Great Expectations: The Implementation of Integrated Care and Its Contribution to Improved Outcomes for People with Chronic Conditions.

There are great expectations regarding the potential contribution of integrated care interventions to improved outcomes, but so far the evidence is mixed. In this dissertation, we focussed on why, when and how some integrated care interventions contribute to improved outcomes, while others do not. To this purpose, we developed the COMIC Model for studying the Context, Outcomes and Mechanisms of Integrated Care interventions. Evaluations that make use of the COMIC Model take into account the context in which an intervention is implemented and can thereby provide insights into why an intervention does (not) work and how the intervention and/or the context can be changed to achieve improved outcomes.