Improving Wellbeing In Patients With Chronic Conditions Theory Evidence And Opportunities

This WHO publication calls for the transformation of healthcare workforce training to better meet the needs of caring for patients with chronic conditions. While the world is experiencing a rapid escalation in chronic health problems training of the healthcare workforce has generally not kept pace. To provide effective care for chronic conditions the skills of health professionals must be expanded to meet these new complexities. The publication presents a new expanded training model based on a set of core competencies that apply to all members of the workforce. First the workforce needs to organize care around the patient or in other words to adopt a patient-centred approach. Second providers need communication skills that enable them to collaborate with others. They need not only to partner with patients but to work closely with other providers and to join with communities to improve outcomes for patients with chronic conditions. Third the workforce needs skills to ensure that the safety and quality of patient care is continuously improved. Fourth the workforce needs competencies in information and communication technology which can assist them in monitoring patients across time in using and sharing information. Finally the workforce needs to adopt a public health perspective in their daily work including the provision of population-based care that is centred around primary health care systems. Each competency is described in detail and supplemented with diverse country examples of how it has been implemented.

"Overall, the book walks a delicate balance between evidence and advocacy regarding the care of people with chronic conditions. Nolte and McKee conclude the volume with the following: 'A first step is to recognize that something must be done. A second, which we hope will be facilitated by the evidence provided in this book, is to realize that something actually can be done, and that they can do it (p. 240)'. The overarching desire to match the need for evidence with the reality that advocates (including policy-makers) need a reasoned voice makes the book well suited to health policy deliberations." International Journal of Integrated Care The complex nature of many chronic diseases, which affect people many different ways, requires a multifaceted response that will meet the needs of the individual patient. Yet while everyone agrees that the traditional relationship between an individual patient and a single doctor is inappropriate, there is much less agreement about what should replace it. Many countries are now experimenting with new approaches to delivering care in ways that do meet the complex needs of people with chronic disorders, redesigning delivery systems to coordinate activities across the continuum of care. Yet while integration and coordination have an intuitive appeal, policy makers have had little to help them decide how to move forward. The book systematically examines some of the key issues involved in the care of those with chronic diseases. It synthesises the evidence on what we know works (or does not) in different circumstances. From an international perspective, it addresses the prerequisites for effective policies and management of chronic disease. Taking a whole systems approach, the book: Describes the burden of chronic disease in Europe Explores the economic case for investing in chronic disease management Examines key challenges posed by the growing complexity in healthcare including prevention, the role of self-management, the healthcare workforce, and decision-support Examines systems for financing chronic care Analyses the prerequisites for effective policies for chronic care Caring for People with Chronic Conditions is key reading for health policy makers and health care professionals, as well as postgraduate students studying health policy, health services research, health economics, public policy and management. Contributors: Reinhard Busse, Elisabeth Chan, Anna Dixon, Carl-Ardy Dubois, Isabelle Durand-Zaleski, Daragh K Fahey, Nicholas Glasgow, Monique Hejmans, Izzat Jiwani, Martyn Jones, Cécile Knai, Nicholas Mays, Martin McKee, Ellen Nolte, Thomas E Novotny, Joceline Pomerleau, Mieke Rijken, Dhigna Rubiano, Debbie Singh, Marc Suhrcke.

In the United States, chronic diseases currently account for 70 percent of all deaths, and close to 48 million Americans report a disability related to a chronic condition. Today, about one in four Americans have multiple diseases and the prevalence and burden of chronic disease in the elderly and racial/ethnic minorities are notably disproportionate. Chronic disease has now emerged as a major public health problem and it threatens not only population health, but our social and economic welfare. Living Well with Chronic Disease identifies the population-based public health actions that can help reduce disability and improve functioning and quality of life among individuals who are at risk of developing a chronic disease and those with one or more diseases. The book recommends that all major federally funded programmatic and research initiatives in health include an evaluation on health-related quality of life and functional status. Also, the book recommends increasing support for implementation research on how to disseminate effective longterm lifestyle interventions in community-based settings that improve living well with chronic disease. Living Well with Chronic Disease uses three frameworks and considers diseases such as heart disease and stroke, diabetes, depression, and respiratory problems. The book's recommendations will inform policy makers concerned with health reform in public- and private-sectors and also managers of communitybased and public-health intervention programs, private and public research funders, and patients living with one or more chronic conditions.

This Open Access book highlights the ethical issues and dilemmas that arise in the practice of public health. It is also a tool to support instruction, debate, and dialogue regarding public health ethics. Although the practice of public health has always included consideration of ethical issues, the field of public health ethics as a discipline is a relatively new and emerging area. There are few practical training resources for public health practitioners, especially resources which include discussion of realistic cases which are likely to arise in the practice of public health. This work discusses these issues on a case to case basis and helps create awareness and understanding of the ethics of public health care. The main audience for the casebook is public health practitioners, including front-line workers, field epidemiology trainers and trainees, managers, planners, and decision makers who have an interest in learning about how to integrate ethical analysis into their day to day public health practice. The casebook is also useful to schools of public health and public health students as well as to academic ethicists who can use the book to teach public health ethics and distinguish it from clinical and research ethics.

"Promoting Self-Management of Chronic Health Conditions covers a range of topics related to self-management-theories and practice, interventions that have been scientifically tested, and information that individuals with specific conditions should know (or be taught by healthcare professionals)"--

This open access textbook represents a vital contribution to global health education, offering insights into health promotion as part of patient care for bachelor’s and master’s students in health care (nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, radiotherapists, social care workers etc.) as well as health care professionals, and providing an overview of the field of health science and health promotion for PhD students and researchers. Written by leading experts from seven countries in Europe, America, Africa and Asia, it first discusses the theory of health promotion and vital concepts. It then presents updated evidence-based health promotion approaches in different populations (people with chronic diseases, cancer, heart failure, dementia, mental disorders, long-term ICU patients, elderly individuals, families with newborn babies, palliative care patients) and examines different health promotion approaches integrated into primary care services. This edited scientific anthology provides much-needed knowledge, translating research into guidelines for practice. Today’s medical approaches are highly developed; however, patients are human beings with a wholeness of body-mind-spirit. As such, providing high-quality and effective health care requires a holistic physical-psychological-social-spiritual model of health care is required. A great number of patients, both in hospitals and in primary health care, suffer from the lack of a holistic oriented health approach: Their condition is treated, but they feel scared, helpless and lonely. Health promotion focuses on improving people’s health in spite of illnesses. Accordingly, health care that supports/promotes patients’ health by identifying their health resources will result in better patient outcomes: shorter hospital stays, less re-hospitalization, being better able to cope at home and improved well-being, which in turn lead to lower health-care costs. This scientific anthology is the first of its kind, in that it connects health promotion with the salutogenic theory of health throughout the chapters. the authors here expand the understanding of health promotion beyond health protection and disease prevention. The book focuses on describing and explaining salutogenesis as an umbrella concept, not only as the key concept of sense of coherence.

Patient-centered medicine is not an illness-centered, a physician-centered, or a hospital-centered medicine approach. In this book, it is aimed at presenting an approach to patient-centered medicine from the beginning of life to the end of life. As indicated by W. Osler, "It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has." In our day, if the physicians and healthcare professionals could consider more than the diseased organ and provide healthcare by comforting the patients by respecting their values, beliefs, needs, and preferences; informing them and their relatives at every stage; and comforting the patients physically by controlling the pain and relieving their worries and fears, patients obeying the rules of physicians would become patients with high adaptation and participation to the treatment.