Conclusion: coordination requires financing reform, institutionalization, and academization

The chapter summarizes the main findings of our study on the challenges, obstacles and solutions for better coordination of healthcare and long-term care systems in cross-national perspective in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. In addition, it lines out a few key directions for policy reforms enabling better coordination. The main challenges are population ageing and shortage of staff in both healthcare and long-term care. Obstacles in all countries are identified by major stakeholders at the institutional, organizational and professional levels, though the specific constellations differ between countries. Nonetheless, a few policy lessons can be drawn from the study for all countries: the institutional divide between the two systems needs to be reduced; stronger gatekeeping and case-management arrangements are recommended; better information sharing using digital tools is needed; the local level of organizations should be strengthened; and the professional education in long-term care should be upgraded.