Background
Chronic diseases account for nearly 60% of deaths around the world. The extent of this silent epidemic has not met determined responses in governments, policies or professionals in order to transform old Health Care Systems, configured for acute diseases [
1].
There is plenty of evidence which suggests the failure of conventional health care models faced with this scenario [
2]. The consequences of a fragmented Health Care System on patients are revealed in terms of avoidable hospital admissions [
3], contradictory diagnoses or information from health care providers, or else, duplicated tests and examinations [
4]. So the healthcare system "transfers" on to patients the way its services are organised, with fragmented, separate care - as if each intervention for the same user were applied to different patients. It seems unavoidable the need of a more comprehensive healthcare, with high emphasis on improving the effectiveness, the continuity of patient care and the diversification of services, in a person-centered care focus.
There is a large list of research about alternative models for people with chronic conditions, most of them locally developed, with an extensive and varied range of organizational approaches, providers, devices and technologies [
5]. Many of these models have a nurse with advanced roles as one of the main providers (nurse practitioners, case management, etc). This is not extraordinary as the delivery of care to chronic patients requires a flexible, case-by-case approach, adapting healthcare to the various stages in the disease, the individual's needs, his or her interests and caregivers [
6]. Nurses are naturally disposed to guaranteeing most of these premises, given their deep-rooted humanistic approach, in which understanding the life-experience of the disease and experiencing dependency, along with the human responses that arise under these circumstances, steer decision-making regardless of the underlying medical process in question [
7].
Case management, integrated care, disease management, nurse-led outpatient clinics, community matrons... account for a large list of modalities [
8,
9] in which many interventions have been deployed: screening of risk factors, multidimensional assessments, patient and caregivers education and counseling, drug adjustment, telephone follow-up, tele-care interventions, discharge planning, home visiting, clinical consultancy, and the most of them sustained on clinical pathways and evidence-based recommendations [
10].
The review of the research raises a serial of methodological issues which need to be resolved. Not always the exact hierarchy of interventions that obtains the best outcomes is well-known [
11]. In other cases, the models are not grounded on strong conceptual frames, despite along the past years some theoretic proposals have been reported, either from an individual viewpoint, or from a system one. In the first case, the Shifting Perspectives Model from Paterson [
12] or the Illness Trajectory from Corbin and Strauss [
6] highlight the value of taking into account the patients' values and perceptions along the experience of chronic disease. In the second case, the Chronic Care Model from Wagner [
13,
14], has been developed and implemented over more than a thousand of Health Care Organizations, and a recent meta-analysis has reported key outcomes in diabetes, asthma, depression or heart failure (HF) [
15,
16].
Concerning the interventions, these are complex, multifaceted and not always the exact ingredients and doses are well-known, with the consequent barriers to reproduce the results into another context. Fortunately, some approaches have been designed to undertake complex interventions with a fairly degree of reliability [
17]. Further, the combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods can help manifestly to illuminate some gaps [
18‐
21].
Our research team has been investigating from 2002 the effectiveness of alternative models for long term care in the home environment. We have reported elsewhere the benefits of a case management model implemented in the Andalusian Health Care System in home care, in terms of improvement of accessibility, care coordination, patients functionality, satisfaction and caregivers' burden [
22].
But the current case management model in our region has not people with chronic conditions as a specifically defined target population. Only when they have one of the four criteria to be included into the home care program (immobilized, terminal care, hospital discharges or caregivers) and they have complex needs, they receive this intervention. Moreover, many of the people with chronic diseases are spread along the Health Care System in a myriad of isolated programs and services. Therefore, this is a perceptible area of improvement and, what is more: the Andalusian Health Care System is well positioned for this challenge, as it has a long experience with case management (from 2002), which is fully inserted into the Primary Health Care and the acute hospitals.
