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This paper presents current information on policy developments, service design, best practices, and approaches to empower the users of health and medical care services for people with intellectual disabilities in Poland. Polish regulations allow systemic support to be provided for all people with disabilities. However, Polish patients with intellectual disabilitiy (PwID) and their caregivers face many barriers. Although a key obstacle is the lack of a standard definition that approaches disability in an interdisciplinary way, PwID are also more likely to experience difficulties in personal communication in medical settings and less likely to encounter specialists prepared to work with this group. There is also a need to pay greater attention to the expectations of PwID. To facilitate a holistic approach to diagnosis and therapy, there needs to be coordination between different specialists, including medical staff, paramedics, psychologists, and teachers. Providing personal communication training for medical personnel, as well as developing dedicated procedures for PwID in primary health care, clinics and hospitals, will improve equal access to health and health literacy for all in Poland. Even so, it is important to respect the autonomy of PwID and the commitment of caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors report on a study addressing gaps in the literature regarding parents' experiences of team-based approaches for their children with disabilities in practice in early intervention services. Specifically, this study examined the facilitators and barriers of the multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary models through a qualitative, grounded theory approach employed in which semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with 19 parents (15 mothers and four fathers from 18 families) of children with disabilities from two early intervention services in Ireland. The results revealed that both models contained client-centered values for parents, such as enabling a child/family-centered model and facilitating parent empowerment. Also, parents reported a range of obstacles, which included misuse of time, inefficient delivery of services, lack of support, and their sense of confusion shifting from one model to another. The delivery of a key working system was also seen as worthwhile by parents. The authors concluded that parents placed the highest value on team guidance and teams' ability to promote optimal development for children. The authors note that their findings suggest that considerable gaps remain between policy and service provision in early intervention services in the Republic of Ireland regarding implementation of best practice team models for children with disabilities and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthcare pathways are a relatively new approach to delivering care in intellectual disability services. The authors endeavored to ascertain and explore successes and challenges in the implementation of care pathways in a National Health Service adult intellectual disability service in Leicestershire, UK. Data were obtained from a variety of sources including observations of multidisciplinary team meetings, issue logs, and feedback from health professionals. Constant comparative analysis identified 10 themes: communication between health professionals; clarity and dissemination of relevant documentation; multidisciplinary working; role of health professionals; role of administrative staff; locality differences; information technology systems; care pathway procedures; attitudes toward care pathways; and impact on clients. It was found that a new implementation of care pathways approach to service delivery in the healthcare setting can be challenging for health professionals. Some of the challenges were generic to service change and could be addressed through careful and organized preplanning of the implementation process. Others, such as organizational culture and attitudes within the organization, were contextual and may be unique to each service and warrant significant advance consideration when attempting implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]