There have been great strides made in designing the administrative structures of patient-centered care, but it is still difficult to design truly patient-centered clinical routines that the entire healthcare team can enact. The kind of partnership, in which patients are fully part of the team that guides their own care, goes against so much of the training and socialization of health professionals and, for that matter, the expectations of many patients. This is particularly true for patients we sometimes call “complex.” In other contexts, we call them “high utilizers,” “disadvantaged,” “heartsink patients,” or “people with trauma histories.” Blount calls them “multiply-disadvantaged” patients. To successfully serve these patients requires our best versions of team-based care, including behavioral health and care management team members, though every member of the team needs help in engaging these patients and mutual support in adapting to the rapid changes in roles that new team approaches are creating. This book offers a summary of the approaches that are currently in growing use, such as health literacy assessment, motivational interviewing, appreciative inquiry, shared decision making, minimally disruptive care, trauma informed care, enfranchisement coaching, relationship-centered care, and family-informed care. Finally, it offers a transformative method, based on familiar elements, that is Transparent, Empowering, Activating, and Mutual: the T.E.A.M. Way.
High-quality primary care is the foundation of the health care system. It provides continuous, person-centered, relationship-based care that considers the needs and preferences of individuals, families, and communities. Without access to high-quality primary care, minor health problems can spiral into chronic disease, chronic disease management becomes difficult and uncoordinated, visits to emergency departments increase, preventive care lags, and health care spending soars to unsustainable levels. Unequal access to primary care remains a concern, and the COVID-19 pandemic amplified pervasive economic, mental health, and social health disparities that ubiquitous, high-quality primary care might have reduced. Primary care is the only health care component where an increased supply is associated with better population health and more equitable outcomes. For this reason, primary care is a common good, which makes the strength and quality of the country's primary care services a public concern. Implementing High-Quality Primary Care: Rebuilding the Foundation of Health Care puts forth an evidence-based plan with actionable objectives and recommendations for implementing high-quality primary care in the United States. The implementation plan of this report balances national needs for scalable solutions while allowing for adaptations to meet local needs.
There have been great strides made in designing the administrative structures of patient-centered care, but it is still difficult to design truly patient-centered clinical routines that the entire healthcare team can enact. The kind of partnership, in which patients are fully part of the team that guides their own care, goes against so much of the training and socialization of health professionals and, for that matter, the expectations of many patients. This is particularly true for patients we sometimes call “complex.” In other contexts, we call them “high utilizers,” “disadvantaged,” “heartsink patients,” or “people with trauma histories.” Blount calls them “multiply-disadvantaged” patients. To successfully serve these patients requires our best versions of team-based care, including behavioral health and care management team members, though every member of the team needs help in engaging these patients and mutual support in adapting to the rapid changes in roles that new team approaches are creating. This book offers a summary of the approaches that are currently in growing use, such as health literacy assessment, motivational interviewing, appreciative inquiry, shared decision making, minimally disruptive care, trauma informed care, enfranchisement coaching, relationship-centered care, and family-informed care. Finally, it offers a transformative method, based on familiar elements, that is Transparent, Empowering, Activating, and Mutual: the T.E.A.M. Way.
Approximately 4 million U.S. service members took part in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shortly after troops started returning from their deployments, some active-duty service members and veterans began experiencing mental health problems. Given the stressors associated with war, it is not surprising that some service members developed such mental health conditions as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use disorder. Subsequent epidemiologic studies conducted on military and veteran populations that served in the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq provided scientific evidence that those who fought were in fact being diagnosed with mental illnesses and experiencing mental healthâ€"related outcomesâ€"in particular, suicideâ€"at a higher rate than the general population. This report provides a comprehensive assessment of the quality, capacity, and access to mental health care services for veterans who served in the Armed Forces in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn. It includes an analysis of not only the quality and capacity of mental health care services within the Department of Veterans Affairs, but also barriers faced by patients in utilizing those services.
The evidence is undeniable. By any measure, the US spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, yet its health outcomes as measure by longevity are in the bottom half among developed countries, and its health-related quality of life has remained constant or declined since 1998. In addition to high costs and lower than expected outcomes, the healthcare delivery system is plagues by treatment delays as it can take weeks to see a specialist, and many people have limited or no access to care. Part of the challenge is that the healthcare delivery system is a large, complex, and sophisticated value creation chain. Successfully changing this highly interconnected system is difficult and time consuming because the underlying problems are hard to comprehend, the root causes are many, the solution is unclear, and the relationships among problems, causes, and solution are multifaceted. To address these issues, the book carefully explains the underlying problems, examines their root causes using information, data, and logic, and presents a comprehensive and integrated solution that addresses these causes. These three steps are the methodological backbone of this book. A solution depends on understanding and applying the principles of patient-centered care (PCC) and resource management. PCC puts patients, supported by their primary care physicians, back in the role as decision makers and depends on patients being responsible for their health including making good life-style choices. After all, the best way to reduce healthcare costs and increase quality of life is to improve our health and wellness and as a result need less care. In addition, health insurance must be rethought and redesigned so it is less likely to lead to overuse. For many people with health insurance, the out-of-pocket cost of healthcare are small, so healthcare decision making is often biased toward consumption. Effective resource management means that healthcare providers must do a better job of acquiring and using resources in order to provide care quickly, productively, and correctly. This means improving healthcare strategy and management, accelerating the use of information technology, making drug costs affordable and fair, reducing the incidence of malpractice, and rebuilding the provider network. In addition, implementation is difficult because there are many participants in the healthcare delivery value chain, such as physicians, nurses, and medical technicians, as well as many provider organizations, such as hospitals, clinics, physician offices, and labs. Further up the value chain there are pharmaceutical companies, equipment providers, and other suppliers. These participants have diverse and sometimes conflicting goals, but each must be willing to accept change and work in a coordinated manner to improve healthcare. To overcome these problems, strong national leadership is needed to get the attention and support from the people and organizations involved in healthcare and to make the comprehensive changes that will lower healthcare costs, improve healthcare quality, eliminate delays, increase access, and enhance patient satisfaction.
Medicine as a human experience -- Clinical application of the biopsychosocial model / George L. Engel -- The care of the patient : art or science / George L. Engel -- The doctor-patient relationship -- The patient-centered interview -- The experience of illness and hospitalization -- The nature of the healing process
Integrated primary care, now instituted in many areas of the country, is both the service that integrates medical and mental health primary care and the practice of defining the problem brought by a patient without using "medical" or "mental" as inevitable distinctions. This volume makes the case for this approach, shows how to implement it, and describes some successful programs. It will be attractive to medical managers, plan administrators, physicians, and mental health providers.
