Integrated Health Care and Value Co-Creation: A Beneficial Fusion to Improve Patient Outcomes and Service Efficacy

Abstract

This conceptual article integrates value co-creation concepts with dimensions of integrated care demonstrating how a marketing framework and a framework originated in health can achieve a beneficial fusion to enhance health outcomes. Using midwifery health care services as the context, we contend that integrated care models focus only on co-production overlooking the complex, value co-creation potential of value-in-use for improved health outcomes. We add four new dimensions of value-in-use: client–provider shared principles, client agency, empowerment, and relationship equality. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, a value co-creation perspective advances our understanding of the activities and processes of integrated care at the various levels in the patient’s lifeworld beyond the patient–carer interface. We argue that adding value-in-use dimensions to health care’s integrated care model adds conceptual clarity and will improve service delivery and patient health care outcomes.