ICIC23 - Conference Resources Now Available to Download

The 23rd International Conference on Integrated Care (ICIC23) in partnership with the Flanders Agency for Health and Care and Visit Flanders took place in Antwerp, Flanders from 22-24 May 2023.

With the overarching theme ‘Care in action: how to work together, a participatory approach’, the conference brought together leaders, researchers, clinicians, managers, citizens, patients and caregivers from around the world who are engaged in the design and delivery of integrated health and social care.

The conference was attended by a total of 1,247 in person delegates with another 847 virtual delegates joining online, making this conference a record attendance in the International Foundation for Integrated Care's international series. Our international series has been organised since 2000, and has been held in over 18 European cities and 7 cities outside Europe. Our next global conference travels to Sydney in November 2023 and Toronto in 2024, and our European conference will travel to Belfast in 2024, Lisbon in 2025 and Birmingham in 2026.

The ICIC23 conference programme ran for a total of three days and included 160 sessions involving plenary sessions, workshops, oral paper presentations, poster presentations and site visits. We would like to thank all those who contributed to the design and delivery of this extraordinary volume of sessions, but in particular to our Organising Committee, led by Solvejg Wallyn, from the Flanders Agency, our Scientific Committee, chaired by Professor Jan De Maeseneer, from the University of Ghent, our army of reviewers from across our network, who scientifically reviewed 800 abstracts, and to all the presenters who took the time to submit abstracts and to present their work at the conference.

Sponsored Workshops
A conference of this size would not be possible without the support of our conference partners. Their input helps to off set our reduced delegate rates for students and LMI countries as well as allowing us to provide 50 complimentary delegate passes to patient, caregivers and citizens to the in person conference and over 500 online delegates joining us from IFIC LatAm and 150 delegates joining us from IFIC Ireland on the virtual platform. Some of our sponsored sessions are featured below.

Enablers for co-ordinated health and social outcomes: international reflections on trends and challenges

This workshop was organised by our partners Merative and brought together an international panel of experts to reflect on the trends and challenges in the journey towards integrated care in order to improve patient-centred outcomes around the world. Chaired by Dr Hector Upegui from Merative, panellists included: Prof Jan De Maeseneer, University of Ghent; Helen Howson, Bevan Commission; Dr John Eastwood, Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand; Dr Richard Lewanczuk, Alberta Health Services; and Dr Orlaith O Reilly, Health Service Executive (HSE), Ireland

Adoption of integrated care standards and implementation tools

Leveraging their unique experiences in Canada, Belgium and Netherlands, this session organised by our partners Accreditation Canada and Qualicor Europe explored the regional context of integrated care, highlight experiential learnings from the development and implementation of the IPCHS standard, including tools and techniques. The panellists led by Leslee Thompson, Chief Executive, Accreditation Canada, reflected on the current state of integration in their local context and collaboratively explore methods of advancing integrated care to enact meaningful change in Belgium, Europe and Beyond.

Leveraging digital innovations to deliver person-centred integrated care closer to home in Ireland

This virtual session focused on advancements of the Sláintecare Integration Innovation Fund (SIIF) which is now in Round 2 of the programme. The shared vision of Sláintecare and the Programme for Government is to introduce a universal health and social care system where everyone has equitable access to services based on need, and not ability to pay and to deliver safe, quality health and social care services that meet the needs of our growing population, and attracts and retains the very best healthcare clinicians, managers, and staff. The SIIF is a multi-annual fund used to test and evaluate innovative integrated models of care, by funding projects that serve as ‘proof of concept'. Successful projects can be mainstreamed and scaled through the annual budgetary process. Chaired by Professor Áine Carroll, IFIC Ireland, the session featured examples from the innovation fund. You can access the recording of the session here.

Integrated Care Awards

ICIC23 Scientific Reviewers were invited to select papers for the Integrated Care Awards and the highest scoring papers were selected and presented their awards at the Conference Gala dinner held on Tuesday, 23 May at Cafe Horta, which was attended by over 400 conference delegates. For the first time in 2023, the Foundation has introduced a lifetime achievement award specifically for members of our network who have supported our organisation, while advancing our mission to drive integrated care internationally and in their region. We were delighted to award this first IFIC Lifetime Achievement Award to Ri de Ridder, who is photographed here with Professor Jan de Maeseneer, his friend and colleague.

Integrated Care Overall Winner
Ellen Gepts, Board member, Pijnpunt Vzw, Flanders
Towards goal-oriented care with Goal Finder (606)

Integrated Care Runner Up
Gastón Perman, Director de Departamento de Salud Pública, Instituto Universitario Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires and Yamila Antolini, Doctor at Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Argentina
Integrated care program for patients with dementia and behavioral disorders in the home setting (572)

Integrated Care Best Poster
Nicole Smeets-Curvers, Policy Researcher, GGD Zuid/ Limburg Living Lab Public Health and PhD Student, the Netherlands
The development and evaluation of a multidisciplinary consultation between professionals from the medical, social and public health domain to deliver tailored care and support for pregnant women and young families in a vulnerable position living in socioeconomically deprived municipalities in South-Limburg (NL). (75)

Patient and Caregiver Overall Winner
Sophiya Garasia, OHT Impact Fellow, Central West Ontario Health Team, Canada
Experience of utilizing a human-centred design approach to create a patient navigation program in Ontario, Canada (205)

Patient and Caregiver Runner Up
Anna Raymaekers, LUCAS KU Leuven, Belgium
The development process of four new digital tools in Flanders: how blended care could be an answer to the challenges of integrated care (122)

Patient and Caregiver Runner Up
Prof Astrid Janssens, Utrecht University Medical Center, Utrecht University, Netherlands
Patient and relative partnerships at the Center for Research with Patients and Relatives at Odense University Hospital: building a research unit for and with patients and relatives (189)

A huge congratulations to all our 2023 ICIC23 Award Winners!