Preliminary Care Coordination Plan
Although people do everything possible to live healthily, it is natural to encounter a health care problem at some point in life. As a result, it is crucial to be prepared and ensure that the interventions adopted can comprehensively address a health care problem. A care coordination plan is the most effective approach to address a health care problem. Such a plan evaluates the characteristics and dynamics of a health care concern and includes a structured approach to enhance recovery while ensuring that a patient understands the problem in detail. The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary care coordination plan for trauma, including intervention goals and community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care.
Trauma and the Associated Best Practices for Health Improvement
People go through terrible events and react differently. Trauma denotes an emotional response towards a harmful event, usually physically, mentally, or emotionally threatening (Furuta et al., 2018). A traumatized person experiences a broad range of emotions depending on the cause of the trauma. They can be immediate or long-term, including shock, difficulties in processing experiences, coordination and concentration problems, and a feeling of helplessness. According to Bryant (2019), persistent trauma without decreased severity develops into post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As a result, it is crucial to identify and respond to trauma symptoms early before developing into PTSD.
Trauma is harrowing. It affects a person’s perception of issues, self-esteem, and relationships, among other critical aspects of healthy living. Since the problem is multidimensional, health care providers should ensure that interventions consider the physical, psychosocial, and cultural aspects of trauma. People experiencing trauma are likely to be exhausted, anxious, sad, and dissociated (Kostiuk & Burns, 2020). The severity of the condition in terms of physical deterioration further affects how patients respond to treatment and cooperate with health care providers. A comprehensive care plan should include interventions for addressing a patient’s physical concerns.
Psychosocial considerations are primarily about psychosocial support and its sources to enhance the patient’s recovery. Given that people with trauma face many mental and emotional challenges, psychosocial support should be a priority to enable them to return to an independent existence (Furuta et al., 2018). The care plan should also respond to the cultural needs of the traumatized person effectively. As Ranjbar et al. (2020) posited, health care professionals should be aware of the influence of cultural beliefs in trauma interpretation and the recovery process. The care plan should be culturally-sensitive to recognize cultural variations that affect how people perceive illnesses and respond to treatments.
Based on these considerations, trauma-informed care should be among the best practices for health improvement. According to Ranjbar et al. (2020), a trauma-informed care plan aims to help the individual seeking help receive holistic care. The approach follows the principle that trauma affects how people perceive themselves, others, and the world. Besides, trauma demotivates people to connect and utilize support services. In response, trauma-informed care prioritizes safety and an individual’s choice of control. Its other key pillars include collaborating with the traumatized individual, maintaining respectful and professional boundaries, and skill-building. Above all, trauma-informed care assures patients much support while providing skills necessary for coping with the problem and preventing re-traumatization.
Specific Goals for Addressing Trauma
Health care providers should establish several goals focusing on knowledge and skills building, developing coping skills, and an eventual decline in traumatic symptoms.
- Enhancing knowledge about trauma: it is about learning and discovering to enable the traumatized individual to understand why some reactions occur. The knowledge allows the individual to understand their experiences while assuring them that they are not alone.
- Reestablishing safety: trauma erodes an individual’s sense of safety. Through trauma-focused therapy, health care providers should assist individuals with trauma to restore their sense of safety.
- Developing healthy coping skills: patients cope with diseases depending on the treatment approach. Through trauma-focused therapy sessions, health care providers help people with trauma develop skills to enable them better respond to feelings, thoughts, and triggers of the traumatic event (Furuta et al., 2018). Coping strategies include relaxation and anxiety management techniques.
- Decreasing traumatic stress symptoms: with the proper treatment (primarily therapies and self-care), traumatized individuals develop and practice coping skills that enable them to reduce traumatic stress symptoms progressively. Positive changes include a decrease in intrusive symptoms, less dissociation, and minimal experiences of depression and anxiety. Such a reduction in negative experiences enables traumatized individuals to regain power and control over past positive experiences. Persistence leads to recovery.
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Community Resources for a Safe and Effective Continuum of Care
After receiving treatment, patients need close support to enhance recovery and prevent the recurrence of a disease. The same applies to trauma. When used effectively, community resources keep the individual with trauma highly informed and empowered to cope with trauma. The first crucial community resource is peer support groups. Generally, peer support groups vary in membership depending on the location and health care problem bringing individuals together. In a peer support group, people who have been through trauma meet and share their stories to help each other feel comfortable talking about their trauma (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 2021). Talking and sharing experiences help individuals cope with memories and emotions due to the assurance that they are not alone.
Besides peer support groups, many organizations serve as essential and reliable community resources on trauma. A suitable example is the National Center for PTSD. The organization’s primary mandate is to advance veterans’ social welfare and health needs with PTSD (National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health, 2019). Besides treatment, veterans receive education and training to cope with trauma. Other resources include online support and applications targeting different people at local or national levels. For instance, MyPTSD is a reliable forum for connecting trauma survivors with information and community support. Such platforms keep trauma survivors connected and encouraged to cope with their problems as they look forward to full recovery.
Conclusion
Health care outcomes depend on the approaches health care providers use to address health problems. As discussed in this paper, best practices for addressing trauma include culturally-sensitive care and those following the principles of trauma-informed care. Goals for achieving the desired outcomes include empowering individuals with trauma to understand the problem, developing coping skills, and decreasing symptoms. Community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care include peer support groups, trauma-focused resource centers, and online support.
References
Bryant, R. A. (2019). Post-traumatic stress disorder: a state-of-the-art review of evidence and challenges. World psychiatry: Official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 18(3), 259–269. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20656
Furuta, M., Horsch, A., Ng, E. S., Bick, D., Spain, D., & Sin, J. (2018). Effectiveness of trauma-focused psychological therapies for treating post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in women following childbirth: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 591. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00591
Kostiuk, M., & Burns, B. (2020).Trauma assessment. StatPearls [Internet].https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK555913/
National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health.(2019). Resources on trauma.http://www.nationalcenterdvtraumamh.org/publications-products/resources-on-trauma/
Ranjbar, N., Erb, M., Mohammad, O., & Moreno, F. A. (2020). Trauma-informed care and cultural humility in the mental health care of people from minoritized communities. Focus (American Psychiatric Publishing), 18(1), 8–15. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20190027
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2021). PTSD: National Center for PTSD. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/gethelp/peer_support.asp
Develop a 3-4-page preliminary care coordination plan for a selected health care problem. Include physical, psychosocial, and cultural considerations for this health care problem. Identify and list available community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care.
Instructions
Note: You are required to complete this assessment before Assessment 4.
Develop the Preliminary Care Coordination Plan
Complete the following:
• Identify a health concern as the focus of your care coordination plan. In your plan, please include physical, psychosocial, and cultural needs. Possible health concerns may include, but are not limited to:
o Stroke.
o Heart disease (high blood pressure, stroke, or heart failure).
o Home safety.
o Pulmonary disease (COPD or fibrotic lung disease).
o Orthopedic concerns (hip replacement or knee replacement).
o Cognitive impairment (Alzheimer’s disease or dementia).
o Pain management.
o Mental health.
o Trauma.
• Identify available community resources for a safe and effective continuum of care.
Document Format and Length
• Your preliminary plan should be an APA scholarly paper, 3-4 pages in length.
o Remember to use active voice, this means being direct and writing concisely; as opposed to passive voice, which means writing with a tendency to wordiness.
• In your paper include possible community resources that can be used.
• Be sure to review the scoring guide to make sure all criteria are addressed in your paper.
o Study the subtle differences between basic, proficient, and distinguished.