[Shared care--integrated cooperation across the sector boundaries about patient's course. Modern health care system cooperates]

Abstract

Shared care programmes have been introduced in Denmark for areas, such as diabetes, asthma, and dementia. Over a three-year period, the communication and co-operation between the health sectors have improved. Specific demands on hospital referral and discharge letters have resulted in improved quality of contents and structure. This review shows that there is limited ongoing research on shared care and that the end points including formulations like "improved co-operation" have been too broad. Almost no research is available on specific improvements obtained by shared care. The study shows that implementation of shared care research programmes with specific end points is very extensive. Only 10 per cent of the present studies have specific end points, and 75 per cent of these show positive effects of shared care programmes. The GP Consulting System in Denmark has proved most useful in the progress of shared care. Future research in shared care should focus on specific end points, in which analyses of patient's course are fundamental in an effort to obtain improvements.