Why co-locate services and integrate their delivery?

Integration means organising two or more system components in a way that leads to:

• increased efficiency of service operation
• improvement in service effectiveness, or
• a more joined-up experience for service consumers.

This definition is one we have preferred in recent projects , which prioritises outcome over process.

There are many, but in my experience the recurrent ones (in human services systems anyway) are:

• the costs of systemic inefficiencies
• gaps created by siloing of specialised (sub)systems
• complexity and multiplicity of need, and
• desire to improvement to the client experience.

Well, it depends which benefit you’re looking at, but the most interesting change mechanism for me lies in what happens to client-provider and provider-provider relationships that support improved system effectiveness and client experience.

The currency of client-provider relationships is trust. Simply co-locating services is potentially enabling of passive trust transfer: where a client has a good relationship with one provider, some of that trust may carry over to other providers who have common brand association; shared reception; signage; spaces and places.

Active trust transfer occurs through integration, where services who hold relationships with clients leverage the trust they have to link clients to new programs and services through warm handovers, introductions, and personal recommendations.

On the other hand, integrated working strengthens provider-provider relationships through relational agency. Relational agency is a phenomenon described by Anne Edwards that in simplistic terms involves the building of a common knowledge across professional boundaries that allows providers to individually and collectively contribute to more holistic responses to complexity.

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.