Context: With the increasing specialisation of services, integration has become important for health and other welfare organisations in order to address the complex problems of their patients or clients. This is particularly in care of the elderly, psychiatric care and vocational rehabilitation. The following presentation reports a review of literature on integration in vocational rehabilitation, focusing on models of integration as well as barriers and facilitators.

Methods: The review was based on a search in scientific journals from 1995 to 2010. It generated 13132 articles, which were reduced to 1005 after an initial overview. The abstracts were read by members of the research group. Each abstract was read by two members independently. If they agreed the article was included or excluded, but if not the whole group discussed the abstract. This procedure reduced the number of articles to 205, which were read in full text. Finally, 62 articles were included for thematic content analysis.

Results: Most of the studies came from Sweden, while others came from Canada, Australia, UK, Netherlands, Norway and Denmark. In these studies different models of integration were identified. They were classified as structural or process oriented. The structural models included case management, partnerships, co-location and financial coordination, while the process oriented models included informal contacts, interorganisational meetings and multidisciplinary teams. There were also a number of barriers as well as facilitators of integration. The barriers included structural and cultural differences, while communication, trust and continuity were important facilitators.

Discussion: There are different models of integration, but also many combinations. Case management is often combined with interorganisational meetings or multidisciplinary teams. There are also informal contacts in all models. There is a clear mirror effect between the different barriers and facilitators. Leadership may be either a barrier or a facilitator. In the same way, differences between organisations may be both barriers and facilitators. These results seem to be valid also for other fields of integration, for example care of the elderly, psychiatric care, and other forms of community care.