Introduction
Mental Health Care is a continuous activity that requires the availability of numerous healthcare experts and agencies to accomplish medical services. It is the piece of concern that brings out the details that are surrounding the complexity of Sarah’s mental health matters, emphasizing inter-organizational collaboration. Now, the candidate is Sarah, a 32-year-old lady who is our imaginary patient with mental illness. She is the creation of suffering of people with the dual diagnosis of schizophrenia and substance abuse addiction, which is a big community problem. This paper will analyze Sarah’s care and place more emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration skills, evidence-based knowledge, advocacy, and better care quality. Applying a systematic analysis, Peter will look at Sarah’s requirements, the functions of different healthcare providers involved in her care, and the outcomes of nursing care to make suggestions for Further Nursing Care. In the ensuing parts of the piece, we will scrutinize Sarah’s background, look into the subtle matters of interprofessional communication, use evidence-informed practices to provide care, examine the significance of her decision-making, establish a visual model of her care, examine connections among healthcare agencies, and assess her outcomes as well as those who support her. Through this exploration, we seek a clear view of the complexity behind mental healthcare and the more effective and holistic approaches toward care provision.
Identification of the Patient/Service User and Their Complex Care Needs
Sarah is a 32-year-old who struggles with a complex range of mental health disorders. Sarah, whose schizophrenia and substance abuse disorder coexisted, experienced different nuances and complexities of her conditions(Pacchiarotti et al., 2020, p. 63). Her narrative has elements of social seclusion, pros and cons of occasional mood changes, and irregular periods of drug or alcohol abuse. Sarah’s complex care plan involves a well-rounded type of psychiatric treatment, specialized substance abuse counseling, adequate social support, and help with stable housing (Abuse, 2013). The detailed nature of her conditions requires an integrated effort of multi-agencies, to have under a single umbrella the collaboration of psychiatric services, substance abuse treatment centers, social services, and housing authorities in order to give Sarah the care she needs that reaches all areas of her life (DeGarmo, 2022, p. 378). Integrated medical approaches can be a way to meet Sarah’s multifaceted needs in order to improve her quality of life and vision (Bredström, 2019, p. 350).
Interprofessional and Collaborative Working
Collaboration is essential for holistic mental healthcare for people like Sarah, blending multiple health professionals. Nurses have a crucial role in Mary’s return to health as they carry out duties of continuous monitoring, drug administration, and emotional support (Royal College of Psychiatrists). As a medical doctor and a psychiatrist, the doctor assesses Sarah’s illness, providing her with customized medication and keeping track of the treatment plan (National Institute of Mental Health, 2020). Psychiatrists’ practice focuses on mental well-being, administering therapeutic modalities and psychotherapy.
In addition to the medical intervention, social workers work with Sarah on the utilization of community resources, counseling, and identification of psychosocial factors that affect her mental health. The home treatment team is the care coordination system that Sarah needs to customize to her home conditions, and it offers personalized support and interventions (World Federation for Mental Health, 2018). Moreover, diabetic nurses look after both Sarah’s health conditions and her mental needs, thus making the treatment all around.
Regular team meetings, which focus on Sarah’s progress, encourage bringing together these professionals. There, they discuss among themselves and share and re-adjust Sarah’s care plan where necessary (National Institute of Mental Health, 2020). Timely and collaborative communication and shared decision-making provide Sarah with interoperable services across multiple healthcare settings. Through interprofessional teamwork, Sarah has optimized outcomes, improved her care experience, and led to holistic well-being.
Application of Evidence and Guidance
Sarah’s care involves applying evidence-based practices (EBP) and frameworks that are effective in controlled research settings, optimizing the outcomes of her treatment journey. The variety of EBP in mental health care includes an array of interventions with solid scientific justifications. For Sarah, treatments such as drug management for schizophrenia, cognitive-behavioral therapy for substance abuse problems, and peer support programs for social incorporation are the critical points of her care plan. They are supported by empirical data showing that they work well in decreasing the symptoms, preventing relapses, and overall improving patients’ quality of life with other mental disorders (Health & Safety Executive, 2018). Additionally, the recovery-oriented mindset along with trauma-informed practices perfectly support Sarah’s therapy, stressing the importance of empowerment, the personal point of view as well as attention to previous experiences. The healthcare professionals achieve this by incorporating the EBPs and frameworks into Sarah’s treatment plan, thus making her management, recovery, resilience, and long-term success her best-guiding principle as she manages the mental health problem.
Patient/Service User Choice and Advocacy
The participation of Sarah in decision-making related to her care fosters autonomy, empowerment, and a person-centered approach in her journey towards wellness (American Nurses Association, 2010). Sarah’s position as a mental health service user is a single benefactor as she has her preferences and goals; therefore, healthcare professionals must respect and pay attention to these needs. Sarah contributes to the decision-making process through integrated approaches (Bergmark et al., 2014, p. 275). She thus partners with her health team to look for options, set objectives, and articulate her preferences (Department of Health and Social Care, 2021). Thus, Sarah’s ability to participate in decision-making gives her a sense of duty and independence over her care and establishes a therapeutic alliance, resulting in a positive outcome (Mind).
