Collaboration between professionals in primary and secondary healthcare services about hospital-at-home for children: A focus group study from the perspectives of stakeholders.

Collaboration among healthcare providers is regarded as a promising method to improve care quality and patient outcomes with limited human and financial resources. In Norway, "hospital-at-home" refers to care given by teams from the hospital pediatric wards who provide treatment and care in the family's home. When children need home visits multiple times daily, the hospital-at-home often reaches out to municipality healthcare providers, asking them to share this task. We aimed to explore the collaboration between stakeholders to gain knowledge on matters concerning the transfer of pediatric competence between hospital and home-based care, and to gain insight into how to set up the service for children in the future. We conducted three focus group interviews. The results showed that managing hospital-at-home collaboratively came with various challenges concerning unclear responsibilities between hospitals and homecare services and several obstacles to setting up cooperation across service levels. Thus, positive collaboration experiences between hospital and homecare settings were shared. Formalizing this collaboration was considered important for future collaboration. Building competence and learning from and with each other ensures better conditions for success if the collaboration is organized and facilitated through agreements between the hospital and the municipalities.

Negotiating safety and responsibility in caregiving to children receiving hospital-at-home: A Norwegian study of parents and homecare nurses' experiences.

Healthcare policies in Western countries increasingly emphasise the avoidance of hospitalisation to reduce hospital admissions. Hospital-at-home for children is a treatment offered to children at home that would otherwise require hospitalisation. Norway practices a model where homecare services play a significant role in assisting the hospital when children need home visits beyond the capacity of what the hospital can offer. Although homecare nurses' work has been affected by several changes in recent decades, few have reported on what these changes imply for homecare nurses' work and family caregivers. The aim of this study was to explore how parents and homecare nurses worked and collaborated in home visits to children receiving hospital-at-home, focusing on how they negotiated caregiving. We conducted 16 interviews: six interviews with parents and 10 interviews with homecare nurses. The interviews were analysed thematically. Both parents and homecare nurses described these home visits as challenging, indicating experiences of distrust. Parents had carefully observed homecare nurses, checking whether they knew how to treat the child and perform the clinical procedures. Homecare nurses had invested much energy into being perceived as calm and trustworthy by the parents. We applied the perspective of negotiation to understand the work and collaboration reported by parents and homecare nurses when unsafety or uncertainty was experienced during home visits, revealing the complexity of their roles in dealing with such events. The results showed the reciprocal dependency between the parents and the homecare nurses that enabled them to perform caregiving work in partnership, sharing responsibility. Our findings suggest that the collaboration with hospital-at-home has an impact on the feeling of safety and control for both parties. We question whether there is a danger of too much responsibility being left with the parents when homecare services are involved.

The work of nurses to provide good and safe services to children receiving hospital-at-home: A qualitative interview study from the perspectives of hospital nurses and physicians.

AIM: To explore and describe the work performed by the nurses providing hospital-at-home care to children and their families from the perspectives of hospital nurses and physicians. BACKGROUND: To reduce capacity pressure on hospitals, various ambulatory services combining hospital and home treatment have emerged. Studies have shown that children and their families are satisfied with hospital-at-home when the parents experienced the professionals possessed the necessary competences. Knowledge is limited about nurses and physicians' perspectives on the work performed and competence needed when children receive hospital treatment in the family's home. DESIGN: A qualitative descriptive design with semi-structured interviews was used. Sixteen nurses and physicians from two hospitals in Norway working in hospital-at-home for children were recruited to interview. Data were analysed using systematic text condensation. In preparing the manuscript, we applied the COREQ guidelines. The theory on 'expert nursing' supported the discussion of results. RESULTS: We identified three categories through analysis; building a trustful relationship with the family and the sick child; performing essential skills in paediatric nursing care in hospital-at-home; and nurses serving as the 'hub' between the different parties. CONCLUSION: The results demonstrate the complexity of the work performed by hospital nurses when children received hospital-at-home. Building a trustful relationship and alliance with the child and the family formed the cornerstone of accomplishing good and safe paediatric care. The nurses became a coordinating and collaborating 'hub' for actors involved, taking care of patient safety on a daily basis. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The way the nurses approached the children and their families, was the core element of the paediatric nursing expertise and important for the service quality and patient safety. The importance of building a trustful relationship needs to be more acknowledged, and the services would benefit to organise this through continuity of care.

Empowerment in healthcare: A thematic synthesis and critical discussion of concept analyses of empowerment.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to shed light on common characteristics revealed in concept analyses of empowerment to contribute to further understanding. A further objective is to discuss how the perspective of healthcare service users appeared in the concept analyses. METHODS: The review was performed by systematically searching Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO and ERIC. The search yielded 255 abstracts, which were reduced by relevance and critical appraisal to the 12 concept analyses included. The analysis process involved thematic synthesis as described by Thomas and Harden. RESULTS: The synthesis led to 13 descriptive themes structured according to antecedents, attributes and consequences of empowerment. The synthesis revealed how sparsely the question of equality and power in the relation between health professionals and healthcare service users is addressed. DISCUSSION: To a great extent empowerment is viewed as a helping process of making patients act differently, rather than redistribution of power. For groups that are particularly vulnerable to oppression, questions of power are of severe importance. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: As user participation is a growing discourse in health policy, health professionals need education to develop and address dimensions of power and reciprocity in empowering relations between users and themselves.

