Community-Based Healthcare

This is a book for practitioners working in community-based healthcare as well as educators of future practitioners and researchers exploring this practice field and for people with chronic disabilities and their families and carers. The book invites readers to re-think and re-shape the way that community-based healthcare is practised by practitioners and experienced/engaged with by clients/patients and their families and other carers. Based on a PhD study of therapeutic relationships in community healthcare settings in NSW, Australia, and on real-life experiences of practitioners, clients and clients' families and care givers, this book paints a rich picture of the lived experiences of these participants in community-based healthcare. It examines the issues and challenges they face and the ways they deal with these. Key themes identified across the book are: the value and nature of relationships in this unique healthcare setting, the importance of time and using it well, the way good teamwork facilitates good community-based, patient-centred healthcare, balancing autonomy and equality with healthcare quality, practice wisdom embodied in healthcare, and ways of improving healthcare in clients' own homes.

This is a book for practitioners working in community-based healthcare as well as educators of future practitioners and researchers exploring this practice field and for people with chronic disabilities and their families and carers. The book invites readers to re-think and re-shape the way that community-based healthcare is practised by practitioners and experienced/engaged with by clients/patients and their families and other carers. Based on a PhD study of therapeutic relationships in community healthcare settings in NSW, Australia, and on real-life experiences of practitioners, clients and clients’ families and care givers, this book paints a rich picture of the lived experiences of these participants in community-based healthcare. It examines the issues and challenges they face and the ways they deal with these. Key themes identified across the book are: the value and nature of relationships in this unique healthcare setting, the importance of time and using it well, the way good teamwork facilitates good community-based, patient-centred healthcare, balancing autonomy and equality with healthcare quality, practice wisdom embodied in healthcare, and ways of improving healthcare in clients’ own homes.

Series introduction: Practice, Education, Work and Society; Preface; Section 1: Setting the scene: Community-based healthcare; Community-based healthcare; Section 2: A qualitative study into community-based therapeutic relationships; Constructing mindful dialogues in healthcare: A phenomenological study; Narrative as a lens on practice; Hearing their voices; A model for mindful dialogues in community-based practice; Section 3: Community-based healthcare: Lived experiences; Being a client: It is about me; Families; When a nurse comes to call; Care and caring: Getting to know you; A doctor’s tale: “You’re my doc, doc”; Therapy tales: On their turf; The care assessor’s story: In the field, from the field; Life after brain injury: Making a life that works; Mental healthcare in our community; Palliative care: Living and dying at home; Case management: Nothing about us without us; Section 4: Ways forward; Considerations for quality of life: Always looking from the outside in; Collaborating in community-based healthcare: Mindsets for relational practice; A future path for healthcare in the community: Creating a mindful crucible of healing; Soul-medicine: An autoethnography; Critical companionship: Nurturing mindful dialogues in the midst of practice; Pursuing practice mindfulness and wisdom; A final word; Contributors.