Biomedical subjects

Ruud ter Meulen

Publications and source records attributed to Ruud ter Meulen.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Client-centered home care: balancing between competing responsibilities.

This study explores and describes the perceptions of nurses with respect to everyday client-centered care. A grounded theory study was conducted with 10 Dutch nurses and auxiliary nurses giving home care to chronically ill clients. Participatory observations and semistructured interviews were held. Nurses perceived roles and responsibilities competing with the role as a responsive professional to the client demand: a critical professional, developer of client competencies, individual, and employee. Strategies in balancing between competing responsibilities were distinguished: pleasing, dialoguing, directing, and detaching. Directing (related to impaired client competencies) and detaching (related to organizational barriers) were also used as second choice strategies. Effectively balancing between competing responsibilities was seen in dialoguing and directing as second choice. Conditions identified related to these strategies are awareness of, and responsibility taking for competing responsibilities. Recommendations for practice concern a care relationship and a dialogue with the client, critical ethical reflection, professional autonomy, self-assertiveness and organizational support.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2005

Recognition of client values as a basis for tailored care: the view of Dutch expert patients and family caregivers.

In the Netherlands confusion is signalled about the introduction of new care concepts like demand-oriented care. The aim of this article is to explore the phenomenon 'interaction aimed at care tailored to the client demand' as seen by expert clients: patients and their family caregivers. Focus interviews were held with expert patients and expert family caregivers of the 'Dutch Council of the Chronically ill and the Disabled'. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyse the results. Recognition by the professional of client values underlying their demand (uniqueness, comprehensiveness, continuity of life, fairness and autonomy) and underlying the care-relationship (equality, partnership and interdependence) emerged as central element within the interaction. Feelings of recognition with the client seem to reinforce autonomy, self-esteem and participation. Recognition was optimally felt in a dialogue. Four professional competencies could be identified related to recognition: attentiveness (ongoing actions to know and understand the patient); responsiveness (active, committed and responsible care guided by respect of patient identity); being a critical partner in care (giving and grounding professional opinion and discuss boundaries); being a developer of client competencies (facilitating and developing client participation within care). The findings offer possibilities to operationalize care concepts aimed at tailored care. Further research aimed at refining and testing the hypothesis developed is recommended.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Evidence-based medicine as an instrument for rational health policy.

This article tries to present a broad view on the values and ethical issues that are at stake in efforts to rationalize health policy on the basis of economic evaluations (like cost-effectiveness analysis) and randomly controlled clinical trials. Though such a rationalization is generally seen as an objective and 'value free' process, moral values often play a hidden role, not only in the production of 'evidence', but also in the way this evidence is used in policy making. For example, the definition of effectiveness of medical treatment or health care service is heavily dependent on dominant individual or social views about the goals of the particular treatment or service. There is also a concern that a reliance on EBM in health policy will occur at the expense of widely shared social values like equity and solidarity. Moreover, there is a concern that when economic considerations and rational procedures become more influential, various 'outside' groups third parties like insurance companies and policy makers will get a stronger influence on medical practice which may lead to a change in the patient-provider relationship. The authors conclude that social values and patient preference should be explicitly addressed when health policy making is based on economic and other scientific evidence.

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