Methodological development of the interactive INTERLINKS Framework for Long-term Care.
Bottom Line:
There is increasing international research into health and social care services for older people in need of long-term care (LTC), but problems remain with respect to acquiring robust comparative information to enable judgements to be made regarding the most beneficial and cost-effective approaches.The project 'INTERLINKS' ('Health systems and LTC for older people in Europe') funded by the EU 7th Framework programme was developed to address the challenges associated with the accumulation and comparison of evidence in LTC across Europe.INTERLINKS has made a significant contribution to knowledge but robust evidence and comparability across European countries remain problematic due to the current and growing complexity and diversity of integrated LTC implementation.
Affiliation: Applied Health Research, Centre for Health Service Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK.
ABSTRACT
There is increasing international research into health and social care services for older people in need of long-term care (LTC), but problems remain with respect to acquiring robust comparative information to enable judgements to be made regarding the most beneficial and cost-effective approaches. The project 'INTERLINKS' ('Health systems and LTC for older people in Europe') funded by the EU 7th Framework programme was developed to address the challenges associated with the accumulation and comparison of evidence in LTC across Europe. It developed a concept and method to describe and analyse LTC and its links with the health and social care system through the accumulation of policy and practice examples on an interactive web-based framework for LTC. This paper provides a critical overview of the theoretical and methodological approaches used to develop and implement the INTERLINKS Framework for LTC, with the aim of providing some guidance to researchers in this area. INTERLINKS has made a significant contribution to knowledge but robust evidence and comparability across European countries remain problematic due to the current and growing complexity and diversity of integrated LTC implementation. No MeSH data available. |
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fg0004: Data collection form Mentions: Figure 4 illustrates the eventual structure for the form. Important features included detailed instructions concerning what should be included to promote consistency and reliability of information. Emphasis was given to ensure that practice examples revealed the user and carer perspective throughout, and also addressed the links and interfaces both present and missing. A consideration of how the information would be best presented to attract and hold the attention of a web audience of practitioners and policy-makers, also resulted in making prominent certain information, such as the inclusion of simplified headings for the sections, a summary, prominent messages to practitioners, client and user benefits, weblinks to documents, and keywords and credits for the peer-reviewing process, as more experts external to the project team took part in this. |
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Affiliation: Applied Health Research, Centre for Health Service Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK.
No MeSH data available.