The Egg Model - CodesignKit

Co-design is about clinicians, health service providers and consumers working together in an open and proactive way to find the best strategies for creating health care systems that meet the consumers’ needs.

Co-design places the individual with complex needs, such as a child with intellectual disability and their family, at the centre of the process. All decisions revolve around them: their priorities, their resources, their abilities, their motivations, their aspirations and their needs.

The best way of conceptualising this is the Egg Model. This model of care shows the people and agencies potentially involved in caring for an individual with intellectual disability. It also shows the multiple aspects of a person’s life that need to be considered and taken into account at every stage.

Egg Model

Key Features of the Egg Model

The individual is placed at the centre, along with their family or carer;
Each contributing party (e.g. GP, NGO) may have a distinct role in providing care;
However, all care provision is critically related;
When working together, the various parties can form a cohesive and supportive unit.

Person and Family-Centred Care

Person and family-centred care is a core principle for the delivery of effective health strategies. It is healthcare that is respectful of, and responsive to, the needs and values of carers and consumers.

Central considerations for person-centred care are:

This model of care considers an individual’s needs and allows a comprehensive care plan to be developed around them.

Interagency Collaboration and Integrated Care

People with complex needs, such as those with intellectual disability, often require multidisciplinary care and interagency collaboration. The co-design process – with the individual and family at the centre – helps to establish a proper understanding of a family’s situation so that achievable care strategies can be developed.

Developing integrated care involves a number of aspects including:

Clear communication and cooperation between service providers;
Ensuring a balance of physical health care, mental health care and psychosocial care;
Establishing a lead care coordinator (case manager) to coordinate service provision.
An integrated approach results in less fragmentation of care for consumers and carers.

Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (2011). Patient-centred care: Improving quality and safety through partnerships with patients and consumers. ACSQHC, Sydney.
Ham C, Walsh N (2013). Making integrated care happen at scale and pace. Read more at The King’s Fund website.
The Kings’s Fund advocates patient and family-centred care (PFCC) as a method of improving health care quality by changing the perspective of staff delivering care, and helping them to reconnect with their values and motivation for working in health care. Read more about PFCC and its value to health services at the King’s Fund website.