Navigating Community-Based Aged Care Services From the Consumer Perspective: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The shift to consumer-directed aged care means that older adults need to play a more active role in navigating the complex aged care system for adequate health and social services. Challenges in the navigation process result in unmet needs and difficulty accessing available resources. This scoping review investigates how aged care navigation is conceptualized in literature and interrogates research on the experiences of older adults navigating community-based aged care services with or without support from their informal carers. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: This review follows the Joanna Briggs Institute methodological guidelines. PubMed, Scopus, and ProQuest were searched for relevant literature published from 2008 to 2021, supplemented by grey literature and manual reference list searching. Data were extracted using a predefined data-extraction table and synthesized with an inductive thematic analysis. RESULTS: The current conceptualization of aged care navigation focuses on the support provided to older adults, rather than actions taken by older adults themselves. Thematic analysis from the included studies (n = 26) revealed shared themes (lack of knowledge, social networks as information providers, complex care systems) among older adults and informal carers; unique challenges faced by older adults (difficulties with technology, waiting game), and informal carers (structural burden) in aged care navigation. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS: Findings suggest the need to comprehensively assess individual circumstances including social networks and access to informal carers as predictors of successful navigation. Changes that reduce the complexity of the aged care system and improve coordination will relieve the structural burden experienced by consumers.

Pragmatic Systemic Solutions to the Wicked and Persistent Problem of the Unprofessional Disruptive Physician in the Health System.

We have always had and will always have "disruptive" or "dysfunctional" doctors behaving unprofessionally within healthcare institutions. Disruptive physician behaviour (also called "unprofessional behaviour") was described almost 150 years ago, but remains a persistent, wicked problem in healthcare, largely fuelled by systemic inaction. In this Commentary, we aim to explore the following aspects from a systemic lens: (i) the gaps in understanding systemic resistance and difficulty in addressing this issue; and (ii) pragmatic approaches to its management in the healthcare system. In doing so, we hope to shift the systemic effect from nihilism and despair, to one of hopeful realism about disruptive or unprofessional behaviour. We suggest that solutions lie in cultural change to ensure systemic awareness, responsiveness and early intervention, and an understanding of what systemic failure looks like in this context. Staff education, policies and procedures that outline a consistent reporting and review process including triaging the problem, its source, its effects, and the attempted solutions, are also crucial. Finally, assessment and intervention from appropriately mental-health-trained personnel are required, recognising that this is a complex mental health problem. We are not doing anyone any favours by ignoring, acting as bystanders, or otherwise turning a blind eye to disruptive or unprofessional behaviour; otherwise, we share culpability.