Multi-disciplinary Teamwork of Community Care Staff in Service Provisions for the Elderly.

Abstract

Community care professionals were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning individual disabled elderly people living at home for whom they were currently

Experiences of Professionals Providing Community Care for Disabled People in Nagasaki and Southampton

“…It has been emphasized in Japan that the multi-disciplinary meetings should be held regularly in order to achieve an appropriate care management process (30,39). Matsusaka et al (40) reported that regular meetings brought better results in assessment of clients' needs and in the co-ordination of care services needed for them than could be achieved by a single professional or by meetings between members of only one discipline.…”

“…Matsusaka et al (40) reported that such meetings were more effective in obtaining information about the clients to assess their needs, in identifying their health and social care needs and in co-ordinating care services compared with uni-disciplinary meeting or performance by single professionals. The superiority of the multi-disciplinary meetings has led to the adoption of multi-disciplinary meetings as a standard procedure by community rehabilitation agencies in many municipalities.…”

“…The medical information needed to make decisions must either have been gleaned from the medical case records, or acquired through personal contact (informal meetings) between medical and other staff. A recent study of the multi-disciplinary teamwork of community care staff in Japan (40) has reported that coordination by 1 or 2 disciplines, as for example social workers and physiotherapists, or occupational therapists and community nurses, produced better results in the care management process. The findings reported here from Southampton are consistent with the results of the Japanese study.…”

“…Community nurses are expected to act as case co-ordinator in the care management process (40) and they are considered to have an important role in liaising between doctors and other care service professionals.…”

“…At multi-disciplinary meetings, knowledge and information about medical and health care, as well as social care will be needed to achieve holistic care management. Once the care management meetings have been held to assess complex needs and seek appropriately co-ordinated services for the clients, one professional should assume the role of co-ordinator depending on the clients' needs (40).…”