Stakeholders in support systems for self-care for chronic illness: the gap between expectations and reality regarding their identity, roles and relationships.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: The spread of self-care holds the promise of containing chronic illness burden. Falling within the framework of a FP7 collaborative research project, this paper reports the views of key informants from six countries regarding who the main stakeholders are at different levels in the support system for self-care for patients with chronic illness (SSSC) and how they accomplish their role and collaborate. METHODS: 90 Interviews with purposefully selected key informants from Bulgaria, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and United Kingdom were conducted. Interviews involved government and local authorities, politicians, academics, health professionals and private sector representatives. Interviewers followed an expert opinion-based guide. Analysis involved a cross-country examination with thematic analysis and framework method techniques. RESULTS: Key informants described the ideal SSSC as inclusive, interdependent and patient-centred. The following main stakeholders in SSSC were identified: patients, governments, health-care professionals, associations, private companies and the media. In the current SSSCs, collaboration among stakeholders within and across different levels was said to be lacking. Patients were seen as playing a passive subordinate role based on the following: their own attitudes; the paternalistic and medicalized attitudes of the health-care professionals; their misrepresentation by patient associations; and their exposure to the damaging influences of media and industries. CONCLUSIONS: Making SSSC patient-centred constitutes the greatest challenge for European authorities. Strategies must be revised for promoting patient participation. They should undergo changes so as to promote industry and media social responsibility and patient association advocacy capacity.

Voluntary Organizations and Community Groups as New Partners in Diabetes Self-management and Education: A Critical Interpretative Synthesis.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to critically review the literature on the role and work of voluntary organizations and community groups and volunteers in diabetes self-management programs. It seeks to explain how these organizations are located and could be integrated further within a broader system of support. METHODS: A critical interpretative synthesis of the literature was undertaken as part of the conceptual development of a European research project. Evidence (2000-November 2014) was searched in databases, with the use of key terms, and limited to the languages of the participating countries. This was supplemented by an additional hand search and snowballing technique. A total of 21 articles were included in the review. RESULTS: Evidence regarding the involvement of voluntary organizations in diabetes self-management programs mainly related to: the nature and remit of their work, responsibilities, and attributes; key strategies of programs accounting for success; motivations/barriers for engaging in volunteering participation; relationships between volunteers and users; and connections/tensions with formal services. CONCLUSIONS: This review has uncovered a range of facets of voluntary organizations and community groups relevant for supporting diabetes self-management such as the context within which they act and the nature of relationships developed with community and health services. The principles of "assistance, support, sharing, and link" seem essential for this voluntary initiative in self-management to establish effective reciprocal collaboration with health professionals.

Diabetes self-management arrangements in Europe: a realist review to facilitate a project implemented in six countries.

BACKGROUND: Self-management of long term conditions can promote quality of life whilst delivering benefits to the financing of health care systems. However, rarely are the meso-level influences, likely to be of direct relevance to these desired outcomes, systematically explored. No specific international guidelines exist suggesting the features of the most appropriate structure and organisation of health care systems within which to situate self-management approaches and practices. This review aimed to identify the quantitative literature with regard to diabetes self-management arrangements currently in place within the health care systems of six countries (The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Bulgaria, and Greece) and explore how these are integrated into the broader health care and welfare systems in each country. METHODS: The methodology for a realist review was followed. Publications of interest dating from 2000 to 2013 were identified through appropriate MeSH terms by a systematic search in six bibliographic databases. A search diary was maintained and the studies were assessed for their quality and risk of bias. RESULTS: Following the multi-step search strategy, 56 studies were included in the final review (the majority from the UK) reporting design methods and findings on 21 interventions and programmes for diabetes and chronic disease self-management. Most (11/21, 52%) of the interventions were designed to fit within the context of primary care. The majority (11/21, 52%) highlighted behavioural change as an important goal. Finally, some (5/21, 24%) referred explicitly to Internet-based tools. CONCLUSIONS: This review is based on results which are derived from a total of at least 5,500 individuals residing in the six participating countries. It indicates a policy shift towards patient-centred self-management of diabetes in a primary care context. The professional role of diabetes specialist nurses, the need for multidisciplinary approaches and a focus on patient education emerge as fundamental principles in the design of relevant programmes. Socio-economic circumstances are relevant to the capacity to self-manage and suggest that any gains and progress will be hard to maintain during economic austerity. This realist review should be interpreted within the wider context of a whole systems approach regarding self-care support and chronic illness management.