Roles of Health and Social Care Agencies in Communities

The Value of Integrated Care as A Social Care Intervention
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The Value of Integrated Care as a Social Care Intervention
Introduction
Health and social care agencies play critical roles in taking care of vulnerable groups in the communities. Social care interventions help support incapacitated people, such as the mentally ill and disabled. These people’s lives are at risk. Today, the global healthcare trend is moving the care services from the institution level to a community level. This helps health organizations reach more disadvantaged people in various communities and implement specific social interventions that improve health outcomes. This value-based healthcare model emphasizes the significance of patient satisfaction and encourages policy shifts meant to enhance the quality of patient care. Further, health institutes continue to incorporate human rights laws into social care interventions. This ensures that vulnerable individual’s rights are respected. They can be protected from harm and safeguarded from inhumane and degrading treatments (Amon et al., 2012). It enables practitioners to deliver social care services that uphold dignity and fairness to these vulnerable groups. This paper first looks at the value of an integrated care approach in social care interventions. Then analyzes the policy and practice relating to integrated care. The paper uses the case study of Jimmy, who is a homeless and mentally ill person, to discuss the significance of integrated care services. Lastly, the article offers several proposals that support the use of integrated care in social care interventions.
Background
Value of Integrated care
Integrated care is an emerging model within the healthcare industry, focusing on a coordinated delivery of patient care services. Integrated care aims to solve the disconnected service delivery prevalent in many health care systems globally. Within a social services context integrated care can be referred to combining and organizing the various health variables such as diagnosis, health promotion, clinical services, treatment, administration, rehabilitation and funding to create a unified and coordinated health system focused on quality care and patient satisfaction (Goodwin, 2016, p. 2). It promotes efficiency within health organizations by ensuring closer collaboration between various providers, patients, and settings. Integrated care can be divided into five categories. First, horizontal integration which involves coordinating caregivers such as health and social services to serve patients with specific conditions like young children with behavior problems. Second, vertical integration, which entails merging across primary, tertiary care, and community health services to deliver the best care practices for patients. Third, people-centered integration that focuses on enhancing cooperation between patients and providers through such initiatives as community engagement and health education. Fourth, sectoral integration that aligns care providers both vertically and horizontally within a specific health sector such as behavioral health and substance use. Fifth, whole system integration, which is a comprehensive model that aims to cover the public health needs of an entire population (Goodwin, 2016, p.4). So, for these forms of integrated care to thrive, the various care professionals' networks within a healthcare system need to cooperate fully.
Benefits of integrated care
The integrated care model offers immense benefits to patients and care providers across the healthcare system. One, the greater coordination in integrated models helps care providers quickly access patient records and information. They can use integrated electronic medical record systems to help enhance the response in emergency cases. Two, an integrated model leads to positive health outcomes. It promotes the collaboration of various health experts to deliver quality patient care in specific settings. Studies have also shown that integrated care has led to a rise in visits to primary and home care services (Valentijn et al., 2013). Thus, more patients access quality care preventative and treatment services.
A significant area of integrated care is it helps blend primary care and mental health care within the communities. The primary care setting is usually the first point of contact for mentally ill patients suffering from conditions such as depression, substance abuse, anxiety, and behavioral problems. A good number of patients suffering from these ailments either don't receive the correct diagnosis or miss their appointments in mental health centers. As a result, they fail to receive adequate care to treat their behavioral health challenges. So, an integrated care model seeks to bridge this gap between mental health care and primary care by nursing these patients within the same setting (Valentijn et al., 2013). This action helps enhance the care of mentally ill patients.
Challenges in implementing integrated care
The integrated model continues to face challenges that hinder its effective implementation across various health organizations globally. First, there is no single strategy to implement an integrated model. It needs a combination of multiple approaches for its successful delivery. This calls for a reliable and effective leader who will align the organization and management structure to fit the integrated model in the various contexts and settings. Another challenge is there is limited research on the impact of integrated care on the different health initiatives. More information is necessary to assess the effect on costs and patient outcomes. This will help health providers identify best practices for specific settings such as primary care, community care, or tertiary care services. Also, many organizations offer health and social care services. This situation makes it challenging to build care provider networks within healthcare systems in a country. The complex organizational structures hinder full integration. Lastly, many clinicians and practitioners do not follow the common standards and practices necessary for integration to work. This affects the coordination of care provision services (Auschra, 2018). So, health organizations need to ensure that caregivers adhere to the best care practices.
Policy and Practice
Some of the factors affecting the implementation of integrated care policies include the following. First, the goals of the integrated care initiative. This consists of the problems that the initiative seeks to address, the target user group, and its role in solving social inequalities prevalent within communities. Second, the stakeholders which cover local health and social providers in communities, the local authorities, regulatory bodies, and national health institutes. All these groups are vital in driving the necessary policy that will influence integrated care and promote social justice. Third, the availability of health resources. This entails the quality and quantity of trained healthcare personnel. An integrated care initiative draws from the expertise of various professionals in different health sectors. So, to implement a specific type of integration policy, a government needs adequate trained health workers (Maruthappu, Hasan, & Zeltner, 2015, p. 252). These factors need to be considered for governments and health institutes to design clear policies on integrated healthcare.
The trust between healthcare providers and governments continues to shape the enacting of policies that affect integrated care. Governments pursue various initiatives to drive integrated healthcare policies. First, the use of financial incentives is a significant policy approach used by governments to encourage the implementation of integrated care. Current policies are geared towards facilitating cooperation between health and social care organizations. The organizations which work jointly are rewarded with favorable funding schemes. This action helps break the health and social barriers within care providers. It promotes more healthcare providers to partner with social care organizations to treat patients with complex conditions within local communities. For example, the NHS England has embarked on policy initiatives such as the Health and Social Care Act 2012 that aims to increase partnerships between various health providers and social care providers within England (May 2015, p.142). The policy has coordinated care across different primary and secondary care settings.
Another policy approac...