The Community-Based Integrated Care System: Healthcare and Nursing Care Challenges
A special issue of Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 9 July 2026 | Viewed by 41
Special Issue Editors
Interests: rehabilitation nursing; rehabilitation engineering; physical rehabilitation; nursing care; foot and ankle disorders; instrument validation; usability studies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
As populations age and healthcare needs become more complex, the Community-Based Integrated Care System (CBICS) has emerged as a vital model for delivering accessible and person-centered care. By encouraging healthcare providers, social services and community groups to work together, the CBICS aims to ensure that local services provide effective care. Nevertheless, contemporary challenges such as service segmentation, personnel shortages and communication disparities may compromise its efficacy. Recent advances in digital health technologies, namely mobile health (mHealth) applications and artificial intelligence (AI), have emerged as particularly promising solutions. The integration of AI within healthcare has the potential to facilitate early risk identification, enable predictive care planning, and optimize resource utilization. Moreover, the utilization of mHealth tools has been demonstrated to enhance real-time communication and patient engagement, thereby promoting a more holistic and effective healthcare delivery model. This Special Issue explores the integration of these technologies into community-based systems and its potential to address existing barriers, enhance care coordination, and promote the development of a more sustainable healthcare ecosystem that is simultaneously person-centered.
We are pleased to invite you to contribute to our Special Issue that aims to explore the transformative role of digital health innovations, particularly, but not restricted to, mobile health applications and artificial intelligence, in enhancing the efficacy and sustainability of Community-Based Integrated Care Systems. As aging populations and complex health needs place growing demands on local care systems, the integration of these technologies present a promising pathway to overcome systemic barriers such as service fragmentation, workforce limitations, and communication challenges. This Special Issue seeks to showcase interdisciplinary research and practical implementations that leverage digital tools to foster person-centered, coordinated, and data-informed community care models.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- AI in community health;
- mHealth and real-time engagement;
- Technology-enabled care coordination;
- Implementation science and sustainability;
- User-centered and co-designed approaches.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Rafael Alves Bernardes
Guest Editor
Dr. Lúcia Bacalhau
Guest Editor Assistant
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- community health services
- integrated health care systems
- mobile health units
- artificial intelligence
- telemedicine
- health information systems
- patient-centered care
- health services accessibility
- health personnel shortage
- predictive analytics
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