Models of Care for musculoskeletal health: Moving towards meaningful implementation and evaluation across conditions and care settings

Abstract

Models of Care (MoCs) are increasingly recognised as a system-level enabler to translate evidence for 'what works' into policy and, ultimately, clinical practice. MoCs provide a platform for a reform agenda in health systems by describing not only what care to deliver but also how to deliver it. Given the enormous burden of disease associated with musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, system-level (macro) reform is needed to drive downstream improvements in MSK healthcare - at the health service (meso) level and at the clinical interface (micro) level. A key challenge in achieving improvements in MSK healthcare is sustainable implementation of reform initiatives, whether they be macro, meso or micro level in scope. In this chapter, we introduce the special issue of the Journal dedicated to implementation of MSK MoCs. We provide a contextual background on MoCs, a synthesis of implementation approaches across care settings covered across the chapters in this themed issued, and perspectives on the evaluation of MoCs.

Keywords: Burden; Evaluation; Implementation; Model of care; Policy.