Search

Introduction: Since 2016, Norwegian municipalities have been obliged to provide municipal acute 24-hour services representing a service before or instead of hospital treatment. This study explores two municipal acute units (MAUs) as part of the clinical pathway for older patients. Methods: Patients and healthcare providers from MAUs, purchaser offices, home-based nursing, and physicians were interviewed. Interview transcripts were analysed using systematic text condensation. Results: The collaboration between the MAU staff and the GPs, the purchaser offices and the home-based services is described as challenging, mostly due to disagreement regarding patients’ admission and discharge. The providers’ different understanding seems to derive especially from where they are working in a way that suits their own work functions. An exigent collaboration between providers in the MAUs and their collaborative partners hampers the clinical pathway for older patients in the municipal healthcare service. Conclusion and discussion: When a new healthcare service such as an MAU becomes a part of the clinical pathway in a municipality, it is important to invest a considerable effort in measures designed to strengthen relational and structural collaboration to make the clinical pathway smooth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This article summarizes and synthesizes the findings of four separate but inter-linked empirical projects which explored challenges of collaboration in the Norwegian health system from the perspectives of providers and patients. The results of the four projects are summarised in eight articles. Methods: The eight articles constituted our empirical material. Meta-ethnography was used as a method to integrate, translate, and synthesize the themes and concepts contained in the articles in order to understand how challenges related to collaboration impact on clinical work. Results: Providers' collaboration across all contexts was hampered by organizational and individual factors, including, differences in professional power, knowledge bases, and professional culture. The lack of appropriate collaboration between providers impeded clinical work. Mental health service users experienced fragmented services leading to insecurity and frustration. The lack of collaboration resulted in inadequate rehabilitation services and lengthened the institutional stay for older patients. Conclusion: Focusing on the different perspectives and the inequality in power between patients and healthcare providers and between different providers might contribute to a better environment for achieving appropriate collaboration. Organizational systems need to be redesigned to better nurture collaborative relationships and information sharing and support integrated working between providers, health care professionals and patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fragmented services are a well-known problem in the mental health sector. Mental health service users' experiences of treatment and care can provide knowledge for developing more user-oriented continuity of care. We followed nine young adults with mental health illnesses and complex needs, conducting four interviews with each informant in the course of a year. The aim was to capture their experiences and views about treatment and care, focusing on (dis)continuities and episodes occurring through that year. The users' experiences were affected by shifts and transitions between institutions, units and practitioners while their need was predictability and stability. A good and stable patient-provider relationship was considered highly useful but difficult to establish. The participants had a strong desire for explanation, adequate treatment and progress, but very different perceptions of the usefulness of diagnoses. Some felt rejected when they tried to tell the therapist about their trauma. Lack of user-involvement characterized many of the participants' stories while they desired to become more engaged and included in important decisions concerning treatment and medication. The participants' experiences stand in contrast to key policy goals of coherent mental health services. The article discusses what may explain the gap between policy and reality, and how continuity of care may be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Users of mental health services often move between different primary and specialised health and care services, depending on their current condition, and this often leads to fragmentation of care. The aim of this study was to map care pathways in the case of young adult mental health service users and to identify key obstacles to continuity of care. Method: Quarterly semi-structured interviews were performed with nine young adults with mental health difficulties, following their pathways in and out of different services in the course of a year. Results: Key obstacles to continuity of care included the mental health system's lack of access to treatment, lack of integration between different specialist services, lack of progress in care and inadequate coordination tools such as 'Individual Plan' and case conferences that did not prevent fragmented care pathways. Conclusions: Continuity of care should be more explicitly linked to aspirations for development and progress in the users' care pathways, and how service providers can cooperate with users to actually develop and make progress. Coordination tools such as case conferences and 'individual plans' should be upgraded to this end and utilised to the utmost. This may be the most effective way to counteract the system obstacles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Different care models have been established to achieve more coordinated clinical pathways for older patients in the transition between hospital and home. This study explores an intermediate unit's role in a clinical pathway for older patients with somatic diseases. Theory and methods: Qualitative data were collected via interviews, observations, and a questionnaire. Participants included patients and healthcare providers within both specialist and primary healthcare. Transcripts of interviews and field notes were analyzed using a method of systematic text condensation. Results: Healthcare providers in the hospital, the intermediate unit, and the municipalities have different opinions about who is a 'suitable' patient for the unit and what is the proper time for hospital discharge. This results in time-consuming negotiations between the hospital and the unit. Incompatible computer systems increase the healthcare provider's workload. Several informants are doubtful as to whether a stay in the unit is useful to the patients, while the patients are mostly pleased with their stay and the transferral. Conclusion and discussion: This study describes challenges that may occur when a new unit is established in an existing healthcare system in order to achieve an appropriate clinical pathway from hospital to home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]