18.09.2026

Day 5 – Integrated Care (VIVA)

This article concludes our series on International Patient Safety Week 2026, which focuses on non-communicable diseases. You can find all the articles from this week here.

Integrated care: one team, one record, one goal

Throughout this week, we have discussed the various components of safe care: prevention, support, your own role and safe transitions. Integrated care is the glue that binds these elements together.

Within an integrated care network, your GP, specialists, care staff and the hospital do not simply work side by side, but together – based on a shared medical record, and with a designated contact person who supports you throughout your care journey. This helps to prevent information from being lost during transitions, reduces duplicate tests and ensures that your goals are consistently at the heart of the process.

At Swiss Medical Network, we put this principle into practice with VIVA: a model that combines prevention, coordination and dedicated care – ensuring that your treatment is not only medically appropriate but also reliable in everyday life.

Safe, coordinated, collaborative: this is how many individual steps come together to form a coherent care pathway.

1. Data transfer and a unified medical record

The successful management of chronic conditions depends on the efficiency and availability of data transfer for all stakeholders in the healthcare network.
A unified patient record and integrated information systems enable every healthcare professional to access essential information.
Important types of data to be shared:

Medical data: follow-up reports, medical history, allergies, past medical history.
Data relating to medication: the loss of information during transitions between different stages of care is a common cause of readmissions to hospital.
Data relating to the course of treatment: coordination and consistent organisation of appointments (for example, blood tests prior to a consultation).
This continuity of information directly contributes to patient safety by reducing the risk of errors, redundant treatments or gaps in care. See today’s secure data transfers 4.

2. Coordination and management of care

Patients with chronic conditions often have to cope with a succession of appointments, tests, treatments and hospital admissions. Without coordination, an important follow-up test may be missed, a test may be postponed, or the treatment plan may be lost sight of.

Coordination is essential for patients with multiple chronic conditions. It is achieved through disease management or, in complex cases, through case management.
The role of nurses in healthcare management:

They support the patient throughout their care journey.
They act as the link between the patient, the healthcare system and the various healthcare providers.
They have access to all relevant information (medical records, prescriptions, treatment progress, patient preferences).
They ensure that treatment plans and secondary prevention measures are implemented (‘Getting Things Done’).

3. Process analysis and waste reduction

Integration helps to reconcile the interests of service providers, which promotes continuous process improvement and the elimination of silos.
Integrated care enables the entire care pathway to be analysed in order to identify inefficiencies, redundancies and high-risk stages.

Simplifying processes and improving collaboration between professionals makes it possible to:

reduce unnecessary tests;
minimise administrative duplication;
avoid certain delays in care;
facilitate transitions between outpatient and inpatient care.
This approach to continuous improvement benefits both patients and healthcare professionals.

4. Patient involvement

Patients live with their condition on a daily basis. They are the first to observe their own state of health and play a key role in their treatment. See ‘Patient empowerment’ on Day 3.

Patients’ views, needs and satisfaction are systematically gathered and taken into account when designing care models.
Experience shows that patients’ priorities may differ from those perceived by healthcare staff.
It is important to design processes in collaboration with patients.
Example: testing health questionnaires with patients to ensure they are clear and relevant from the patients’ perspective.

5. Funding and cost reduction

Chronic conditions account for a significant proportion of healthcare expenditure.

The aim of integrated care is not to reduce the level of care, but to avoid expenditure that brings no benefit to the patient.

The per-person flat-rate model promotes cost control: process optimisation and coordination help to avoid unnecessary expenditure (duplication of services, superfluous tests, preventable complications).
The savings made are passed on to patients, notably in the form of lower health insurance premiums.
Patients with complex chronic conditions, who place a heavy burden on the healthcare system, thus benefit from a reduction in their financial burden.

Conclusion

Integrated care, particularly when funded through a per capita flat-rate payment, is a modern healthcare system model focused on patients with non-communicable diseases.

Sharing information, coordinating stakeholders, improving processes, involving patients and using resources responsibly: these are the cornerstones of safe and sustainable management of non-communicable diseases.

This model makes it possible to improve both the quality of care and health outcomes whilst keeping rising healthcare costs under control.