Good communication across organizational and professional boundaries is arguably the most crucial aspect to successful integrated care programs. Effective integration of care requires (as a minimum) that health care professionals share information aboutand with-patients at appropriate points in the care or treatment process. This, however, will only be possible if the necessary infrastructural arrangementssuch as shared patient records, regional collaboration, and a clear, transparent incentive structure are in place. Consequently, the integration of care calls for investments in supporting infrastructures, and it is increasingly hard to imagine integrative initiatives without a strong ICT (information and communication technology) component.

Information systems for health care such as electronic patient records (EPR) have so far primarily been developed to support the computerization of patients’ records and work flows within individual health care organizations. Opposed to this, the development of ICT systems to facilitate integrated care must support communication in highly heterogeneous networks of healthcare professionals, home care workers and