LAUSR

Nowadays integrated care (IC) has become a term adopted across the world underpinning a positive attitude toward defragmentation of service provision inside health and social systems [1]. Since lack of healthcare coordination is often a major problem for chronic and frail patients, integration has certainly commendable aims [2]. Striving for combining parts to form a whole, IC aims at optimizing care and treatments to patients and their caregivers [3]. However, while the principles supporting IC are simple, their implementation is more controversial [4]. As it often happens in the health literature, IC has rapidly become an ‘umbrella concept’ open to various interpretations [5]. After the launch of an international journal in 2000 including IC in its name, a search conducted a decade later had already found more than 175 definitions [6]. Recently, even the European office of the World Health Organization (WHO) issued a working document to provide conceptual clarity on IC models [7]. Here, we summarize the current narrative and the main issues of IC. Then, we draw lessons for Europe and finally put forward a few recommendations in the perspective of a long-term harmonization in the European Union (EU).