TY - JOUR T1 - Innovation and experiences of care integration in Australia and New Zealand JF - Future Hospital Journal JO - Future Hosp J SP - 79 LP - 80 DO - 10.7861/futurehosp.2-2-79 VL - 2 IS - 2 AU - Alasdair MacDonald Y1 - 2015/06/01 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/2/2/79.abstract N2 - Clinical integration remains the unfulfilled dream of most health systems globally, although pockets of success exist. In Australia and New Zealand there has been a rush to emulate the success of the Canterbury District Health Board ‘Pathways’ developed in the Christchurch area, featured in this issue of Future Hospital Journal. Whether this success represents an exportable commodity, or is the result of a unique coming together of circumstances that allowed clinical integration to be implemented in Canterbury, remains unclear.A World Health Organization report on integrated health services published in 2008 did not identify a unified or commonly agreed conceptual model for the integration of health systems. 1 However, the American Medical Association statement describing clinical integration as ‘the means to facilitate the coordination of patient care across conditions, providers, settings and time in order to achieve care that is safe, timely, effective, equitable and patient focused’ is probably as good a definition as any, 2 although a number of authors 3–8 agree that effective information technology, physician leadership, quality and performance monitoring, and funder and consumer engagement are essential prerequisites. Second, divorcing ‘ownership’ of the patient or their disease from a particular physical or administrative location (eg primary or secondary care), through a recognition that an integrated system serves the patient's healthcare needs in a safe and efficient manner relative to the point in the … ER -