Presenter(s):
Jolene Skordis; Alison Marshall, Age International, United Kingdom
Abstract
Population aging is reshaping societies and national institutions, compelling us to re-examine the affordability of health care, and existing boundaries between health care and social care services.
Traditional health care and social care systems tend to operate in isolation, with separate funding streams, management structures, and professional cultures. This division creates significant barriers to coordination, making it difficult to deliver seamless, person-centred care for older people. However, current integrated care models have their own challenges. They often struggle to secure sustainable funding, as existing national insurance mechanisms and reimbursement schemes are designed for isolated services rather than collaborative, cross-sector approaches. Transitioning to integrated care also calls for a workforce that is skilled in interdisciplinary collaboration. Many professionals are trained within their own domains, leading to cultural and operational divides. Effective integrated care requires new training programmes, shared protocols, and a cultural shift among professionals.
As technology advances, we must consider how a robust information system and technology infrastructure could support the success of novel integrated care models for older people. Addressing issues of inter-operability, data security and privacy will be essential to creating shared digital environments that facilitate inter-agency communication and coordinated care.
These challenges underscore how integrated care, in the context of aging populations and shrinking national budgets, demands changes in organisational structures, policy frameworks, workforce training, and technology. This session will explore how health systems can be reimagined to foster a seamless continuum of care that addresses not only clinical needs, but also the social determinants of health pivotal to healthy aging.
The relationship between social care and health systems will be examined along with strategies to ensure that communities are better equipped to support preventive initiatives, empower self-management, and nurture environments conducive to healthy aging. Policymakers, practitioners and researchers will gain insights into reform and innovation needed for resilient, adaptable systems that meet the needs of aging populations within a challenging fiscal landscape.
The Panel will address questions like:
How can we
– reimagine health and social care towards a continuum of care that supports healthy ageing?
– learn from countries leading the way on health and social care for older people?
– create funding which encourages collaborative, cross-sector approaches to health and social care for older people?
– move towards a future workforce with the skills to provide health and social care to older people?
– exert influence to ensure technology is a help not a hindrance to co-ordinated health and social care for older people?
– address both clinical and social determinants of health in support of healthy ageing?
– reduce unequal access to both health and social care for older people within societies?
Bio(s):
Jolene Skordis is a Professor of Economics, specialising in health and development. She is Vice-Dean (International and Advancement) for UCL’s Faculty of Population Health Sciences, Head of the Department of Environment and Community Health, Chair of the European Global Health Research Institutes Network, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future of Work and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health. She is a regular advisor to the WHO, World Bank and the Global Fund. She works primarily within randomised trials of complex public health interventions, with research programmes spanning fiscal space for sustainable and scalable health service delivery, anti-poverty programmes, gender empowerment, social networks to support behaviour change and the promotion of health equity. Her work has directly influenced government policy in a range of countries.
Alison is CEO of Age International and a member of the Age UK Senior Leadership Team. She leads Age International’s work on the needs and rights of older people across low- and middle-income countries, overseeing governance, advocacy, fundraising, communications, programme funding and humanitarian work.
Alison has over 25 years’ experience in international development. She was previously Managing Director of Sense International, working for and with people with disabilities. Before that she held senior roles at the International Planned Parenthood Federation, UNICEF UK, Bond and CAFOD. Her work on human rights has seen her travel extensively, most recently to visit work with older people in India, Rwanda, Vietnam, Pakistan and Tanzania.
Alison is on the Boards of the Disasters Emergency Committee, INTRAC and the Fairtrade Foundation.
She holds a MSc in NGO Management from Bayes Business School, a LLM in Human Rights from the University of London, and MAs from Sussex University and from Cambridge University where she studied Geography.
