Health Leadership Perspectives to Deploy a Seamless Integrated Care for the Older Adults in Catalonia

In this podcast, Ross Upshur, interviews Marco Inzitari, discussing the mechanisms and nuts and bolts of integrated care provided to the elderly population in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Dr. Inzitari is the current President of the Catalan Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology and the Director of Intermediate Care, Research and Teaching of Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili in Barcelona.

In this podcast, Dr. Marco Inzitari gives his first-hand account of the health and social care services provided to the elderly population in Barcelona and Catalonia, and elaborates how these services address the issues of frailty, chronic diseases, loneliness, etc. In doing so, Dr. Inzitari sets an example of a healthcare system that has traversed academic, public and private sectors and even has integrated a coherent and uniform internet-based repository of medical records into the healthcare system to provide a seamless health and social care to its elderly population.

Work and Education
Marco Inzitari, MD, PhD, a specialist in geriatrics, was trained in epidemiology of aging at the Universities of Florence, Italy, and University of Pittsburgh, USA, and in management and leadership at ESADE Business School in Barcelona. He currently serves as the Director of Intermediate Care, Research and Teaching of Parc Sanitari Pere Virgili, and as an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). He is also the PI of the Research on Aging, Frailty and Transitions in Barcelona (RE-FiT Barcelona) part of the Vall d’Hebrón Institute of Research (VHIR). He is the current President of the Catalan Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology. Moreover, Dr. Inzitari serves as an expert advisor for different master-plans related to chronic diseases and integrated care of the Catalan Government, and is part of the Clinical Management Section of the Catalan Society for Healthcare Management and board member of the European Delirium Association.

Publications
Being the principal investigator of a number of ongoing publicly-funded research projects, Dr. Inzitari has authored a considerable number of international publications on frailty, cognitive and physical functions in the elderly, and on care models and organization for older adults with chronic conditions. He is also a member of the editorial board of The Frailty and Aging Journal. Here are some of Marco’s publications indexed in PubMed, so far.