Can primary care work for alcohol-related admissions to tertiary care?

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 32-34
Author(s):  
Jeff Fernandez
Keyword(s):  
2007 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 550-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Lynch

This paper examines the nature of love labouring and explores how it can be distinguished from other forms of care work. It provides a three fold taxonomy for analysing other-centred work, distinguishing between work required to maintain primary care relations (love labour), secondary care relations (general care work) and tertiary care relations (solidarity work). A central theme of the paper is that primary care relations are not sustainable over time without love labour; that the realization of love, as opposed to the declaration of love, requires work. Drawing on a wide range of theoretical and empirical sources, including a study of caring undertaken by the author, the paper argues that there is mutuality, commitment, trust and responsibility at the heart of love labouring that makes it distinct from general care work and solidarity work. It sets out reasons why it is not possible to commodify the feelings, intentions and commitments of love labourers to supply them on a paid basis.


2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  

In addition to the delivery of primary care services, recent changes to the NHS in the United Kingdom have placed increasing responsibility on GPs for the commissioning of the full range of health services from prevention through to clinical interventions and rehabilitation. Whilst historically there has always been an expectation that primary care professionals were ideally placed to provide support for prevention as well as treatment, their active engagement in the promotion of physical activity has remained largely superficial. With notable exceptions where individuals have a personal interest or commitment, the majority of health professionals tend to limit themselves to peremptory non-specific advice at best, or frequently don’t broach the subject at all. There are a number of reasons for this including increasing time pressures, a general lack of knowledge, limited evidence and concerns about litigation in the event of an adverse exercise induced event. However in the 1990s there was a surge of interest in the emerging “Exercise on Prescription” model where patients could be referred to community based exercise instructors for a structured “prescription” of exercise in community leisure centres. Despite the continuing popularity of the model there remain problems particularly in getting the active support of health professionals who generally cite the same barriers as previously identified. In an attempt to overcome some of these problems Wales established a national exercise referral scheme with an associated randomised controlled trial. The scheme evaluated well and had subsequently evolved with new developments including integration with secondary and tertiary care pathways, accredited training for exercise instructors and exit routes into alternative community based exercise opportunities.


Author(s):  
Julie Høgsgaard Andersen ◽  
Tine Tjørnhøj-Thomsen ◽  
Susanne Reventlow ◽  
Annette Sofie Davidsen

The international literature shows that primary care is well placed to address mental health problems in young people, but that primary care professionals experience a range of challenges in this regard. In Denmark, young adults who have complex psychosocial problems, and who are not in education or work, cause political and academic concern. They are also in regular contact with their general practitioners, the Danish municipalities and psychiatric services. However, little is known about general practitioners’ perspectives on caring for this vulnerable group of patients. In this article, we investigate how general practitioners’ care work is shaped by the bureaucratic management of care in a complex infrastructure network comprising the general practitioners, psychiatry, the municipalities and the young adults. The analysis is based on interviews and focus groups with general practitioners, psychiatric nurses and social workers. We employ Tronto’s concept of care and the concept of boundary work as a theoretical framework. We argue that general practitioners strive to provide care, but they are challenged by the following: contested diagnostic interpretations and the bureaucratic significance of diagnoses for the provision of care from psychiatry and the municipalities, systemic issues with handling intertwined social and mental health problems, and the young adults’ difficulties with accessing and receiving available care.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 91 (6) ◽  
pp. 1185-1189
Author(s):  
Janice R. Sargent ◽  
Lucy M. Osborn ◽  
Kenneth B. Roberts ◽  
Thomas G. DeWitt

During the past 30 years, there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of ambulatory care training in medical education. The discrepancy between education and practice was pointed out in the General Professional Education Panel report that indicated training was based largely in hospital settings even though the vast majority of doctor-patient encounters do not result in hospitalization.1 Perkoff,2 noting changes in hospital care such as shorter lengths of stay, increased outpatient care, and the need for well-trained primary care physicians, stated that programs need to make a major effort to emphasize clinical teaching in outpatient settings. Recognizing the need for these changes, the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has increased dramatically the requirement in primary care specialties for clinical ambulatory training.3 For pediatrics, these requirements have progressed from the suggestion that clinical training should be obtained in outpatient clinics (1961) to requiring clinical training in primary care clinics weekly for 3 years (1985). The problems in providing good training in ambulatory settings have been well described.2-4 In comparison inpatient teaching, training students and residents in an outpatient clinic is inefficient and costly. One of the methods suggested to address these problems has been to move ambulatory training out of tertiary care centers to community sites.5-9 Many pediatric programs are now using community sites for at least a portion of resident education.10 Alpert et al10 and Greenberg et al,11 although encouraging the use of these sites to reduce the gap between pediatric education and the service delivery system, pointed out that there are no standards for use of community sites.


2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 122-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah A. Morrow ◽  
Marcelo Kremenchutzky

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a common disabling neurologic disease with an overall prevalence in Canada of 240 in 100,000. Multiple sclerosis clinics are located at tertiary-care centers that may be difficult for a patient to access during an acute relapse. Many relapses are evaluated by primary-care physicians in private clinics or emergency departments, but these physicians' familiarity with MS is not known. Therefore, a survey was undertaken to determine the knowledge and experience of primary-care physicians regarding the diagnosis and treatment of MS relapses. A total of 1282 licensed primary-care physicians in the catchment area of the London (Ontario, Canada) Multiple Sclerosis Clinic were identified and mailed a two-page anonymous survey. A total of 237 (18.5%) responses were obtained, but only 216 (16.8%) of these respondents were still in active practice. Of these 216 physicians, only 9% reported having no MS patients in their practice, while 70% had one to five patients, 16.7% had six to ten, and 1.9% had more than ten (3.7% did not respond to this question). Corticosteroids were recognized as an MS treatment by 49.5% of the respondents, but only 43.1% identified them as a treatment for acute relapses. In addition, 31% did not know how to diagnose a relapse, and only 37% identified new signs or symptoms of neurologic dysfunction as indicating a potential relapse. Despite the high prevalence of MS in Canada, primary-care physicians require more education and support from specialists in MS care regarding the diagnosis and treatment of MS relapses.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eyal Cohen ◽  
Ashley Lacombe-Duncan ◽  
Karen Spalding ◽  
Jennifer MacInnis ◽  
David Nicholas ◽  
...  

