WHO Framework on integrated people-centred health services

Dear colleagues,

On 28 May 2016 at the Sixty-ninth World Health Assembly, WHO Member States officially adopted the Framework on integrated people-centred health services (IPCHS) and its resolution on “Strengthening integrated, people-centred health services”, formally giving the WHO Secretariat the mandate to work on this new programmatic area.

During a high-level side event at the Assembly, WHO – and its Collaborating Centre the Andalusian School for Public Health – officially launched the IntegratedCare4People web platform. The platform is a global network for sharing knowledge and leading practices, and for joint learning on transforming health services to become more integrated and people-centred. Intended for practitioners and organizations, the platform aimsto improve health service delivery by curating high quality knowledge products and resources that provide technical and operational insight into how health services can be transformed towards this vision.

As Member States emphasized during the WHA discussions, integrated people-centred health services are paramount to achieving universal health coverage, and Sustainable Development Goal 3. Member States further highlighted the importance of strengthening primary health care as a key strategy, of putting people and their needs at the centre of the focus, of combating fragmentation, and of making IPCHS one of the main pillars of a health model that will better deal with the challenges faced by today’s health systems.

In the run-up to this important milestone, we have consulted with a large number of health providers, health care managers, policy-makers, advocates and community leaders and your feedback has been crucial in shaping the Framework on integrated people-centred health services and its associated web platform. We continue to invite and welcome your collaboration in building a truly global virtual network for moving towards integrated people-centred health services.

To help us spread the word about the Framework and the IntegratedCare4People web platform, we invite you to share this announcement with your colleagues and relevant partners. For those active on Twitter, we invite you to share the integratedcare4people.org link using the hashtag #IntegratedCare4People.

Thank you for your support and we look forward to continuing this important collaboration.

Kind regards,

Dr Hernan Montenegro
Coordinator
Services Organization and Clinical Interventions Unit
Service Delivery and Safety Department
World Health Organization