scholarly journals The role of practice nurses in coordinated care of people with chronic and complex conditions

2007 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Patterson ◽  
Heidi Muenchberger ◽  
Elizabeth Kendall

General practice in Australia must cope with growing numbers of individuals with chronic and complex needs. The Australian Government has recognised the need to reform the primary health care sector to address this issue, with recent initiatives, such as coordinated care. The overall goal of coordinated care at a national level is to facilitate integrated care for people with chronic and complex conditions, by enhancing collaborative partnerships among general practitioners, primary health care providers, community service providers and clients. Interestingly, practice nurses (PNs) have not been identified as key stakeholders in the coordinated care service delivery model in Australia. In contrast, an expanded role for PNs has been in place in the United Kingdom and New Zealand for some time. This paper is based on focus group discussions with Australian PNs who have had a range of experiences in coordinated care models. The study identifies an important role for PNs, suggesting trial of a variety of models of coordinated care that include PNs in chronic disease management process.

Author(s):  
Hans-Friedemann Kinkel ◽  
Tessa Marcus ◽  
Shehla Memon ◽  
Nomonde Bam ◽  
Jannie Hugo

Background: Re-engineering primary health care is a cornerstone of the health sector reforminitiated nationally in South Africa in 2009. Using the concept of ward based NGO-run healthposts, Tshwane District, Gauteng, began implementing community oriented primary care (COPC) through ward based outreach teams (WBOT) in seven wards during 2011.Objectives: This study sought to gain insight into how primary health care providers understood and perceived the first phase of implementing COPC in the Tshwane district.Method: Qualitative research was performed through focus group interviews with staff of the seven health posts during September 2011 and October 2011. It explored primary health careproviders’ understanding, perception and experience of COPC.Results: Participants raised organisational, workplace and community relationship issues in the discussions. Organisationally, these related to the process of initiating and setting up COPC and the relationship between governmental and nongovernmental organisations. Issues that arose around the workplace related to the job situation and employment status and remuneration of health post staff. Community related issues centred on the role and relationship between service providers and their communities.Conclusion: COPC touched a responsive nerve in the health care system, both nationallyand locally. It was seen as an effective way to respond to South Africa’s crisis of health care. Initiating the reform was inevitably a complex process. In this initial phase of implementing COPC the political commitment of governmental and nongovernmental organisations was evident. What still had to be worked through was how the collaboration would materialise in practice on the ground.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
H. C. Okeke ◽  
P. Bassey ◽  
O. A. Oduwole ◽  
A. Adindu

Different mix of clients visit primary health care (PHC) facilities, and the quality of services is critical even in rural communities. The study objective was to determine the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and client satisfaction with the quality of PHC services in Calabar Municipality, Cross River State, Nigeria. Specifically to describe aspects of the health facilities that affect client satisfaction; determine the health-care providers’ attitude that influences client satisfaction; and determine the socio-demographic characteristics that influence client satisfaction with PHC services. A cross-sectional survey was adopted. Ten PHCs and 500 clients utilizing services in PHC centers in Calabar Municipality were randomly selected. Clients overall satisfaction with PHC services was high (80.8%). Divorced clients were less (75.0%) satisfied than the singles and the married counterparts (81%), respectively. Clients that were more literate as well as those with higher income were less satisfied, 68.0% and 50.0%, respectively, compared to the less educated and lower-income clients, 92.0% and 85.0% respectively. These differences in satisfaction were statistically significant (P = 0.001). Hence, it was shown that client characteristics such as income and literacy level show a significant negative relationship with the clients satisfaction with the quality of PHC services in Calabar Municipality.


2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Mauldon

This paper reports on the attitudes of a sample of health care providers towards the use of telehealth to support rural patients and integrate rural primary health and urban hospital care. Telehealth and other information technologies hold the promise of improving the quality of care for people in rural and remote areas and for supporting rural primary health care providers. While seemingly beneficial for rural patients, study participants believed that telehealth remains underused and poorly integrated into their practice. In general, participants thought that telehealth is potentially beneficial but places constraints on their activities, and few actually used it. Published literature usually reports either on the success of telehealth pilot projects or initiatives that are well resourced and do not reflect the constraints of routine practice, or has an international focus limiting its relevance to the Australian context. Because of the paucity of systematic and generalisable research into the effects of the routine use of telehealth to support rural patients, it is unclear why health care professionals choose to provide such services or the costs and benefits they incur in doing so. Research and policy initiatives continue to be needed to identify the impact of telehealth within the context of Australian primary health care and to develop strategies to support its use.


2021 ◽  
pp. 246-249
Author(s):  
Lalit Sankhe ◽  
Chhaya Rajguru ◽  
Monali Kadam

Background: Malnutrition is a complex problem with double burden of undernutrition and overweight. India is no exception to it but there is a higher level of malnutrition in tribal blocks and to curb this situation,various activities have been undertaken but the slow pace of decline in malnutrition is a concern.The role of frontline health workers is crucial in strengthening primary health care.They serve as the bridge between the formal government health-care system and the community.The present study helps to seek the perception of primary health care service providers and challenges faced by them in reducing child deaths due to malnutrition. Method: A descriptive cross sectional qualitative study was conducted during August 2019 - February 2020 in three talukas of a tribal district. Focus group discussions (FGD) for each service providers Auxiliary Nurse midwife (ANM), Anganwadi worker (AWW) and Accredited Social Health activist (ASHA) were conducted. All the FGDs were audio recorded and transcripts were prepared,a thematic analysis framework was used for doing the analysis. Results: Most of the service providers were aware regarding their roles and responsibilities in implementation of schemes/ services related to malnutrition. The important factors influencing their performance were superstitions, more reliance on health seeking from unqualified health care providers and faith healers, poor road connectivity, network issues,lack of refresher training,overburdening with work,poor incentives. Conclusion: Specific training programs to tackle malnutrition along with frequent refresher training of the service providers,better infrastructure and human resources will help in achieving the desired results in future in dealing with child malnutrition.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document