Background Primary care medical homes may improve health outcomes for children with special healthcare needs (CSHCN), by improving care coordination. However, community-based primary care practices may be challenged to deliver comprehensive care coordination to complex subsets of CSHCN such as children with medical complexity (CMC). Linking a tertiary care center with the community may achieve cost effective and high quality care for CMC. The objective of this study was to evaluate the outcomes of community-based complex care clinics integrated with a tertiary care center. Methods A before- and after-intervention study design with mixed (quantitative/qualitative) methods was utilized. Clinics at two community hospitals distant from tertiary care were staffed by local community pediatricians with the tertiary care center nurse practitioner and linked with primary care providers. Eighty-one children with underlying chronic conditions, fragility, requirement for high intensity care and/or technology assistance, and involvement of multiple providers participated. Main outcome measures included health care utilization and expenditures, parent reports of parent- and child-quality of life [QOL (SF-36®, CPCHILD©, PedsQL™)], and family-centered care (MPOC-20®). Comparisons were made in equal (up to 1 year) pre- and post-periods supplemented by qualitative perspectives of families and pediatricians. Results Total health care system costs decreased from median (IQR) $244 (981) per patient per month (PPPM) pre-enrolment to $131 (355) PPPM post-enrolment (p=.007), driven primarily by fewer inpatient days in the tertiary care center (p=.006). Parents reported decreased out of pocket expenses (p<.0001). Parental QOL did not significantly change over the course of the study. Child QOL improved between baseline and 6 months in two PedsQL™ domains [Social (p=.01); Emotional (p=.003)], and between baseline and 1 year in two CPCHILD© domains [Health Standardization Section (p=.04); Comfort and Emotions (p=.03)], while total CPCHILD© score decreased between baseline and 1 year (p=.003). Parents and providers reported the ability to receive care close to home as a key benefit. Conclusions Complex care can be provided in community-based settings with less direct tertiary care involvement through an integrated clinic. Improvements in health care utilization and family-centeredness of care can be achieved despite minimal changes in parental perceptions of child health.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Y. Avery ◽  
Mart van de Cruys ◽  
Jos Austen ◽  
Frans Stals ◽  
Jan G. M. C. Damoiseaux

For the diagnosis of systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases (SARD), patients are screened for anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA). ANA, as assessed by indirect immunofluorescence (IIF), have a poor specificity. This hampers interpretation of positive results in clinical settings with low pretest probability of SARD. We hypothesized that the utility of positive ANA IIF results increases from primary to tertiary care. We retrospectively determined ANA, anti-ENA, and anti-dsDNA antibody prevalence in patient cohorts from primary (n=1453), secondary (n=1621), and tertiary (n=1168) care settings. Results reveal that from primary care to tertiary care, ANA prevalence increases (6.2, 10.8, and 16.0%, resp.). Moreover, in primary care low titres (70% versus 51% and 52% in secondary and tertiary care, resp.) are more frequent and anti-ENA/dsDNA reactivities are less prevalent (21% versus 39% in secondary care). Typically, in tertiary care the prevalence of anti-ENA/dsDNA reactivities (21%) is lower than expected. From this descriptive study we conclude that positive ANA IIF results are more prone to false interpretation in clinical settings with low pretest probabilities for SARD, as in primary care. Whether alternative approaches, that is, immunoadsorption of anti-DFS70 antibodies or implementation of anti-ENA screen assays, perform better, needs to be determined.


Introduction 214 Promoting emotional well-being 216 Promoting assertiveness 218 Primary care 220 Secondary care 222 Tertiary care 224 Prevalence rates 226 Factors contributing to mental health 228 Anxiety disorders 230 Psychotic disorders 232 Organic disorders 234 Dementia (in people with intellectual disability) 236 Psychopathology 238...


2005 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth M. Cohen ◽  
Robert F. Labadie ◽  
David S. Haynes

We report the results of a survey designed to investigate audiologic referral patterns of primary care physicians and, more specifically, their referral of patients for hearing aids and cochlear implants. Three hundred internal medicine and family medicine physicians were identified from a referral basin of a tertiary care center and chosen randomly to be faxed questionnaires concerning their views about patients with hearing loss, hearing loss screening and referral practices, and availability of local resources. Of the 260 physicians who received a questionnaire, 85 (32.7%) responded. Of their communities (60% of which had populations of fewer than 50,000), 82.4% had an otolaryngologist and 40% had access to an academic center. Although 97.6% of the responding physicians indicated that hearing loss affected patients’ quality of life, only 60% assessed patients for hearing loss. “Lack of time” and “more pressing issues” were the most common reasons given for not evaluating patients for hearing loss. Although 76 physicians (89.4%) said they were aware of cochlear implants, only 22 (25.9%) had referred patients for implant evaluation. Lack of referral most commonly resulted from uncertainties about “where to refer” and “which patients were potential candidates.” The results of this survey suggest that a large percentage of primary care physicians do not routinely test for hearing impairment in adults.


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