scholarly journals Perceived Impact and Usability of a Care Management and Coordination System in Delivering Services to Vulnerable Populations: A Mixed Methods Study (Preprint)

Author(s):  
Rubina Rizvi ◽  
Courtney VanHouten ◽  
Tiffani J Bright ◽  
Mollie M McKillop ◽  
Shira Alevy ◽  
...  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubina Rizvi ◽  
Courtney VanHouten ◽  
Tiffani J Bright ◽  
Mollie M McKillop ◽  
Shira Alevy ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND People with complex needs, such as those experiencing homelessness, require concurrent, seamless support from multiple social service agencies. Sonoma County, CA has one of the nation’s largest homeless populations among largely suburban communities. To support client-centered care, the county deployed a Care Management and Coordination System (CMCS). This system was comprised of Watson Care Manager (WCM), a front-end system, and Connect 360, which is an integrated data hub that aggregates information from various systems into a single client record. OBJECTIVE This study evaluated the perceived impact and usability of WCM in delivering services to the homeless population in Sonoma County. METHODS A mixed methods study was conducted to identify ways in which WCM helps to coordinate care. Interviews, observations and surveys were conducted, and transcripts and field notes were thematically analyzed and directed by a grounded theory approach. Responses to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) survey were analyzed. RESULTS Sixteen participants were interviewed, including WCM users (n=8) and department leadership (n=8). Three interdisciplinary team meetings were observed, and WCM users (n=8) were surveyed. WCM provided a central shared platform where client-related, up-to-date, comprehensive, and reliable information from participating agencies was consolidated. Factors that facilitated WCM use were users’ enthusiasm regarding the tool functionalities, scalability and agency collaboration. Constraining factors included the (a) suboptimal awareness of care delivery goals and functionality of the system among the community, (b) sensitivities about data sharing and legal requirements and (c) constrained funding from government and non-government organizations. Overall, users found WCM to be a useful tool that was easy to use and helped to enhance performance. CONCLUSIONS WCM supports delivery of care to individuals with complex needs. Integration of data and information in a CMCS can facilitate coordinated care. Future research should examine WCM and similar CMCSs in diverse populations and settings.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. e042579
Author(s):  
Leonardo W Heyerdahl ◽  
Muriel Vray ◽  
Vincent Leger ◽  
Lénaig Le Fouler ◽  
Julien Antouly ◽  
...  

IntroductionVoluntary organisations provide essential support to vulnerable populations and front-line health responders to the COVID-19 pandemic. The French Red Cross (FRC) is prominent among organisations offering health and support services in the current crisis. Comprised primarily of lay volunteers and some trained health workers, FRC volunteers in the Paris (France) region have faced challenges in adapting to pandemic conditions, working with sick and vulnerable populations, managing limited resources and coping with high demand for their services. Existing studies of volunteers focus on individual, social and organisational determinants of motivation, but attend less to contextual ones. Public health incertitude about the COVID-19 pandemic is an important feature of this pandemic. Whether and how uncertainty interacts with volunteer understandings and experiences of their work and organisational relations to contribute to Red Cross worker motivation is the focus of this investigation.Methods and analysisThis mixed-methods study will investigate volunteer motivation using ethnographic methods and social network listening. Semi-structured interviews and observations will illuminate FRC volunteer work relations, experiences and concerns during the pandemic. A questionnaire targeting a sample of Paris region volunteers will allow quantification of motivation. These findings will iteratively shape and be influenced by a social media (Twitter) analysis of biomedical and public health uncertainties and debates around COVID-19. These tweets provide insight into a French lay public’s interpretations of these debates. We evaluate whether and how socio-political conditions and discourses concerning COVID-19 interact with volunteer experiences, working conditions and organisational relations to influence volunteer motivation. Data collection began on 15 June 2020 and will continue until 15 April 2021.Ethics and disseminationThe protocol has received ethical approval from the Institut Pasteur Institutional Review Board (no 2020-03). We will disseminate findings through peer-reviewed articles, conference presentations and recommendations to the FRC.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 311
Author(s):  
Sefollah Alaei ◽  
Ali Valinejadi ◽  
Ghasem Deimazar ◽  
Sohaila Zarein ◽  
Zahra Abbasy ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Catherine Hayes ◽  
Siobhan Devlin ◽  
Diane Westwood ◽  
Iain Garfield ◽  
Philip Beardmore ◽  
...  

This study reports on the findings of a mixed methods study that was undertaken to establish student perceptions of academic learning environments and the perceived impact of these on their articulation of employability skills. This was so student perspectives on employability could be used to inform reflection on pedagogic practices for their educators in higher education. Using a purposive sample of 250 students based in a recently modernised Sciences Complex Building in a Higher Education Institution (HEI), the study was cross sectional and descriptive by design. The social learning spaces researched were perceived by participants to provide optimal academic learning environments for their development of knowledge, skills and professionalism through certain signature pedagogies as they progressed through their programmes of study. Students also expressed the view that their acquisition of functional skills were significantly more important than any personal attributes/characteristics that they brought to programmes. What also mattered was whether the importance of certain graduate skills to the workplace had been made explicit to them so that they could see the relevance of their studies to practice. In defining 'graduateness', in employability terms the research concluded that it was necessary to consider how it was shaped by the context of delivery of subject disciplines, stages of academic progression, and the use of social learning spaces, as they all had a significant impact on the perceptions students held about their potential employability upon completion of their academic programmes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 660-672
Author(s):  
Suzanne H. Kimball ◽  
Toby Hamilton ◽  
Erin Benear ◽  
Jonathan Baldwin

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the emotional tone and verbal behavior of social media users who self-identified as having tinnitus and/or hyperacusis that caused self-described negative consequences on daily life or health. Research Design and Method An explanatory mixed-methods design was utilized. Two hundred “initial” and 200 “reply” Facebook posts were collected from members of a tinnitus group and a hyperacusis group. Data were analyzed via the LIWC 2015 software program and compared to typical bloggers. As this was an explanatory mixed-methods study, we used qualitative thematic analyses to explain, interpret, and illustrate the quantitative results. Results Overall, quantitative results indicated lower overall emotional tone for all categories (tinnitus and hyperacusis, initial and reply), which was mostly influenced by higher negative emotion. Higher levels of authenticity or truth were found in the hyperacusis sample but not in the tinnitus sample. Lower levels of clout (social standing) were indicated in all groups, and a lower level of analytical thinking style (concepts and complex categories rather than narratives) was found in the hyperacusis sample. Additional analysis of the language indicated higher levels of sadness and anxiety in all groups and lower levels of anger, particularly for initial replies. These data support prior findings indicating higher levels of anxiety and depression in this patient population based on the actual words in blog posts and not from self-report questionnaires. Qualitative results identified 3 major themes from both the tinnitus and hyperacusis texts: suffering, negative emotional tone, and coping strategies. Conclusions Results from this study suggest support for the predominant clinical view that patients with tinnitus and hyperacusis have higher levels of anxiety and depression than the general population. The extent of the suffering described and patterns of coping strategies suggest clinical practice patterns and the need for research in implementing improved practice plans.


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