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The 1st North American Conference on Integrated Care in association with the 6th World Congress on Integrated Care will be run as a virtual conference in partnership with the University of Toronto, KPMG Canada, HSPN, and iCOACH from 4 – 7 October 2021. With the overarching theme ‘Co-designing for health and wellbeing with individuals and communities’, the conference will bring together leaders, researchers, clinicians, managers, citizens, patients, and caregivers from around the world, who are engaged in the design and delivery of integrated health and social care. The conference is designed as a space for continued learning and collaboration and as an opportunity to exchange knowledge and grow connections with colleagues internationally.

NACIC2021 is co-designed with patients and caregivers and achieves Patients Included designation.

The strategic advisory and scientific committee for this conference has been established from North American and international experts who are leading in the field of Integrated Care. They are now accepting paper submissions on research, policy, practice or education and specifically relating to the Conference Themes and the 9 Pillars of Integrated Care until Monday, 31 May. The full abstract should be limited to 500 words. All accepted abstracts will be published in the International Journal of Integrated Care and recordings of presentations and workshops and all digital posters will be connected to the Knowledge Tree.

Each abstract submitter is asked to choose one of the Conference Themes and which of the 9 pillars that their paper is most relevant to, understanding there will be overlap. This system will enable the programme committee and Special Interest Group leads to group papers together in a way that works best for delegates to navigate the programme and maximize the learning opportunities.Special consideration is given to papers that can demonstrate active people involvement in either or all of design, implementation and evaluation!

As NACIC2021 is a virtual offering, presenters will be asked to pre-record their content. The conference will make those recordings available to delegates to access in their own time. During the live sessions, successful authors will be asked to reduce the time of their presentation to key points, and sessions will be run interactively hosted by one or two chairs who will lead a discussion with paper presenters for 90 minutes. This is much more enjoyable for the viewer and we hope to encourage more engagement from the audience for presenters by using this format. Workshops will also be designed with the virtual audience in mind and our scientific coordinator will work with workshop leaders to ensure their session is appropriately designed to make the best use of digital technology and provides the best learning experience for attendees. For our digital poster display, we will include dedicated times for digital poster viewing.

Abstract guidelines
Submit Paper

The International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Niamh Lennox-Chhugani as Chief Executive Officer with effect from 22 March 2021. Niamh has been a strong advocate for integrated care since the early 1990s and has 30 years of experience in health and care as a clinician, manager, academic, and advisor. Her work has spanned the public and not-for-profit sectors as well as management consulting.

In welcoming Niamh, Philip Davies, Chair of IFIC said ‘The IFIC Board undertook an extensive search to identify our next CEO. Niamh stood out among a very strong field as offering a compelling blend of leadership skills and technical knowledge of contemporary issues in integrated care. The COVID-19 pandemic is a further reminder of the need for better coordinated and more collaborative approaches to health and social care. The appointment of a new CEO will further strengthen IFIC’s role in leading the global movement for change in pursuit of that goal.’

Dr. Lennox-Chhugani, commenting on her appointment, added, ‘I am hugely excited about all that taking on this role means. There is no doubt in my mind that this is an energising role in an organisation I admire and one that is focused on a cause about which I care deeply. I look forward to bringing my leadership experience to bear in the values-led movement for change that is IFIC. What lies ahead for IFIC is not without its challenges, but the team and Board are so committed to what IFIC stands for, I see only opportunities ahead.’

The International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) is a not-for-profit educational network whose vision is that people, families, and communities benefit from person-centered integrated care and support to maximise their health, wellbeing, and independence. The goal of the Foundation is to act as the leading voice on and advocate of integrated care through proactive collaboration with its wide range of beneficiaries. By bringing these various perspectives together, IFIC seeks to provide a unique forum for knowledge exchange with the ultimate aim of maximising the health and wellbeing of people and communities while improving the overall effectiveness and sustainability of health and care systems.

In 2021 the 21st International Conference on Integrated Care (ICIC21) “Realising the true value of Integrated Care” will be run as a virtual conference, co-hosted with our hubs and collaborative centres IFIC Scotland, IFIC Australia, IFIC Ireland, IFIC Canada and IFIC Latin America. A huge volume of feedback was received following the ICIC20 conference which took place in September and based on those suggestions the design and access of the programme has been amended to best suit a virtual format.

The main change from ICIC20 is that the conference will run across the whole month of May limited to 2 hour sessions taking place across various time zones. On each day of the week Monday – Friday, one of our 5 hubs in Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia and Latin America will host sessions.

Presenters will once again be asked to pre-record their content, however in this conference those recordings will be made available to delegates to access in their own time and will be posted to IFIC’s Knowledge Tree after the conference to be accessed by a wider audience. During the live sessions successful authors will be asked to reduce the time of their presentation to key points and sessions will be run interactively hosted by one or two chairs who will lead a discussion with paper presenters for 90 minutes. This is much more enjoyable for the viewer and hope it encourages more engagement from the audience for presenters by using this format.

Workshops will also be designed with the virtual audience in mind and our scientific coordinator will work with workshop leaders to ensure their session is appropriately designed to make the best use of digital technology and provides the best learning experience for attendees.

For the digital poster display the number of accepted posters will be reduced (as the volume with our previous conference caused issues with loading) and will include dedicated times for digital posters walks. Again improving the experience for poster presenters and attendees.

All abstracts should be relevant to one of the 9 Pillars of Integrated Care and should include a short introduction/background summary that is understandable to the readers who do not know the full Research, Policy area, Practice or Education and Training approach and its context (this supports the Coordinator to assign the review to the appropriate reviewers).

All accepted abstracts must have at least one presenter registered before the paper is confirmed on the programme. Registration is now open and accessible via the conference homepage.

If you have any questions or concerns about the new digital presentation format or other comments please do get in touch at ICIC@abbey.ie

IFIC thanks you all for your support and hope that you will find this online edition of our conference a rewarding experience.

Abstract Guidelines
Submit Abstract