Patient advocates have an extraordinary role in protecting Sarah’s rights, preferences, and security throughout treatment (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2009). The functions of the patient advocates are to be allies and a voice for Sarah that the system may not be able to mute or dismiss (UK Government, 2015). Advocating patients gives Sarah information about her rights, available treatments, and support services, thus encouraging Sarah to make informed decisions in her care (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2020). They also link Sarah and healthcare providers, providing services such as communication promotion and advocacy and guaranteeing that her needs are duly addressed (Health & Safety Executive, 2018). Patient advocates, mainly their supporters, enable Sarah to exercise her rights, declare her choices, and contribute to the care decisions, providing her autonomy, empowerment, and person-centeredness along her treatment journey (Reamer, 2018, p. 74).
The Schematic Reproduced Below Shows Sarah’s Care Journey Stages And Parts.
Start
Initial Assessment
|
V
Multi-Agency Referral
|
V
Interprofessional Collaboration
Treatment Planning
Implementation of Interventions
Patient Advocacy and Empowerment
Ongoing Monitoring and Support
Integrated Care Coordination
Outcome Evaluation
Continuous Improvement
End
This flowchart represents only the most critical steps in Sarah’s care journey, such as initial assessment, multi-jurisdictional referral, interdisciplinary collaboration, creation of treatment plans, implementation of interventions, ongoing monitoring and support, outcome assessment, and continuous improvement (Marshall-Lee et al., 2020, p. 14). The multistage approach is the pillar of the integrated care that Sarah receives. This illustrates collaboration and coordination among community healthcare professionals and agencies.
Relationships between Health Care Agencies and the Patient/Service User
In the care system of Sarah’s journey, the ‘Core Workers’ is composed of a multidisciplinary team comprising of nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, the home treatment team, diabetic nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, substance abuse counselors, and housing advocates (Mental Health Commission of Canada, 2018). Nurses are instrumental in her treatment by monitoring, giving injections, and providing emotional comfort (Wei et al., 2020, p. 327). Physicians and psychiatrists, as well as psychologists, are involved in the diagnosis and management of her mental health problems, but psychologists carry on therapy. The client receives counseling from substance abuse counselors specializing in co-occurring disorders and gets support from social workers on resources (Centre for Substance Abuse Treatment, 2015). To be sure, only with stable housing may she live under better conditions for holistic well-being.
Relationships between healthcare agencies are very much needed to create integrated care for Sarah (Moro et al., 2022, p. e31). Effective collaboration will guarantee a wide range of help and a coordinated effort to identify and cover her broad needs (Fiene et al., 2020, p. 94). In a healthy relationship, communication is regular, conflicting care plans are eliminated, and respect is shared. Care integration is less effective due to broken services and communication gaps, which stress the need for improved coordination and teamwork among healthcare providers (Mental Health Foundation, 2020).
The outcomes of caring for Sarah, her family members, and her carers are evaluated by assessing symptom control, function, housing security, and support needs (National Academies of Sciences, Medicine Division, et al., 2018). In the future, we envision improved health and well-being for the residents as a result of practical integrated care approaches facilitated by health professionals working closely with each other.
Conclusion
In summation, Sarah’s care journey demonstrates the complexity of rendering holistic mental healthcare. Through this assignment, we have had the opportunity to analyze various elements of Sarah’s case study, starting from the initial assessment and ending with ongoing support and an evaluation of outcomes (World Health Organization, 2019). The topics discussed were the importance of interprofessional collaboration, evidence-based practice, patient advocacy, and integrated care approach used to manage Sarah’s complex problems healthily.
Sarah’s care journey is mainly concerned with the multidisciplinary team approach, which involves healthcare professionals from different specializations working together to provide holistic support (Mental Health America, 2020). The approach guarantees that Sarah’s problems are holistically handled, covering psychiatrist treatment, drug abuse counseling, social support, and housing assistance (British et al., 2017). By applying different agencies’ knowledge and promoting constructive communication and effective collaboration, health professionals can ensure better results for Sarah and improve her condition (American Psychological Association, 2014, p. 35).
In brief, Sarah’s experience at the heart of the care journey proves that person-centered care is necessary (Bergmark et al., 2014, p. 275). Here, people like Sarah are considered equal participants in the decision-making process, be it to express their preferences or to achieve their treatment aims. By emphasizing collaborative and integrated approaches to care, healthcare professionals can aim to ensure that persons with such complex mental health problems are given holistic support to live complete and fruitful lives (National Institute on Aging, 2020).
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