Systems and models of care research focuses on how healthcare and health services are delivered. It develops effective clinical, organizational, and policy solutions that meet the holistic needs of individuals, families, and communities. This research is meant to improve care across the continuum of a condition, event, or context. This lens includes nurse-led models and those that leverage the expertise of nurses, as well as interprofessional approaches. Within this lens, "systems" is a broad network of connected entities that includes healthcare as well as other systems such as public health, criminal legal, and youth services.
Research developed using this lens may include designing new models or evaluating existing models of care, comparative-effectiveness studies, pragmatic trials, implementation science, and other designs. Research traditionally conceptualized as health services research is often aligned with this lens, if aimed to examine the impact of the organizational structures or the healthcare and public health systems.
Of particular interest are interventions that examine or incorporate social determinants of health or health-related social risks and needs, care coordination and continuity of services, community-based care models, highly innovative nurse-led and interprofessional team models, public-private partnerships, rigorous interrogation of obstacles to care, as well as other approaches that incorporate a person-centered holistic perspective to healthcare delivery.