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Biomedical subjects

David Mechanic

Publications and source records attributed to David Mechanic.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Facilitators and barriers to employment among individuals with psychiatric disabilities: a job coach perspective.

Unemployment rates remain high among individuals with psychiatric disabilities despite growing evidence that supported employment programs (SEPs) can help such individuals to obtain and retain competitive employment. A complete understanding of factors that may facilitate or hinder the success of such supported employment efforts is urgently needed to increase the efficacy of SEPs and move more individuals with psychiatric disabilities from welfare to work. This exploratory study provides insight into potential facilitators and barriers to employment among individuals with psychiatric disabilities from the perspective of job coaches. Twenty-eight job coaches from 14 SEPs in a Northeastern state reported on their experience with four recent clients, two who were successful in obtaining employment and two who failed, through a semi-structured mail survey. Findings suggest that job coaches use similar strategies to assist clients, but in each case try to tailor specific strategies to client's needs and characteristics. Factors that influence successful job placement and research and policy implications are discussed.

Employment↗
PubMed2004

The rise and fall of managed care.

The managed care backlash is analyzed as a collective behavioral response led by attacks from threatened professional, provider, and special interest communities. Central to the backlash was the middle class's repudiation of explicit rationing at the point of service adopted by Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and other managed care plans. Americans are accustomed to choice and autonomy in their health care utilization and reacted negatively to restrictions. Assisted by negative anecdotes in the media and allegations of the denial of needed services, opponents built a negative picture of managed care often inconsistent with the empirical evidence. They succeeded in arousing public anxiety that appropriate health care might not be available when people most needed it. The private centralization of large health plans made them an easy target for the media, politicians, and provider groups in opposition. These attacks and regulatory initiatives succeeded in diluting strong utilization management controls contributing to current difficulties of containing large health cost increases.

Decision Making↗
PubMed2003

Physician discontent: challenges and opportunities.

Most physicians continue to report overall career satisfaction, but increased public and patient expectations and administrative and regulatory controls contribute to perceptions of increased time pressures and erosion of autonomy. Increasingly, knowledgeable patients armed with information from the media, as well as guidelines developed by health plans, government, specialty societies, professional organizations, and advocacy groups, confront physicians with a bewildering array of new expectations and demands. Although physicians are spending more time with patients than in earlier periods they feel themselves on a treadmill. Strategies to ease pressures include increased use and enhanced scope of nonphysician clinicians, adoption of information technology and disease management programs to reduce errors and to increase efficiency and quality, and thoughtful practice design. Use of such strategies, combined with leadership and a clear sense of direction, can empower physicians, provide them with expanded knowledge and expert systems, and relieve some practice burdens and frustrations.

Chronic Disease↗
PubMed2003

Navigating the disability process: persons with mental disorders applying for and receiving disability benefits.

Persons with mental disorders are less likely to be working and more likely to apply for and receive SSDI and/or SSI benefits than are those without such disorders. Data from the National Health Interview Survey on Disability (NHIS-D) were examined to identify the predictors of SSDI/SSI application and receipt among persons with self-reported mental disorders. Compared with nonapplicants, applicants had higher levels of disability, fewer financial and interpersonal resources, and better access to information about the disability programs. Among applicants, similar factors distinguished recipients from those who did not receive benefits. Navigating the disability process is associated with the extent of impairment, economic and social disadvantage, and linkage to the disability determination process.

Disability Evaluation↗
PubMed2002

Perceived need and help-seeking in adults with mood, anxiety, or substance use disorders.

BACKGROUND: A majority of adults with common mental disorders do not seek professional help. To better understand why not, we examined the correlates of various stages of help-seeking, including perceived need for professional help, seeking such help, and from which professionals participants sought help. METHODS: The sample for this study comprised 1792 participants in the National Comorbidity Survey, conducted from 1990-1992, who were diagnosed with a 12-month DSM-III-R mood, anxiety, or substance disorder. In this sample, we assessed correlates of perceived need for professional help, seeking professional help among those with a need, and, among those who did seek professional help, seeking help from mental health professionals. RESULTS: Mood disorders, comorbid mood and anxiety disorders, and mental disorders associated with impairment in role functioning or suicidality were strong predictors of perceived need. Psychopathology was also associated with the decision to seek help from mental health professionals, but not with the decision to seek professional help overall. After controlling for the nature and severity of psychopathology, various sociodemographic and attitudinal factors appeared to be associated with perception of need, help-seeking, and participants' choices of professionals. CONCLUSIONS: Unmet need for mental health care is a serious public health problem. Meeting this need requires expanding our attention beyond psychopathology to various evaluations and decisions that affect help-seeking. Our results suggest the importance of attitude and behavior change strategies in reducing the gap between need and care.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

Socio-cultural implications of changing organizational technologies in the provision of care.

