What is the best way to achieve collaboration?

They want to help him, but this raises further questions. Is this their responsibility? How can they charge this counselling to the health insurance provider? Do they even have the necessary expertise?

This case shows how difficult it is to achieve targeted collaboration at the interface between the healthcare system and the welfare system. Individuals who find themselves at this interface often face many different challenges. Physical diseases are often accompanied by psychological stress; individuals not only have too little money but also an inadequate social network or a lack of employment prospects. All these factors interact and potentiate each other. By the same token, decisions taken and implemented within the welfare system have an impact on the healthcare system and vice versa.

These two systems are largely separate in institutional terms, and the legal basis, responsibilities and funding mechanisms that operate in one bear little relationship to those that exist in the other. The individual should always be the focus of attention. If people like Christian are to be supported as effectively as possible, employees, institutions and organisations from both systems need to work together in a more coordinated and needs-based fashion. It is against this background that the FOPH and the Federal Social Insurance Office FSIO are jointly organising a conference on 20 June 2023 that will put the spotlight on this collaboration. Integrated health promotion can only succeed if it works across sectors.