Beyond integrated care

Integrated care tops the health care agenda. But more integration alone will not remedy the crisis in health care, and there is a danger in the increasingly prevalent conceptualization of care integration as a goal in itself rather than as an instrument for improving performance. Operating integrated care systems, staffed by an overly specialized medical workforce, is unsustainable in terms of human and financial resources and is likely to produce little benefit for patients with multi-morbidity. An alternative approach involves health care leaders going beyond integrated care and nurturing transformative change from within the medical workforce instead.