The Title of My Field Experience is Health Coordinator

The Title of My Field Experience is Health Coordinator
Introduction
A.
The title of my field experience is health coordinator. Healthcare coordinators are tasked with several roles. The first role is working with a patient to provide necessary education regarding a healthcare problem. Through this role, healthcare coordinators help ensure that patients understand a health problem, the medication needed, the necessary lifestyle changes needed to be made, and any other care instructions aligned with a condition. Secondly, healthcare coordinators also help patients chart the way forward while providing recommendations on care plans. As a healthcare coordinator, one must understand the problem facing their patient/client and make sure that there is a clear path plotted. Further, it is crucial to mention that healthcare coordinators do not deal with all kinds of patients but tend to focus solely on patients with chronic conditions. These patients are known to need help to understand their conditions and how best to navigate the healthcare system to get the help they need.
B.
Mr. W is a 40-year-old man. Recently, Mr. W lost his wife, and he now has to raise his two minor daughters by himself. He has been a fairly healthy individual and currently works as a meat manager at a local grocery store. He holds a high school degree and has a history of cigarette smoking. Mr. W appears well-groomed and is a man who is direct and clear in his communication. Lastly, he is a man who has excellent motor activity, which means he is independent and attends to different activities without any assistance.
The interaction with Mr. W was quite engaging and informative. However, the interaction started out cold, and Mr. W seemed distant and eager to remain closed. However, slowly, Mr. W opened up and spoke to me about his experience, his family, the challenges he is currently facing, his fears about the future, and what the diagnosis with end-stage renal disease ESRD meant for him and his family. The interaction greatly affected my emotional state as I was drawn to the challenges of Mr. W, and at times, the futility of life and what it is all about was made evident.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (2018) defines care coordination as consolidating care for patients while working in tandem with all involved healthcare providers to help enhance the quality of care. The success of care coordination hinges on information sharing that happens between the different healthcare providers. For this task, I referred to several care coordination techniques, including teamwork, care management, and patient-centered medical care. These models helped me attain the goals I was aiming for while working with my client.
Background
C.
Mr. W is a father of two young girls. He recently lost his wife, and from the interaction, I could tell that he still missed his wife. Mr. W is a man who has established a strong support system. Within his support system, he has friends, family, and even his religious leader who impact his life in different ways. Currently, his only goal is to beat ESRD and take care of his two minor daughters. Concerning cultural needs, Mr. W subscribes to the idea that women are the ones responsible for cooking in the family. However, it is crucial to mention that this trait happens to be heavily influenced by his Hispanic background. Therefore, there is no deep-seated cultural need in his life, but he needs to take charge of his kitchen if he is to eat healthy foodstuff, as I advised.
With regard to Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, Mr. W happens to be at the Generativity versus Stagnation stage. At this stage, Nantais & Stack (2020) note that people are concerned with the future and their contribution to the world. From the interaction, Mr. W fits perfectly in this stage of psychosocial development because his major concern is whether he will be alive to take care of his daughters. His fear and concern here stem from his quest to remain active in his daughters’ lives and contribute to the world by raising them.
D.
Roles
As indicated earlier, the interaction with the client was cold at the start but improved as the conversation continued. At first, Mr. W seemed uninterested in the conversation and also showed signs of anger. However, I decided to take a relaxed approach and establish trust with the adoption of a calm, non-threatening, and humble demeanor. Slowly, Mr. W started to open up and engage me on all the matters that arose in the conversation. Further, my role here entailed developing and adopting a transparent approach so that I could create an environment of trust. I had to watch my tone and show concern and compassion to Mr. W. However, while all the above worked and helped Mr. W to open up, I believe that Mr. W was moved by my quest to want to understand his entire story. I listened intently and made sure that the questions I asked were not pre-determined but came from the flow of the conversation. As Hashim (2017) indicates, the use of open-ended questions is a key ingredient of patient-centered care, and I made sure that I gave Mr. W ample time to respond and articulate his thoughts clearly.
