To face the challenges of an ageing population, many Western countries nowadays stimulate an ageing in place policy to empower older adults to grow old in their own homes with the highest degree of self‐reliance. However, many community‐living older adults experience limitations in (instrumental) activities of daily living ((I)ADLs), which may result in a need for home‐care services. Unfortunately, home‐care workers often provide support by taking over tasks, as they are used to doing things for older adults rather than with them, which undermines their possibilities to maintain their self‐care capabilities. In contrast, reablement focuses on capabilities and opportunities of older adults, rather than on disease and dependency. Consequently, older adults are stimulated to be as active as possible during daily and physical activities. The 'Stay Active at Home' programme was designed to train home‐care workers to apply reablement in practice. To explore the experiences of home‐care workers with this programme an exploratory study was conducting in the Netherlands, between April and July, 2017. In total, 20 participants were interviewed: nine nurses (including a district nurse), 10 domestic support workers and the manager of the domestic support workers. The semi‐structured interviews focused on the experienced improvements with regard to knowledge, skills, self‐efficacy and social support. Furthermore, the most and least appreciated programme components were identified. The study has shown that home‐care workers perceived the programme as useful to apply reablement. However, they also need more support with mastering particular skills and dealing with challenging situations. Future implementation of the 'Stay Active at Home' programme can potentially benefit from small adaptions. Furthermore, future research is needed to examine whether the programme leads to more (cost‐) effective home care.

Introduction Segmentation of the high-need, high-cost (HNHC) population is required for reorganizing care to accommodate person-centered, integrated care delivery. Therefore, we aimed to identify and characterize relevant subgroups of the HNHC population in primary care by using demographic, biomedical, and socioeconomic patient characteristics.

Background High-need, high-cost (HNHC) patients, who typically have complex and long-term care demands, contribute considerably to the high work pressure of primary care professionals (PCPs). To improve patient as well as provider experiences, it is crucial to take into account the PCPs’ perspective in designing health care strategies for HNHC patients. Therefore, this study aimed to create insight into PCPs’ experienced barriers and possible solutions with regards to person-centred, efficient care delivery to HNHC patients. Methods We conducted a qualitative study using focus group interviews with PCPs at a Dutch primary care group. A semi-structured interview guide was developed for the interviews. Qualitative content analysis was employed deductively by means of a categorisation matrix. The matrix was based on the components retrieved from the SELFIE framework for integrated care for multi-morbidity. Results Forty-two PCPs participated in five focus group interviews. Discussed barriers and solutions were related to the core of the SELFIE framework (i.e. the individual and environment), and particularly four of the six health system components in the framework: service delivery, leadership & governance, workforce, and technologies & medical products. Many discussed barriers revolved around the complex biopsychosocial needs of HNHC patients: PCPs reported a lack of time (service delivery), insufficiently skilled PCPs (workforce), and inefficient patient information retrieval and sharing (technologies & medical products) as barriers to adequately meet the biopsychosocial needs of HNHC patients. Conclusions This qualitative study suggests that primary care is currently insufficiently equipped to accommodate the complex biopsychosocial needs of HNHC patients. Therefore, it is firstly important to strengthen primary care internally, taking into account the experienced lack of time, the insufficient number of equipped PCPs and lack of inter-professional information retrieval and sharing. Secondly, PCPs should be supported in cooperating and communicating more efficiently with health services outside primary care to adequately deliver person-centred, efficient care. As a prerequisite, it is crucial to direct policy efforts at the design of a strong system of social and community services. In terms of future research, it is important to assess the feasibility and effects of re-designing primary care based on the provided recommendations.

Realist evaluation (RE) is an emerging and promising research approach for evaluating integrated care, addressing what works, how, for whom, and in what circumstances. r The rich philosophical foundation of RE, critical realism, can help to systematically unravel an integrated care program's initial theory prior to implementation, as a first step within RE.r RE can be considered a robust methodological asset in integrated care research by facilitating a deeper level of insight into program functioning than traditional forms of evaluation do and by shaping a realistinformed monitoring and evaluation process. Context:The complexity of integrated care and the need for transferable evaluation insights ask for a suitable evaluation paradigm. Realist evaluation (RE), underpinned by the philosophy of critical realism, is a theory-driven approach that addresses what works, how, for whom, and in what circumstances. The current study illustrates the process needed for RE's first step: eliciting the initial program theory (IPT). The TARGET program, a Dutch primary care initiative

The Patient Centered Assessment Method (PCAM) is an action-based tool that supports professionals to engage in a biopsychosocial assessment with patients and measure their needs. It is a promising tool for person-centered care. As the Netherlands lacks such a tool, a Dutch version was developed. Furthermore, we aimed to contribute to the relatively limited insights into the psychometric properties and value of the tool when used as part of a needs assessment in primary care. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to study construct validity and Cronbach’s alpha was computed to assess reliability. Furthermore, we interviewed 15 primary care professionals who used the PCAM. It was confirmed that each PCAM domain measures a separate construct, informed by the biopsychosocial model. The tool showed adequate reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.83). Despite face validity concerns, the tool was mainly valued for measurement of patient needs and to facilitate action planning. Criticism of the PCAM pertained to a limited focus on the patient perspective, which is one of the crucial aspects of person-centered care. These rich, mixed-method insights can help to improve the value of the PCAM, as one of the few multifunctional tools to support professionals in holistic assessments.