Comparing integrated elderly care in three European countries: a qualitative approach

International audienceIn response to increasing care needs, the development of elderly care systems has become a prominent policy concern across the OECD. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the increasing economic constraints led to the rise of policies that focus on the improvement of “coordination” and “integration” of administrations and services – in other words, policies that aim at reducing the fragmentation of health and social care system. As a result, a growing number of studies focus on innovative integrated care schemes and their transferability from one national context to another. Yet they do not systematically investigate the political, organizational, cultural and societal contexts in which they have emerged neither do they link them to the diverse conceptions of integration or coordination carried by the multiple actors concerned. In this paper, we identified three policy-making mechanisms underpinning integration policies at both national and local levels. (Intro.