title: [Evaluation of the new integrated care approach in the Basque Country].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In 2010 the Basque Government launched its "Strategy for tackling the challenge of chronicity in the Basque Country", in order to transform healthcare organisations into more integrated care models, with the aim of improving quality and efficiency in chronicity management. Four Integrated Healthcare Organisations (IHOs) were created to unify primary and specialised care into one single organisation. The aim of this study is to measure the degree of readiness of these IHOs to cope with chronicity, using the Chronic Care Model (CCM) as a reference.
  
  
  METHODS
  Self-assessment processes using ARCHO (Assessment of Readiness for Chronicity in Health Care Organisations) were carried out in four IHOs by the management teams.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The average score was 16 out of 100 points, which signals that healthcare organisations are undertaking action plans in the realm of integrated care, but with limited deployment and without a systematic process for evaluating outcomes. The dimension that ranks best is "Organization of the health system", while "Community health" has the lowest ranking.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  IHOs are the key for achieving integrated care for chronic illnesses. Integration of community resources and evaluation of results are two of the fields that need to be improved in order to achieve the set of interventions proposed in ARCHO. The organisational changes involved in the CCM require periods longer than two years.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Vasco de Innovación Sanitaria, Sondika, 48150, Spain. toro@bioef.org.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Toro Polanco
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vázquez Pérez
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nuño Solinis
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Mira Solves
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013030:Spain