Integrated delivery system

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An integrated delivery system (IDS), also known as integrated delivery network (IDN), is a health system with a goal of logical integration of the delivery (provision) of health care as opposed to a fragmented system or a disorganized lack of system.

The term has sometimes been used in a broad sense with reference to managed care in general (as opposed to fee-for-service care), but in the United States it now more often refers to any specific network of health care organizations constituting a corporate group that attempts to integrate care to some degree (that is, to coordinate the patient journey across care transitions). Some IDSs have an HMO component, while others are a network of physicians only, or of physicians and hospitals. Thus, the term is used broadly to define an organization that provides a continuum of health care services.^[1]