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Purpose: Although previous research indicates that care transitions differ between rural and urban areas, the knowledge of challenges related to care transitions in rural areas appears limited. This study aimed to provide a deeper understanding of what registered nurses' perceive as the main concerns in care transitions from hospital care to home healthcare in rural areas, and how they handle these during the care transition process. Methods: A Constructivist Grounded Theory method based on individual interviews with 21 registered nurses. Results: The main concern in the transition process was "Care coordination in a complex context". The complexity stemmed from several environmental and organizational factors, creating a messy and fragmented context for registered nurses to navigate. The core category "Actively communicating to reduce patient safety risks" was explained by the three categories-- "Collaborating on expected care needs", "Anticipating obstacles" and "Timing the departure". Conclusions: The study shows a very complex and stressed process that includes several organizations and actors. Reducing risks during the transition process can be facilitated by clear guidelines, tools for communication across organizations and sufficient staffing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Registered nurses are critical for the delivery of high-quality healthcare during care transitions from hospital to home. Older co-morbid patients are most vulnerable during these transitions. A growing population of older adults with a higher prevalence of diseases implies increased demands on healthcare and its quality, which is affected by the environment where healthcare is provided. One can draw inferences on the quality of care when classified into structure, process, and outcome. This study explored registered nurses' perspectives on structural conditions that promote or hinder good quality care during transitions from hospital to home healthcare in rural areas. Methods: We conducted a reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with 21 registered nurses experienced in care transitions from hospital to home healthcare in a rural area of Sweden. We based the theoretically driven analysis on Donabedian's definition of structures regarding the quality of care. Results: The structural conditions were represented by three themes; (I) "Distances and inaccessibility" explains physical matters such as geographical (in)accessibility, bed (un)availability and electronic aids. (II) "Competence of the actors" explains continuity, knowledge and collaboration among the individuals involved. (III) "Levels of organizational governance" explains laws, expectations, values, and agreements regarding care transitions. All themes involved promoting and hindering factors, mutually influencing aspects of the others. Conclusions: Care actors, educators, managers, and decision-makers need to understand how structures in the physical, social and symbolic environment interactively affect the quality of care during care transitions since understanding this is a prerequisite for improvements. These aspects must be considered to optimize conditions for high-quality care transitions from hospital to rural home healthcare and implemented continuously to improve transitions within the respective organization and inter-organizationally. According to this study, these aspects are critical in a rural context due to structural care quality influencers such as geographical challenges, difficulties in finding competent staff members, development of technical devices, and access to the Internet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: International and national guidelines state that palliative care should be offered to everyone who needs it. To promote the implementation of palliative care in nursing homes, a partnership collaboration was initiated with the goal of implementing high quality palliative care. The partnership consisted of three partner groups: a project group from a non-profit organisation providing health care, managers at the nursing homes and an academic partner. The aim was to explore the social processes within academic-community partnership in a collaboration project. Methods: Digital focus group discussions were conducted with 16 participants, representing all three partner groups. One individual digital interview was also carried out. A constructivist perspective of a grounded theory approach was used for data analysis. Results: The core category, partnership positioning, covers the social processes of the academic-community partnership in a collaboration project to implement and evaluate health-promoting interventions in clinical health care. The core category was found to have four categories: Pre-positioning, Co-positioning, Re-positioning and GoOn-positioning. The process of partnership positioning is conceptualised in a model. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that a new partnership in an implementation project needs holistic, systemic thinking. To enhance implementation in a collaborative project involving different professionals and actors a plan is required to facilitate positioning activities. The process, the roles and the components need to be clearly defined and documented, and the management of a system requires knowledge of the interrelationships between all the components within the system. The development of a conceptual model of Partnership Positioning contributes to knowledge concerning the social dynamic processes which can be applied to support future academic-community collaboration and/or implementation projects. Trial registration: Not applicable. The present study has not been considered as a clinical trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim The aim of this study was to describe the role transformation of school nurses towards primary health promotion, and secondary preventive and health treatment work. Background According to the Swedish educational act, the school nurse profession has changed towards being mainly health promotion and secondary preventive and health treatment work. Method The study consisted of a qualitative study design with content analysis inspired by Elo and Kyngäs. Sixteen individual interviews were conducted with school nurses from across one county. Findings The role transformation towards a more health promotion was described by school nurses’ statements. The process of the transformation differed among the school nurses. Three categories illuminated their work; professional approach, student-centred and collaboration. Conclusion The role transformation process required enhanced relation and communicational skills. Structured collegial supervision might support the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]