Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example

Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example

Health Care Issues

For ages, awareness of the issues associated with mental health has been low, leading to barriers to access to care, especially for underserved, vulnerable, and marginalized communities and populations. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), mental health is a pervasive issue that underscores people with the lives and capacities of people with mental complications (Bleich, 2021). Although patients are urged to speak out and have their issues addressed by health care providers, several factors hinder access to mental health care. The primary health care issues leading to poor access include mental health clinician shortage, limited health access parity, social stigma, and limited mental health awareness. It is imperative to determine patient-centered health interventions that could facilitate better access to care and improve patient outcomes within the healthcare continuum.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Interventions

Mental health clinician shortage means not enough qualified mental health professionals to address patient and organizational needs. Most healthcare systems face possible clinician shortages in the coming years, given that the number of cases is likely to overwhelm institutional capacities to handle them. Telehealth is a proposed intervention that may address this issue promptly; with this, patients will have access to care from portable devices. However, telehealth has significant limitations as it does not address clinician shortages (Bleich, 2021). It provides care in a restricted environment where patients wait in line without knowing if their time will come. Therefore, an alternative intervention would be to recruit enough health care professionals in the mental health field to quell the clinician shortage.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Limited mental health access parity is a problem that relates to accessing affordable health care services. In some situations, accessing professionals who accept insurance is difficult, as with physical health access and mental health access. There are fewer in-network options than out-of-network options for patients seeking healthcare at affordable prices. According to NCBH, common healthcare barriers stem from limited insurance covers and high costs resulting in significant medical bills or patients not seeking care at all (“Applying patient-centered care to mental health treatment,” 2020). If healthcare systems want to ensure equality, in-service options for mental health patients should be available just like the in-network options for physical healthcare.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Lastly, social stigma and limited health awareness discourage patients from seeking help from professionals and mental health institutions. Most patients worry about what others may say or perceive about them visiting mental health clinics as they feel the weight of societal pressures. Although societal stigma indicates a fraction of the problem, it also limits access to societal awareness and obstructs efficient navigation through the healthcare industry. What is needed is an industry culture shift where leaders and health professionals create overage parity between mental and physical health and address limitations to access.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Community Resources

Community resources are considered critical in reducing the effects of mental health problems in a local and international context. These resources help avail services for mental health, provide general information on prevalent conditions, invite professionals with expertise for community campaigns and programs, and coordinate community events (Dunlay & Strand, 2016). Community resources can be characterized differently to address different components of a health program. For example, recruiting mental health professionals could gather community members’ needs and wants and align them with recruiting requirements. Providing education programs to increase awareness of physical and mental health care availability is necessary if health goals are met.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Establishing funding mechanisms and availing resources that help populations access care without worrying about finances. This intervention should focus more on underserved populations and communities because they hardly access mental health care. After all, many hospitals do not accept insurance, while others only have in-network options for physical health care (Bleich, 2021). Similarly, education and support programs for students and community members allow populations to do away with a societal stigma that often obstructs health awareness on public health and mental health disparities affecting uninformed and vulnerable groups. Mental health awareness-raising events provide platforms for people with mental health problems to express themselves outwardly and seek help.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Ethical Decisions and Patient-Centered Health Interventions

Patient-centered interventions are interventions that highlight and address patient concerns and improve various dimensions of care. These interventions are diverse and comprise care coordination, public health information, integrated and comprehensive team care, patient engagement, patient-centered surveys, and access to care. Health professionals perceive healthcare differently than patients and the public because they are trained to assimilate their thinking and behaviors into practice. Due to this attribute, ethical practices in nursing were established to guide professional practice at the societal, organizational, and clinical levels and manage ethical dilemmas that may arise. Standard ethical practices that guide nursing practice include respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Non-maleficence depicts a highly-set standard that provides that nurses do not harm when disseminating their functions. This principle guides nurses throughout their entire professional era. When designing patient-centered health interventions, mental health professionals need to consider patient health and safety and avoid negligent care of patients. This establishes standardized practices which avoid risk or minimize it significantly to match with medically accepted provisions, most of which seek to improve patient outcomes. Respect for patient autonomy refers to a situation where mental health practitioners provide adequate information for patients and caregivers to make independent decisions. This approach has proven to be effective over the years, given that it is the responsibility of patients to consent whether to receive treatment or not. On the other hand, nurses demonstrate respect for patient autonomy by obtaining informed consent, maintaining confidentiality, and accepting outcomes when patients decline treatment or discontinue medications. Although interventions that reinforce ethics may seem unwarranted because they possibly cause health deterioration and possibly death, it is vital to uphold ethical principles.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Decision-making in health care seeks to improve processes and outcomes. However, there arises moral certainty or uncertainty when some extreme measures are taken and could be detrimental to health. Ethical questions that may arise may be on patient’s rights, conflict of interest, dealing with the opposite sex, or confidentiality of patients. Often, it is asked whether a nurse should continue or discontinue treatment even if consequences will be tantamount to patient health and if dealing with the opposite sex is morally right. Regardless, ethical considerations for patient health are held to the highest accord and explain why the nursing profession is the most honest and transparent.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Health Policy Provisions

