title: Building Bridges to Integrate Care (BRIDGES): Incubating Health Service Innovation across the Continuum of Care for Patients with Multiple Chronic Conditions.
abstract: Integrating care for people with complex needs is challenging. Indeed, evidence of solutions is mixed, and therefore, well-designed, shared evaluation approaches are needed to create cumulative learning. The Toronto-based Building Bridges to Integrate Care (BRIDGES) collaborative provided resources to refine and test nine new models linking primary, hospital and community care. It used mixed methods, a cross-project meta-evaluation and shared outcome measures. Given the range of skills required to develop effective interventions, a novel incubator was used to test and spread opportunities for system integration that included operational expertise and support for evaluation and process improvement.
authors.affiliation: Frigon Blau Chair in Family Medicine Research Women's College Hospital, and an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Onil
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Bhattacharyya
authors.affiliation: President and CEO of the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schull
authors.affiliation: Director of the Centre for Quality Improvement & Patient Safety at the University of Toronto and vice-chair of quality and innovation in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Kaveh
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shojania
authors.affiliation: Clinician scientist at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health, the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, and the Psychiatrist-In-Chief at St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Vicky
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Stergiopoulos
authors.affiliation: Chief of Medicine at the Baycrest Geriatric Health Care Centre and the Hunt Family Chair in Geriatric Medicine (First Incumbent) in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Naglie
authors.affiliation: Education scientist in the Office of Educational Scholarship (OES) of the Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) at the University of Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Fiona
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Webster
authors.affiliation: Family doctor at the Mount Pleasant location of MCI The Doctor's Office in Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Ricardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brandao
authors.affiliation: Lead for the Quality Measurement Group at the Centre for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE) at the Yale School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Tamara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mohammed
authors.affiliation: Evaluation coordinator at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Christian
authors.affiliation: Senior scientist at the Women's College Research Institute, the Sir John and Lady Eaton Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, ON, as well as a professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.
authors.forename: Gillian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hawker
authors.affiliation: Professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Lynn
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.affiliation: Chair of Choosing Wisely Canada and is also professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, ON.
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Levinson
mesh_terms: D003266:Continuity of Patient Care; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D000071069:Multiple Chronic Conditions; D009864:Ontario; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D015397:Program Evaluation