All these reasons led us to explore the features that our present case management system should incorporate to supply the current demand for chronic conditions, feasible in our context, making the most of the existing resources, with a close association with other initiatives deployed in our Health Care System and, finally, adapted to the needs and demands of patients and their caregivers.
Nowadays, it would be possible to design directly an experimental model with the interventions reported in the literature about case management in chronic care, but some of the methodological flaws afore mentioned warn us about doing it.
We have considered that a grounded conceptualization and modeling, prior to any experiment, would be helpful and could prevent some of the issues referred. For this purpose, we have selected the framework suggested by Campbell et al. for the design of complex interventions [
23]. A process with several sequential phases is defined by this framework, which can be compared with those of a drug development.
The first step is to identify the evidence that the intervention might have the desired effect in a called "pre-clinical phase". This may come from the review of the theoretical basis, previous studies, etc. This could lead to changes in the hypothesis and improved specification of potentially active ingredients or prevent the possible effects derived from the context. After this one, a phase for defining the components of the intervention is proposed. Qualitative research can be used in this phase to show how the intervention works or to find potential barriers. Likewise, this might help to improve further experimental designs and how the components will relate among them. Descriptive studies can be developed to propose variants of the service.
Then, on next phases, exploratory studies are developed in order to describe the constant and variable ingredients of the intervention and definitive ones, intended to compare the intervention whole defined versus an adequate alternative. In a final phase, long-term evaluations in non-controlled contexts would be developed.
For our purpose, two of the main chronic patients who visit our Health Care System will be targeted: people with HF and COPD [
24,
25]. There is an extensive set of studies which have reported a varied catalogue of interventions in these patients, and provide a good knowledge base for the theoretical phase.
Many systematic reviews and meta-analysis have shown important effects of these interventions in HF patients on mortality, quality of life, or hospital readmissions [
26,
27]. In COPD patients, self-care and health promotion programs have decreased exacerbation episodes [
28], and in some cases, hospital utilization [
29]. In moderate COPD subgroup, home care programs have revealed fair reductions in mortality and improvements on quality of life [
30]. Positive results have been reported also for hospital at home schemes [
31]. Nevertheless, there are some concerns derived from the heterogeneity of interventions and studies [
32]. A systematic review which evaluated the impact of the Chronic Care Model in COPD patients, reported that those studies which implemented at least two components of the model, achieved a considerable reduction in Emergencies frequentation (RR 0.58 95%CI:0.42 to 0.79) and urgent hospital readmissions and length of stay (RR 0.78 95%CI: 0.66 to 0.94). Conversely, no effects over lung function, symptoms or quality of life were detected [
33].
It is very likely that many of these interventions have been arranged with a modest contribution from patients' values and preferences, and poorly adapted to the context [
20,
21]. Further, many studies have been performed in Health Care Systems with high incentives for cost restraints and with heterogeneous levels of leadership given to Primary Health Care.
Therefore, before setting a case management service for people with chronic conditions, from the current home care case management service, it would be reasonable to explore how they live with their illness, the key features of their relation with the Health Care System, the interactions with Health Care providers, how they cope to these situations and which resources they make use of, in order to discover non-met needs susceptible to be covered by case management. The analysis of this information can provide elements for delineating a range of interventions to be tested in further phases. Additionally, these results could be subjected to expert consensus for reviewing its feasibility and pertinence in the Andalusian Health Care context, which can be an important way of exploring potential barriers and facilitators before its implementation.
In summary, this study is the first of a series, conceptualized from the Campbell's proposal for delineating complex interventions, that will undertake the first two phases (preclinical and modeling) for the design of a case management service for people with HF and COPD and their caregivers, in the Andalusian Public Health Care System.
Authors' contributions
JMMA participated in the conception and design of the study and drafted the first version of it, as well as the manuscript. FJMS, JCMH, MCFG, MCM, FJNM, MMRS, FJMR, EGJ, AMC participated in the conception and design of the study, and also revised critically the draft of the manuscript, with a key intellectual contribution to the final version. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.