However, barriers such as financial disparities, infrastructural limitations and organizational fragmentation persist. Despite promising examples of integrated care, the evidence on cost benefits remains inconclusive. Recommendations include aligning health and social care budgets, promoting patient-centered care, enhancing inter-professional collaboration and implementing shared electronic health records. Further research is needed to establish cost-effectiveness and refine integrated care policies for better health outcomes and system sustainability.

This is the first review to correlate and compare the national health models of various countries in terms of types of integration of health and social care and to bring out patient and system focused health and financial benefits out of it. Moreover, it gathers almost all the available data on the research question in one review with emphasis on latest approach.

This research seeks to provide methodological bases for the identification, documentation and critical reflection of good practices of architectural design in built heritage. These are applied explicitly to the School of Porto architects, which express a high sense of pedagogy and community practice in this field. The methodological approach defines the selection criteria for a georeferenced inventory and the procedures for in-depth analysis of adaptive reuse strategies.

The works included in the inventory were selected according to geographical, chronological, typological, qualitative and quantitative criteria. The cases chosen for in-depth analysis have been studied along four thematic axes to dissect all the intervention processes (previous state, design/construction and final state). This approach is supported by a cross-analysis of different sources (oral, written, graphic) and using drawing as a fundamental research tool.

The research has collected and disseminated up to 150 works by 44 architects, providing a comprehensive portrait of heritage intervention by the School of Porto over the past decades. The selection of 22 buildings for in-depth documentation reveals a particular sensibility toward the cultural values through a case-by-case approach based in deep knowledge of the preexisting context and the introduction of contemporary additions in continuity and harmonious relation with the environmental and sociocultural context.

This work provides a novel methodology suitable for further extension and adaptation to other case studies, as a first contribution to a more comprehensive “Atlas of Architectural Design in Built Heritage” with European case studies. The research aims to introduce new and deeper perspectives on reference works that may constitute pedagogy for the future practice of architects within contextual, inclusive and sustainable approaches.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.