Establishing an integrated healthcare system in a deprived urban neighborhood: is there a recipe for success for vulnerable populations?

Due to low socio-economic status and limited access to healthcare, people living in Hamburg's neighborhoods of Billstedt and Horn are being faced with tremendous inequalities in health: they get ill earlier in life, are more likely to suffer from a chronic disease and die more than ten years earlier than people living in the rest of Hamburg and the rest of Germany. The use of emergency care services in these two neighborhoods has increased over the past years, possibly because primary care physicians and specialists prefer to move to other parts of Hamburg. The goal of Gesundheit für Billstedt/Horn, a project funded by the German Innovation Fund, is to improve population health through the implementation of a patient oriented and interdisciplinary healthcare network that aims at: - Strengthening partnerships between the healthcare and social sector; - Empowering people to be more proactive and take more responsibility for their health while improving healthcare management for chronically ill patients; - Decreasing the work load of General Practitioners through the walk-in clinic interventions while implementing innovative IT-communication-solutions e.g. electronic patient records and mobile applications to facilitate the exchange of health data between patients and providers; - Using resources more efficiently. This 1h30min workshop targets healthcare professionals and stakeholders who are involved in the implementation of innovative integrated healthcare models. Attendants will be able to engage and contribute to discussions focused on: - Challenges faced in the implementation of interventions both by the regional integrator and by health and social care settings - Walk-in clinic based interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Integrated Care (IJIC) is the property of Ubiquity Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)