Care coordination involves integrating various care components and participants as central aspects of coordination and continuum of care. Patients with mental health issues depend on health institutions and professionals to disseminate quality care and influence policy provisions that impact conditions positively. Mental health policies advance mental well-being, treatment of mental disorders, advocacy for mental health goals, and rehabilitation.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Health policy provisions impact people with mental illnesses in various ways and at different levels. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illnesses (NAMI), the public policy ensures people can access and afford comprehensive healthcare, promote greater awareness and early identification of mental illnesses, and facilitate the preservation of health, well-being, and dignity and guided by credible sources, evidence-based research (Dunlay & Strand, 2016). The COVID-19 pandemic brought about numerous changes in clinical practice, particularly mental health, where a raft of legal, regulatory, financial, and technological changes occurred. It prompted the U.S Congress to pass the Families First Corona Response Act and Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to cushion citizens from the impacts of the loss of jobs and other factors that could result in mental distress and illnesses. These legislations influence coordination and continuum of care.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

In the past years, mental health policies have not addressed primary concerns of mental illnesses across populations. The COVID -19 era exposed this reality. A significant policy implication involves engaging a diverse coalition of stakeholders with unique perspectives and incentives to improve policies, processes, medication, and treatment (Jack, 2018). Since health care is dynamic to policy changes, policy provisions focus on emerging and innovative technologies, social determinants of health, and research and evaluation.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Care Coordination Plan Changes

Care coordination is an all-inclusive process. Individuals involved in planning and implementing the plan often have varying goals to improve health systems’ effectiveness, safety, and efficiency. These individuals include primary care therapists, nutritionists, nurses, psychologists, rehabilitation personnel, and case managers. Care coordination provides a defining framework for primary care and assists patients in setting and attaining desirable goals within specified periods (Dunlay & Strand, 2016). However, in today’s health systems, patients and providers have different perspectives on the outlook of care coordination plans and subsequent failures in communication and care, especially when received from multiple sources. The patient and provider coordinate such that care plans meet acceptable standards.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

When discussing care plans with patients and family members, a care coordinator should consider critical and relevant issues to mental health patients. First, priority would be placed on patient choices and preferences by gathering feedback and ascertaining the levels of intervention likely to be effective. Communicating ideas using easy-to-understand language would facilitate effective communications and allow family members to understand proposed care plans and determine their efficacy (Jack, 2018). Likewise, the coordinator should ascertain whether the patient is ready, willing, and able to assimilate into new changes, especially those that imply drastic changes to everyday lifestyles. Since mental health patients have reduced mental capacities, it is advisable to include small, manageable steps when explaining patient care plans and ensuring follow-up activities are implemented.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Due to unprecedented shifts in health care, the need for changes arises. There are several explanations for the need for changes: including effective communication of progress, results, and outcomes to patients and caregivers; integrating behavioral health and specialty care into care dissemination; tracking and supporting patients; linking patients with community resources, and track and supporting patients when they seek services outside practice.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

Learning Session Content and Best Practices

Mental health disorders and stress-related issues affect efficiency in the workplace and productivity in social life. Best practices include increased awareness of health and stress management; proper communication structures; policies, programs; advanced social support networks; incentives to reinforce healthy behaviors; seminars and workshops; and counseling, coaching, and self-management programs. Studies show that these best practices and care coordination plans align with learning session content provided by healthcare providers, teachers, and social workers (Dunlay & Strand, 2016). Learning session content covers corporate mental health training, suicide intervention and prevention, addiction, anxiety, and first aid training for trauma and crises.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

The Healthy People 2030 document presents a framework describing its initiatives by providing context and rationale, communicating principles underlying decisions, and basing the program on a 5-decade history (“Healthy people 2030 framework – Criteria for selecting the leading health indicators for healthy people 2030 – NCBI bookshelf,” 2019). The teaching sessions’ content aligns with the foundation principles of Healthy People 2030: promote health and well-being and disease prevention efforts, eliminate health disparities and achieve health equity, promote healthy development, and engage leadership, stakeholders, and the public in taking action and influencing policies.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)

References

Applying patient-centered care to mental health treatment. (2020, November 11). Top San Diego Hospitals and Doctors – Sharp HealthCare.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example) https://www.sharp.com/health-news/applying-patient-centered-care-to-mental-health-treatment.cfm

Bleich, C. (2021). What is mental health training, and how could it help my team?. Retrieved November 3, 2021, from (Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)https://www.edgepointlearning.com/blog/mental-health-training/

Dunlay, S. M., & Strand, J. J. (2016). How to discuss goals of care with patients. Trends in Cardiovascular Medicine, 26(1), 36-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcm.2015.03.018

Healthy people 2030 framework – Criteria for selecting the leading health indicators for healthy people 2030 – NCBI bookshelf. (2019, August 6). National Center for Biotechnology Information.(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK552645/

Jack, B. (2018, August). Care coordination. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. https://www.ahrq.gov/ncepcr/care/coordination.html

Ochiai, E., Kigenyi, T., Sondik, E., Pronk, N., Kleinman, D., & Blakey, C. et al. (2021). Healthy People 2030 leading health indicators and overall health and well-being measures: Opportunities to assess and improve the health and well-being of the nation. Journal of Public Health Management And Practice, 27(6), S235-S241. doi: 10.1097/ph.0000000000001424(Final Care Coordination Plan Comprehensive Nursing Paper Example)