Aligning Health Care and Social Services for Patients with Complex Needs: The Multiple Roles of Interorganizational Relationships

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-41
Author(s):  
Amanda L. Brewster
Author(s):  
Miriam Boeri

Virtually all the women who used drugs into their adulthood had experienced rape, molestation, or abuse before they were adults. Ingrid was introduced to prostitution when she ran away from abusive foster parents. She never had a steady relationship, a conventional job, or a stable residence. The stories in this chapter illustrate the importance of social roles for women; yet, while social roles can be sources of strength, they can also be sources of stigma when women do not fulfill gendered roles to the standards of conventional society. Their multiple roles as mothers, partners, and friends were often in conflict, such as when partners were caught with drugs. Under threat of losing her children, Martha left her husband, a marijuana dealer, although he was a good husband and father, only to have her children taken away later due to her alcoholism, induced by loneliness. Women who had economic resources could afford the best treatment, but their road to recovery was through multiple relapses. Solutions that worked for the women included unconditional love, supportive housing, targeted treatment, and comprehensive social services. Mothers needed childcare services along with job training and employment. Aging women needed health care to address years of neglect.


2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Nordström ◽  
Irene Josephson ◽  
Berith Hedberg ◽  
Sofia Kjellström

Agenda for collaboration or an agency agenda? Professionals’ experiences of collaboration according to a coordinated individual planAn increasing number of children and adolescents develop complex needs that require simultaneous action by different professionals. Several reports state that efforts for these children and adolescents have become increasingly specialized and fragmented. Since 2010, there are statutory requirements for collaboration according to a coordinated individual plan (CIP) between health care and social services. Pre-school and school can after regional agreement be involved in the co-ordination as equal partner. Collaboration in line with CIP is expected to offset the fragmentation for benefit of the service users’ ability to monitor and comprehend interventions. The aim was to investigate professionals’ experiences of CIP. The study consists of qualitative analysis of 12 focus group interviews with a total of 71 staff with different professions in health care, education and social services about their experiences of CIP. The results indicate that the participants act according to their core mission: nurturing, teaching and investigation. Two main categories with four sub-categories each appeared in the analysis. The main category, hindering factors, contains the categories: different mandates and requirements, requirements for presence initiative, questioning and censure, and timelines and prioritization. The main category of facilitating factors contains the categories: similar interpretation of common agreement, mutual respect and shared learning, common terminology and documentation, and willingness to collaborate. The analysis indicate that CIP was perceived as alternating between, on the one hand, a pro-active and service-focused tool, and on the other hand, a competing and compelling professional instrument.


Author(s):  
Lyudmila Kaspruk

When analyzing the historical and medical aspects of the organization of medical and social services for the elderly and senile people in Russia in the late XX — early XXI centuries not only obvious achievements in this sphere, but also a number of problems requiring solution were identified. The primary role in the delivery of medical care to geriatric patients is assigned to the primary health care sector. However the work of the geriatric service in the format of a single system for the provision of long-term medical and social care based on the continuity of patient management between differ- ent levels of the health care system and between the health and social protection services is not well organized. There is no clear coordination and interaction between health care and social protection institutions, functions of which include providing care to older citizens, and it significantly reduces the effectiveness of the provision of both medical and social services.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gill Kazevman ◽  
Marck Mercado ◽  
Jennifer Hulme ◽  
Andrea Somers

UNSTRUCTURED Vulnerable populations have been identified as having higher infection rates and poorer COVID-19 related outcomes, likely due to their inability to readily access primary care, follow public health directives and adhere to self-isolation guidelines. As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many health care services have adopted new digital solutions, relying on phone and internet connectivity. Yet, persons who are digitally inaccessible, such as those struggling with poverty or homelessness, are often unable to utilize these services. In response to this newly highlighted social disparity known as “digital health inequity”, emergency physicians at the University Health Network, Toronto, initiated a program called “PHONE CONNECT”. This novel approach attempts to improve patients’ access to health care, information and social services, as well as improve their ability to adhere to public health directives (social isolation and contact tracing). While similar programs addressing the same emerging issues have been recently described in the media, this is the first time phones are provided as a health care intervention in an emergency department. This innovative ED point-of-care intervention may have a significant impact on improving the health outcomes for vulnerable people during the COVID-19 pandemic, and even beyond it.


