Osakidetza and Biosistemak participate in the International Congress on Integrated Care, ICIC 2024

The 24th edition was held from 22 to 24 April 2024 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The International Conference on Integrated Care in Europe, ICIC 2024, is considered to be one of the most prestigious conferences in the field of international health management. Each year it brings together thousands of health managers and professionals, researchers, community representatives, patients and the general public from all over the world involved in the design and delivery of integrated health and social care. The 24th edition of this conference had as its theme “Taking the leap: making integrated care a reality for people and communities”, which promotes individuals and communities taking a more active role in the management of their health. Over three days, projects and experiences were presented and different workshops were organised around key issues related to shared decision-making, the transformation of systems, organisational models and digital health, as well as the tools that are being implemented and used to give the patient and/or person a voice.

The Basque Country was represented by healthcare managers from Osakidetza and a research team from the Biosistemak Institute, who gave several oral presentations and organised a workshop related to the European ADLIFE project coordinated at the European level by Biosistemak.

The Basque Country was represented by health managers from Osakidetza and a research team from the Biosistemak Institute, who gave several oral presentations and organised a workshop related to the European ADLIFE project coordinated at the European level by Biosistemak.

Igor Zabala Rementería, head of the Osakidetza Integration, Healthcare and Chronicity Service – SIAC, had the opportunity to present to the attendees the Osakidetza Integrated Care strategy and the Osakidetza complex chronic patient route scaled in the Basque health service. Both presentations served to raise awareness of Osakidetza and the work carried out by the organisation to transform the system and the design of the Integrated Care strategy and the creation of the 13 Integrated Health Organisations, IHOs, into which Osakidetza is structured. Likewise, the complex chronic patient route, the process carried out for its design within the framework of a European project, and it’s scaling up in Osakidetza’s OSIs were also shown.

For its part, the Biosistemak Institute, in collaboration with Osakidetza, has organized a workshop entitled “How to transform health systems to provide digitally enabled integrated care: Key messages from a real experience” within the framework of the European project ADLIFE. The main objective of the workshop was to share the experience and knowledge generated in the project in the implementation of personalized, integrated and digitally enabled care interventions, and to show the challenges identified in the deployment of the solutions in health systems and the involvement of healthcare teams. During the workshop, the main barriers and enablers identified in the pilots carried out in the framework of the project related to project preparation, implementation and planning were also discussed. The team in charge of the organisation of the workshop consisted of Dr Nerea González, Dr Mustafa Yüksel, Dr Beñat Zubeltzu, Dr Juan De la Torre and Dr Dolores Verdoy Berastegi.