scholarly journals Editorial

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Heather Gardner

How should we organise community health services? This is the question posed by Swerissen in his paper in the Forum section of this issue. Within the context of reforms to the health system with an increased focus on improving efficiency, he argues that the organisation of community services should be driven by the functional relations between general care, acute care and co-ordinated care. The efficiency of vertical and horizontal integration and the creation of community health networks is considered in relation to a number of issues including distributional equity. He concludes that community health networks offer the most efficient model for the delivery of community based public health and general, acute and coordinated care services. It is hoped that this paper and the arguments presented will give rise to debate within the primary health care sector.

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hal Swerissen

This paper reviews the organisation of Victorian community health services in the context of the general direction of reform for the Australian and Victorian health systems. It notes that the emphasis has shifted to a greater focus on improving the efficiency of the relationship between needs, resources, services and outcomes. Within this context, in addition to public health measures, national reforms have advocated the creation of funding and organisational arrangements around three service functions: general care, acute care and co-ordinated care. It is argued that the organisation of community services should be driven by these functional relations, not vice versa. The efficiency of vertical and horizontal integration and the creation of community health networks is considered in relation to transaction costs, organisational scale, transition costs and distributional equity. It is concluded that community health networks offer the most efficient model for the delivery of community based public health and general, acute and co-ordinated care services.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (6) ◽  
pp. 1061-1061
Author(s):  
RICHARD M. NARKEWICZ

Assuring that all children with special health care needs have access to family-centered, community-based, coordinated care, as described by Brewer et al in this issue of Pediatrics, is a timely and commendable goal that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) shares. Pediatricians have a major role to play in the shaping of these services and assuring their accessibility by the children who need them. Last winter, the AAP held three task force meetings to discuss the role of pediatricians vis-á-vis the case manager/care coordinator. A consensus emerged from these meetings that a variety of roles should be available to pediatricians, depending upon the child's diagnosis, the pediatrician's training and interest, the skills of the family, and the community services available.


1995 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Duckett ◽  
Tracie Hogan ◽  
Jan Southgate

Ultimately, the reform directions announced by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) in April 1995 have the potential to touch all aspects of health care and community wellbeing, and the impact will be felt as much by community health services, and for groups with special needs, such as people from non-English speaking backgrounds, as it will for acute care services.


1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret L. Basser

A community health outreach service was piloted among older homeless Sydney men in 1997/98 from Darlinghurst Community Health Centre, responding to an observed disparity between their high health needs and low use of community health care. The project tried to improve their access to community health services, their health and quality of life by allocating a project worker who built referral networks, assisted the men and advocated for them with other agencies. From the impact evaluation, the conclusion could be drawn that the men's access to community services improved, but whether lasting benefits were delivered by the interventions remained ambiguous. Referrals of homeless men from GPs and hospitals to the health centre increased in the year following the pilot, despite the absence of a project worker for most of that time. The project was guided by an inter-sectoral advisory committee, whose deliberations altered the evaluation questions, the interpretation of findings and recommendations. Reflection on this process led to some lessons about working with committees. The pilot project has contributed to the current planning in South Eastern Sydney Area Health Service to address homeless people's health care issues by highlighting some of the issues and viable responses to them.


Author(s):  
Guey-Shin Shyu ◽  
Shinn-Jou Lin ◽  
Wei-Ta Fang ◽  
Bai-You Cheng

Engaging in social contributions to enhance social participation and attending community experiential service learning or internship courses have become an essential learning experience for university students. On the basis of postmodern education theories, this study adopted images and oral accounts involving personal experiences to construct a postmodern education research scheme by using the method of collaborative ethnography. This study selected and performed the following services: filming a community documentary, administering community health dance classes, and archiving community cultural artifacts in databases. Interviews were also administered to facilitate implementation of the actual services. Community health services commonly seen in Taiwan and abroad were compiled, and the resources required for each service were examined. Subsequently, factor analysis was performed to explore the characteristic of these services in order to recommend feasible services for university students to undertake. The results indicated that the eight resources required for the 59 common community health services were (1) a designated space or venue, (2) materials, (3) monetary resources, (4) human resources, (5) expertise, (6) professional equipment, (7) patience, and (8) empathy. The results revealed three principal components, namely labor services, high-resource services, and professional services, for a total explanatory power of 67.99%; the individual explanatory power of these components accounted for 25.04%, 21.81%, and 21.15%, respectively. Next, community health care services suitable for university students to perform were selected and implemented, and these services were well received. The study results indicated that community and environmental justice can be realized by identifying with the value of community health services and promoting postmodern education theories and social norms. The research results are suitable for implementation after the COVID-19 pandemic.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 354-375
Author(s):  
Ryan Palmer ◽  
Martin Utley ◽  
Naomi J Fulop ◽  
Stephen O’Connor

Community health care services are considered integral to overcoming future problems in health care. However, this sector faces its own challenges, such as how to organise services to provide coordinated care given: their physical distribution, patients using multiple services, increased patient use and differing patient needs. The aim of this work was to explore, analyse and understand patterns in community referrals for patients aged 65 years and over, and their use of multiple services through data visualisation. Working with a large community provider, these methods helped researchers and service managers to investigate questions that were otherwise difficult to answer from raw data. Each map focuses on a different characteristic of community referrals: patients reusing services, concurrent uses of different services and patterns of subsequent referrals. We apply these methods to routine patient data and discuss their implications in designing of a single point of access – a service for streamlining referrals.


2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Gwyneth M. Jolley ◽  
Stacey Masters

This paper describes the links between community health services and non-government organisations in two regions of South Australia, and the factors impacting on these collaborative ventures. Changes in the organisation and funding of human services have created both opportunities and challenges for community health services and non-government organisations, as distinct entities and in relationship with one another. This study confirms that there are primary promoters of, and requisites for, effective collaboration, such as shared client group, similar values and approaches, and capacity at individual and organisational levels. Time and resource constraints are revealed as the most significant barriers to collaboration. Government policy and practice have a powerful influence on collaboration between community health services and non-government organisations. Government policy directions and models of funding may act to support or inhibit collaboration and the effects of these should be evaluated in terms of their impact on the capacity of organisations to work together to provide integrated and coordinated care.


2021 ◽  
pp. 160-170
Author(s):  
Kylie Taylor ◽  
Ameer Mody

Pediatric Emergency Telehealth (PET) has enormous potential to help address the health care needs of children and families. In some regions, health care is particularly fragmented or difficult to access for the pediatric patient. Telehealth may bridge those gaps, improve continuity of care, and enhance communication between children’s hospitals and general pediatricians practicing in both rural and urban communities. Launching a PET service requires careful preparation with community health networks and stakeholders to ensure that the model is providing adjunct services as opposed to on-demand primary care services. General pediatricians’ offices that lack the capability to implement a virtual care system may seek consultation from the PET service in terms of triage, recommendations, or direct patient care. A substantial effort is required at initiation of a PET program but is useful in mitigating disease exposure such as Covid-19, as well as improving emergency department metrics such as patient satisfaction, length of stay, wait times, and revenue capture.


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