The Learning Rehabilitation System: Strengthening an intersectoral strategy to improve functioning of an ageing population

Jerome Bickenbach, Sara Rubinelli, Carla Sabariego and Gerold Stucki

Health Policy, 2023, vol. 135, issue C

Abstract: Rehabilitation uses a person-centred approach that relies on dynamic case management and works across sectors, including social protection, labour, and education to improve individual functioning. Global population ageing means that more people will live with impairment in functioning. Responding to this growth in impairment will require countries to strengthen rehabilitation at all levels of their health systems as highlighted by the 2023 WHO Resolution on Rehabilitation. Efforts to strengthen rehabilitation can benefit from the concept of the Learning Health System, which implies a cyclical process of identifying issues, developing and implementing responses, monitoring the consequences of systems' change, and revising the response. However, we argue that it is not enough to simply adopt the notion of the Learning Health System for strengthening rehabilitation. We should rather think of a Learning Rehabilitation System. This is because rehabilitation is an intrinsically inter-sectoral strategy given its focus on people’s functioning in their daily lives. Therefore, we believe that introducing the notion of the Learning Rehabilitation System is more than a terminological change; it is a fundamental programmatic shift that can contribute towards the goal of strengthening rehabilitation as an intersectoral strategy to improve functioning of an ageing population.

Keywords: Learning Health System; Rehabilitation; International classification of functioning disability and health (ICF); Learning Rehabilitation System (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851023001513
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:135:y:2023:i:c:s0168851023001513

DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2023.104866

Access Statistics for this article

Health Policy is currently edited by Katrien Kesteloot, Mia Defever and Irina Cleemput

More articles in Health Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu () and ().