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New practical guide “Shaping the Health Systems of the Future: Case Studies and Recommendations for Integrated NCD Care” launched this week at the World Health Assembly.

24 May 2018, Geneva (Switzerland).- The new guide “Shaping the Health Systems of the future: Case Studies and Recommendations for Integrated NCD Care”, written by the NCD Alliance in partnership with Lilly, and draw upon interviews with global experts and health practitioners around the world, was launched this week in Geneva.

 “We strongly believe in the impact of sharing lessons learned and best practices and recognise the limited evidence base which currently exists around effective models of integrated care to address the needs of people living with NCDs. Our hope is that this guide can contribute to this body of knowledge, and to growing efforts around tackling NCDs”, said Katie Dain, CEO of the NCD Alliance.

“If health systems are to be effective, people cannot be considered as a collection of isolated body parts – care and prevention must be tailored to each individual as a whole. Integrated services need to be coordinated across all levels of care, starting at primary care level where person-centered care can be optimised to address noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), said Amy Israel, Global Health Thought Leadership and Policy Director, Eli Lilly and Company

This Guide is a result of collaborative work, involving NGOs, academia and private sector who contributed their views and expertise. By publishing just prior to the third UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs in September 2018, and the Second International Conference on Primary Health Care the following month, this Guide fills an important gap by providing a set of detailed case studies demonstrating the practical benefits of an integrated approach to NCDs, drawn from countries including India, Malawi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Kenya and Vietnam.

Reducing premature deaths from NCDs requires delivering more and better care for individual diseases. Equally important is to recognise the interactions between different diseases, and to leverage the overlapping nature of some treatments and strategies—in other words, from integration of health services. This ensures people living with NCDs receive a full continuum of health care, from health promotion, disease prevention and diagnosis, to treatment, disease management, rehabilitation and palliative care services as needed. 

An increasingly urgent question is facing low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): how best to address the growing burden of NCDs in ways that maximise support for people living with the conditions but that remain feasible within overstretched health systems. Unless we act immediately, 120 million people will die prematurely from an NCD between now and 2025.

Reducing premature deaths from NCDs requires delivering more and better care for individual diseases. Equally important is to recognise the interactions between different diseases, and to leverage the overlapping nature of some treatments and strategies—in other words, from integration of health services. This ensures people living with NCDs receive a full continuum of health care, from health promotion, disease prevention and diagnosis, to treatment, disease management, rehabilitation and palliative care services as needed.