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Exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study
BACKGROUND: Recognition that integrated services can lead to more efficient and effective care has made the principle of integration a priority for health systems worldwide for the last decade. However, actually bringing fully integrated services to life has eluded most health care organizations. Me...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4282495/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25277136 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-457 |
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author | Martin, Lynn Hirdes, John P |
author_facet | Martin, Lynn Hirdes, John P |
author_sort | Martin, Lynn |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Recognition that integrated services can lead to more efficient and effective care has made the principle of integration a priority for health systems worldwide for the last decade. However, actually bringing fully integrated services to life has eluded most health care organizations. Mental health has followed the rule, rather than the exception, when it comes integrating services. The lack of effective mechanisms to evaluate the needs of persons across mental health care services has been an important barrier to communication between professionals involved in care. This study sought to understand communication among inpatient and community-based mental health staff during transfers of care, before and after implementation of compatible assessment instrumentation. METHODS: Two focus groups were held with staff from inpatient (n = 10) and community (n = 10) settings in an urban, specialized psychiatric hospital in Ontario (Canada) – prior to and one year after implementation of compatible instrumentation in the community program. Transcripts were coded and aggregated into themes. RESULTS: Very different views of current communication patterns during transfers of care emerged. Inpatient mental health staff described a predictable, well-known process, whereas community-based staff emphasized unpredictability. Staff also discussed issues related to trust and the circle of care. All agreed that compatible assessments in inpatient and community mental health settings would facilitate communication through use of a common assessment language. However, no change in communication patterns was reported one year post implementation of compatible instrumentation. CONCLUSIONS: Though all participants agreed on the potential for compatible instrumentation to improve communication during transfers of care, this cannot happen overnight. A number of issues related to trust, evidence-based practice, and organizational factors act as barriers to communication. In particular, staff noted the need for the results of comprehensive mental health assessments to be transformed into meaningful, user-friendly clinical summaries to facilitate uptake of assessment information, and consequently use of a common assessment language across mental health settings. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4282495 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-42824952015-01-03 Exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study Martin, Lynn Hirdes, John P BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Recognition that integrated services can lead to more efficient and effective care has made the principle of integration a priority for health systems worldwide for the last decade. However, actually bringing fully integrated services to life has eluded most health care organizations. Mental health has followed the rule, rather than the exception, when it comes integrating services. The lack of effective mechanisms to evaluate the needs of persons across mental health care services has been an important barrier to communication between professionals involved in care. This study sought to understand communication among inpatient and community-based mental health staff during transfers of care, before and after implementation of compatible assessment instrumentation. METHODS: Two focus groups were held with staff from inpatient (n = 10) and community (n = 10) settings in an urban, specialized psychiatric hospital in Ontario (Canada) – prior to and one year after implementation of compatible instrumentation in the community program. Transcripts were coded and aggregated into themes. RESULTS: Very different views of current communication patterns during transfers of care emerged. Inpatient mental health staff described a predictable, well-known process, whereas community-based staff emphasized unpredictability. Staff also discussed issues related to trust and the circle of care. All agreed that compatible assessments in inpatient and community mental health settings would facilitate communication through use of a common assessment language. However, no change in communication patterns was reported one year post implementation of compatible instrumentation. CONCLUSIONS: Though all participants agreed on the potential for compatible instrumentation to improve communication during transfers of care, this cannot happen overnight. A number of issues related to trust, evidence-based practice, and organizational factors act as barriers to communication. In particular, staff noted the need for the results of comprehensive mental health assessments to be transformed into meaningful, user-friendly clinical summaries to facilitate uptake of assessment information, and consequently use of a common assessment language across mental health settings. BioMed Central 2014-10-03 /pmc/articles/PMC4282495/ /pubmed/25277136 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-457 Text en © Martin and Hirdes; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Martin, Lynn Hirdes, John P Exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study |
title | Exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study |
title_full | Exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study |
title_fullStr | Exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study |
title_full_unstemmed | Exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study |
title_short | Exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study |
title_sort | exploring the impact of common assessment instrumentation on communication and collaboration in inpatient and community-based mental health settings: a focus group study |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4282495/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25277136 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-457 |
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