Description:
Background and objective: People with disabilities living in rural areas often require considerable support to meet their complex needs. This study investigated a best practice model in home-based care for people with disabilities in rural Thailand.
Design and Setting: A case study method was adopted to investigate a best practice model of home-based care for people with disabilities in Nakhonthai District, Phitsanulok Province, Thailand. Data were collected from 30 participants through in-depth interviews, focus groups, direct observation and document analysis. Content and thematic analyses were conducted for qualitative data. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test was used for the outcome measurement of activities of daily living (ADL) scores.
Results: This model of home-based care for people with disabilities, as an integrated network model, brings together the community, health professionals and other organisations. The role of trained community health volunteers was mainly to deliver home-based personal care for people with disabilities, while health professionals focused mainly on controlling the quality of care, managing the knowledge and skills of volunteers, and co-ordinating the network. The difference between ADL scores before and after the implementation of the model (n=20) was statistically significant (p<0.01). Conclusion: This best practice model of home-based care for people with disabilities in rural Thailand shifts responsibility in the main service decisions from professionals to the community and other stakeholders and engages and empowered all stakeholders in the provision, co-ordination and management of care.
Description:
Background and objective: People with disabilities living in rural areas often require considerable support to meet their complex needs. This study investigated a best practice model in home-based care for people with disabilities in rural Thailand.
Design and Setting: A case study method was adopted to investigate a best practice model of home-based care for people with disabilities in Nakhonthai District, Phitsanulok Province, Thailand. Data were collected from 30 participants through in-depth interviews, focus groups, direct observation and document analysis. Content and thematic analyses were conducted for qualitative data. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test was used for the outcome measurement of activities of daily living (ADL) scores.
Results: This model of home-based care for people with disabilities, as an integrated network model, brings together the community, health professionals and other organisations. The role of trained community health volunteers was mainly to deliver home-based personal care for people with disabilities, while health professionals focused mainly on controlling the quality of care, managing the knowledge and skills of volunteers, and co-ordinating the network. The difference between ADL scores before and after the implementation of the model (n=20) was statistically significant (p<0.01). Conclusion: This best practice model of home-based care for people with disabilities in rural Thailand shifts responsibility in the main service decisions from professionals to the community and other stakeholders and engages and empowered all stakeholders in the provision, co-ordination and management of care.
Description:
This chapter examines the role of primary health care in the health of older people. As background to the chapter we discuss how primary health care operates in Australia, the workforce challenges and the recent policy reforms. Next we discuss primary health care use by older Australians and the types of services accessed. A main theme in the chapter is the lack of co-ordination between the health and aged care system in the delivery of primary health care services to older people, and the need for integrated care that addresses issues of multi-morbidity and multi-professional input to the care of older people. Addressing these issues through a skilled workforce, better communication between health professionals and a funding approach that does not disadvantage older multiple users of the primary health care system, will assist in the prevention of entry of older people into the more expensive secondary and tertiary health care and residential aged care systems.