My role in the coordination of care entailed acting as the connector between Mr. W and some of the resources available to him. First, I explained his eligibility for Medicaid and Medicare because of the ESRD diagnosis. Secondly, I also shared the available treatment options and some of the available healthcare providers within his community. Thirdly, I counseled Mr. W. about he best approaches to better healthcare. For example, I shared how smoking makes him susceptible to more dangerous health issues and offered advice on healthy diets. Further, Mr. W and I discussed his ability to commit to out-patient hemodialysis. The role I played here was that, together with Mr. W, we managed to find an out-patient dialysis center that agreed to work with Mr. W’s schedule. These roles and activities helped me establish a strong connection with Mr. W.
Emotions Felt
Mr. W’s life and the current situation is one that affected me emotionally. First of all, I felt sad for him for having lost his wife and then getting diagnosed with ESRD. Aside from the above, he has to raise two young girls all by himself while having a terminal disease that could eventually take him away from his daughters. I felt sadness and sympathy for Mr. W because it seemed like the universe had conspired against him. Further, I had a lot of compassion for him, and there were several instances where I fought back tears because of Mr. W’s seemingly helpless situation.
Legal Document Reviewed
Mr. W and I reviewed his idea of wanting to have an advance directive and living will. With only his daughters by his side, it felt practical for Mr. W to consider these two. Upon incapacitation, these two would help provide guidance on what should be done. These documents should greatly impact the patient because, being the only adult left to take care of his daughters, there is a need for a sense of direction in the event he cannot make decisions concerning his health. So, Mr. W needed to consider leaving a document with clear instructions for the sake of clarification.
I was confident throughout this discussion with Mr. W because these documents are within the scope of documentation our agency often deals with. So, I have encountered a living will and an advance directive before. Further, our agency also deals with HIPAA privacy documentation, especially while dealing with a patient like Mr. W. For Mr. W, we have to ensure that he knows his privacy is of great importance and that we will ensure its protection. Aside from the above, we also deal with DNRs or Do Not Resuscitate orders. These are legally binding documents that simply have doctors agree not to resuscitate a patient’s heart if they happen to experience a stroke or a respiratory arrest. With such a document, we help clients to understand what it means and its implications.
Section 2
E.
Through the interaction with Mr. W, I noticed that he articulates himself quite well. He communicated clearly, and following his trail of thought was unchallenging. Secondly, I noticed that he was not familiar with his condition. He did not know what ought to change in his life because of the condition or how it would impact his lifestyle. Thirdly, I noticed the connection he had with his daughters and the passion with which he spoke about them. The death of his wife left him shocked and broken. However, his girls happen to ignite something deep inside him.
The only gap that was evident was the lack of temporary child care services for when parents or guardians are hospitalized. Mr. W and I had to find to identify family members and friends who could help care for Mr. W’s girls whenever he was at the hospital. In the event that Mr. W was new in the area or did not have any family members close, he would have had an extremely challenging experience. Considering that there are numerous instances when parents find themselves in a similar situation, it is crucial to consider the development of temporary child care services.
There are two social determinants of health facing Mr. W and his family. The first one is Mr. W’s social support network. Mr. W appears to have a strong social support network which is ready to help him throughout his journey. According to Healthypeople.gov (2022), having a strong social support system positively influences a patient’s health outcomes. Therefore, Mr. W’s social support system could, in the end, help enhance his health and safety. Secondly, there is education and especially patient education. As already indicated, Mr. W did not have any prior knowledge of his condition and did not know the changes to expect because of the condition.
F.
There is one instance where I happened to observe a colleague-client interaction, and I liked how my colleague carried out the entire conversation. In their interaction, I saw my colleague create rapport with a patient in a matter of minutes. Apparently, my colleague had read about the client and found common ground through something they both liked. So, she made use of it and made the client feel easy and relaxed before she started asking her questions. Further, I saw the respectful manner in which she carried out the interaction, which challenged me to sharpen my interpersonal skills. From her, I got to learn the importance of listening to a patient, understanding their perspective and genuinely showing empathy (Hashim, 2017).
One effect this approach had on the quality of care coordination provided was that it made the client an active participant in their receipt of care. Having the client as an active participant is crucial, but it is dependent on the provider-patient relationship (Vahdat et al., 2014). However, having already built a positive rapport with the patient, my colleague had an easy time involvin...