Reconceptualising Person-Centered Service Models as Social Ecology Networks in Supporting Integrated Care

Efforts to address problems such as mental health, poverty, social exclusion, and chronic disease have often proven resistant to traditional policies or interventions. In this paper, we take up the challenge and present a pioneering new method of analysis in drawing on theoretical and methodological extensions of two prominent approaches, namely, social network analysis and developmental social ecology. Considered in combination, these two seemingly disparate approaches frame a powerful new way of thinking about person-centred care, as well as offer a methodologically more rigorous set of analytical tools. The conceptual model developed from this combination offers to bridge the apparent disconnect between service integration levels and patient needs in such a way as to direct optimal effort to interventions at the individual level and to provide a new innovative approach to the delivery of integrated care.