Technology refers to inputs (machines, bureaucratic procedures, management strategies) organized to achieve specified outcomes. Such inputs and how they are used arise from socio-cultural conditions and in turn influence social behavior and values. Advances in medical technology are due to the high value populations place on health, emerging developments in science (also a cultural product). and from the opportunities and incentives the society gives to varying stakeholders. In the United States for example, the development and uses of medical technology are shaped by faith in marketplace competition, technological progress, activism, choice and consumerism. This constellation of values has resulted in very rapid growth and dissemination of hardware and related procedures whose costs pose significant financial dilemmas. In response, a range of management technologies have been developed to restrain the excesses of intervention but, because they are counter to many prevailing values and interests, they have led to much tension and a social backlash. Resolving these rationing tensions--which are rarely acknowledged as such--is a major challenge in American medical care and in much of the world. In the context of American social values, once new preventive or treatment technologies are introduced, they take patients on treatment trajectories that are difficult to control and which result in many being labeled with diagnoses they do not have and receiving interventions they do not need. Major efforts are under way to increase the sophistication of consumers of health care in a manner consistent with evidence-based medicine but these face significant barriers. Underlying what at first appears as simply technical barriers are the particular social and cultural influences on how people acquire and use information, the sources they trust and distrust, and the types of information they find credible and relevant to their situations. In short, the competition between new preventive and treatment technologies and managed care technologies is at its heart a culture war.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed2002

Interventions to improve medication adherence in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: Although nonadherence with the antipsychotic medication regimen is a common barrier to the effective treatment for schizophrenia, knowledge is limited about how to improve medication adherence. This systematic literature review examined psychosocial interventions for improving medication adherence, focusing on promising initiatives, reasonable standards for conducting research in this area, and implications for clinical practice. METHOD: Studies were identified by computerized searches of MEDLINE and PsychLIT for the years between 1980 and 2000 and by manual searches of relevant bibliographies and conference proceedings. Key articles were summarized. RESULTS: Thirteen (33%) of 39 identified studies reported significant intervention effects. Although interventions and family therapy programs relying on psychoeducation were common in clinical practice, they were typically ineffective. Concrete problem solving or motivational techniques were common features of successful programs. Interventions targeted specifically to problems of nonadherence were more likely to be effective (55%) than were more broadly based treatment interventions (26%). One-half (four of eight) of the successful interventions not specifically focused on nonadherence involved an array of supportive and rehabilitative community-based services. CONCLUSIONS: Psychoeducational interventions without accompanying behavioral components and supportive services are not likely to be effective in improving medication adherence in schizophrenia. Models of community care such as assertive community treatment and interventions based on principles of motivational interviewing are promising. Providing patients with concrete instructions and problem-solving strategies, such as reminders, self-monitoring tools, cues, and reinforcements, is useful. Problems in adherence are recurring, and booster sessions are needed to reinforce and consolidate gains.

Antipsychotic Agents↗
PubMed2002

Improving the quality of health care in the United States of America: the need for a multi-level approach.

Serious efforts to address quality require coordinated, multi-faceted, multi-level strategies that address the organisational environments and cultures that affect how care is provided. Most efforts over the past 50 years to improve the care provided by physicians and other clinicians have been individually rather than system based. Such individual interventions to modify physician behaviour typically have only modest effects whether considering the recognition and treatment of depression in primary care, following established practice guidelines, carrying out preventive interventions, monitoring and managing chronic illness appropriately, or managing pain and end-of-life care. It is increasingly recognised that quality of care is a property of health systems. Internal efforts to shape clinical routines, such as performance incentives and disease-management approaches, and external inducements and constraints that shape how clinical contexts are organised and function are equally relevant. Internal factors include the skills training of clinical personnel, organisational procedures and mechanisms to coordinate care and prevent errors, implementation of best practices, effective use of informational technologies and appropriate incentives. External factors include broader financial and reimbursement mechanisms, regulatory arrangements that protect access and patient rights in situations of vulnerability and performance-based contracts. The mobilisation of effective advocacy, independent and non-profit statutory watchdog organisations, and good consumer information can facilitate and reinforce quality efforts. System integration is admittedly difficult, and always incomplete, but movement toward this goal is an essential strategic objective.

Health Planning↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Apartheid medicine.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Black or African American↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Who shall lead: is there a future for population health?

Despite renewed interest in population health concerns, elevation of this field in policy considerations faces many challenges. At present there is much concern about disparities and meeting improved population health objectives, but interest waxes and wanes with scientific developments and especially with dominant political alignments and ideologies. If the field of population health is to have sustained policy influence, it requires a persistent constituency, a strong organizational base both within and outside of government, and academic respectability. Population health faces many issues in seeking to become legitimized as both a unique field of study and as a significant force in public policy. Among these are a clear definition of the boundaries of the field, a continuing flow of resources for development, and attractive career structures for new recruits and future leaders.

Delivery of Health Care↗