Author(s):  
Rakhshan Kamran

Abstract In December 2007, the House of Commons unanimously supported Jordan’s Principle, a commitment that all First Nations children would receive the health care products, social services, and supports, and education they need, in memory of Jordan River Anderson. However, the process of applying for Jordan’s Principle was convoluted and not transparent, leaving several cases not being responded to. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found the definition and implementation of Jordan’s Principle to be racist and discriminatory in 2016, ordering the Canadian government to make immediate changes. Failing to make changes to Jordan’s Principle, the Canadian government was found to be noncompliant with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal orders in 2018. This article provides one case example of Jordan’s Principle that was not responded to, details on the current status of Jordan’s Principle, and information on the recent implementation of the Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families.


Author(s):  
Leso Munala ◽  
Emily Welle ◽  
Nene Okunna ◽  
Emily Hohenshell

Sexual violence is one of the most common forms of violence against women in Kenya. This study documents the care of sexual violence survivors from the perspective of health care practitioners based on an analytic framework developed in studies of the political-economy of health to examine the effects of International Financial Institutions’ conditionalities on the allocation of national fiscal resources. The study documented the working conditions of practitioners and myriad challenges that they experience in providing quality services to sexual violence survivors. The issues reflected in the results are grounded in social structural inequities driven by the global political economic policies that perpetuate poverty and dependency throughout Africa and the developing world. Macro-level variables associated with health care provision are assessed with a focus on global macroeconomic policies established by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, their impact on Kenya’s health economy and their ultimate impact on the capacity of the health system to meet the complex needs of survivors of sexual violence. In this paper, study results are analysed within the context of these macroeconomic policies and their legacy.


This volume tells the little-known story of the Dominican Family—priests, sisters, brothers, contemplative nuns, and lay people—and integrates it into the history of the United States. Starting after the Civil War, the book takes a thematic approach through twelve essays examining Dominican contributions to the making of the modern United States by exploring parish ministry, preaching, health care, education, social and economic justice, liturgical renewal and the arts, missionary outreach and contemplative prayer, ongoing internal formation and renewal, and models of sanctity. It charts the effects of the United States on Dominican life as well as the Dominican contribution to the larger U.S. history. When the country was engulfed by wave after wave of immigrants and cities experienced unchecked growth, Dominicans provided educational institutions; community, social, and religious centers; and health care and social services. When epidemic disease hit various locales, Dominicans responded with nursing care and spiritual sustenance. As the United States became more complex and social inequities appeared, Dominicans cried out for social and economic justice. Amidst the ugliness and social dislocation of modern society, Dominicans offered beauty through the liturgical arts, the fine arts, music, drama, and film, all designed to enrich the culture. Through it all, the Dominicans cultivated their own identity as well, undergoing regular self-examination and renewal.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-58
Author(s):  
Konstantinos N Fountoulakis ◽  
Kyriakos Souliotis

AbstractRecently the Norwegian Health Minister ordered the creation of medication-free treatment wards as a result of the lobbying by patients’ groups and activists. The idea behind this is that patients should have the right to choose their treatment, but for the first time, with this arrangement, the user/patient does not choose between treatment options; he literally determines by himself what efficacious treatment is. In our opinion this is another step towards a ‘reverse stigma’ which denies patients the right to be considered as such and eventually kicks them out of the health care system, deprives them of the right for proper treatment and care and instead puts them at the jurisdiction of the much cheaper and ineffective social services.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 93
Author(s):  
Benjamin Yawney ◽  
Akhter Faroque

We study the relative importance of government health care and social services spending in the short, medium and long run across vector error correction models for six population health indicators. Each model takes into account the key time series properties of the health input and output data and also controls for the broader socio-economic, demographic, life-style and environmental determinants of health. The evidence shows that both types of spending contribute significantly to extending life expectancy and lowering mortality. However, the relative contributions of health care spending are bigger in the short run, while those of social services spending are bigger in the medium and the long run. Any policy of re-allocation of resources from health care to social services must take this trade-off into account.


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