EUREGHA at ICIC26: “Bridging Data and People: Turning Insights into Community-Driven Integrated Care”

From 13 to 15 April, EUREGHA took part in ICIC26 in Birmingham, together with its members and partners, contributing to the discussions on integrated care, innovation and health workforce transformation. Across the conference, EUREGHA and its network brought in a regional perspective. 

A message emerging from the conference was that integrated care is not a fixed model, but a long-term transformation requiring collaboration, implementation capacity, and system alignment. During the Opening Plenary, Iñaki Gutiérrez-Ibarluzea from the Basque Country underlined the importance of strengthening implementation science as the link between knowledge and practice, while also stressing the need to empower individuals in managing their own health. 

EUREGHA also contributed to the Flemish-led session From Policy Vision to Lived Collaboration: Transforming Health and Care Through Effective Collaboration and Policy, which highlighted that integrated care should not be understood as a fixed organisational model or a predefined governance blueprint, but rather as a long-term behavioural transformation in the way people, organisations and systems collaborate. Drawing on the Flemish experience, the discussion underlined how fragmentation in care is often sustained not only by structural barriers, but also by professional routines, institutional silos and deeply embedded habits shaping daily practice. In this perspective, system alignment and appropriate financing were identified as main enabling conditions to support lasting collaboration. 

A central moment of EUREGHA’s participation was its workshop Bridging Data and People: Turning Insights into Community-Driven Integrated Care, co-organised by EUREGHA and the Flemish Department of Care, together with EUREGHA members Central Denmark and the Basque Country and in collaboration with One Gloucestershire ICS. Building on the 2024 conference Integrating Care, Strengthening Communities: The Data Connection held under the Belgian EU Presidency, as well as on the 2025 EUREGHA General Assembly, the workshop explored how data, trust, co-creation and community engagement can support more integrated and community-driven care.  

Through presentations of concrete regional practices and facilitated group discussions, the session explored how local and regional authorities are already putting these approaches into practice through open data, behavioural insights, lived experience and participatory methods. The discussion also looked at common challenges, including low trust, fragmented data systems and difficulties in reaching vulnerable groups. Participants stressed that transparency, long-term engagement and co-creation with citizens are essential  for more  people-centred integrated care. 

During the session IFIC Integrated Care Workforce: Can New Directions Meet Old Challenges? led by Dr Edelweiss Aldasoro, Head of the IFIC Integrated Care Academy, participants explored how workforce development can support the delivery of integrated, person-centred care across health and social care systems. 

The discussion focused on the skills, structures and governance conditions needed to enable effective integrated care delivery, while also reflecting on multidisciplinary collaboration, education and training and practical approaches to workforce transformation. In this context, Michele Calabrò brought in EUREGHA’s work through the BeWell Project, stressing the need to address skills gaps and workforce shortages through long-term investment in upskilling and reskilling and reaffirmed the value of multi-stakeholder partnerships, including regions, in shaping sustainable workforce strategies. 

Overall, EUREGHA’s participation at ICIC26 eched one core message: innovation, data and policy must be grounded in real implementation and supported by regional leadership to deliver tangible improvements in health and care systems.