The management of chronic conditions is a challenge for health systems worldwide, particularly in the context of an aging population, and requires urgent improvement of health services. Integrated care and patient empowerment represent promising solutions: offering tailored self-management support in a collaborative framework led to good results in several clinical contexts. Yet, large scale implementation remains a challenge. An important limitation of existing solutions is a lack of utilization of behavioural and communication theory for identifying the dynamics of pluridisciplinary collaboration and the interactive effects of the activities performed by several actors involved in self-management support in a given chronic condition. A second limitation is not involving all relevant actors in the development of health service improvement solutions, which leads to limited programme adoption and sustainability in routine care.