aes18 International Evaluation Conference

Simone Cheung (Deloitte Access Economcis), James Linden (NSW Ministry of Health), Amy Hogan (Deloitte Access Economics)

In 2014, NSW Government invested $180 million over six years under the Integrated Care Strategy. This funding was invested in innovative and locally led models of integrated care, as well as a range of system enablers, to explore how health care might be delivered to communities differently and in a more integrated way.

In May 2017, the the funding body for the Integrated Care Strategy commissioned a state-wide formative evaluation of the strategy. The evaluation was at a program level but was informed by a high-level analysis of the 20 projects that were delivered by the Local Health Districts (LHDs) under the strategy. The complexity of the evaluation was that each of the LHDs had commenced implementation at varying points in time and the models of care and target cohorts were also different for each LHD.  

The evaluation approach relied heavily on qualitative data because the strategy was early in its implementation. The data sources included consultations with all Integrated Care sites, stakeholder surveys, past evaluation findings, linked hospital data sets and patient reported measures for a selection of LHDs. 

A maturity model, presented as a radar diagram, was developed to enable a comparison of LHDs against five dimensions of integrated care - program and service innovation, patient-centred care and empowerment, digital health and analytics, models of care and partnerships. The maturity model was designed to be aspirational and encourage growth, such that the highest ratings of maturity represented leading practice stages of integrated care. 

The maturity model provides a visual representation of maturity across the LHDs and highlights where there are strengths and/or gaps across the dimensions of integrated care. This enabled a state-wide evaluation of progress and facilitated the sharing of learnings on what works in NSW.