Question

Mustn’t a mobile team find its ground in the light of the experiences in the field?

Problem description

Being a mobile team, we build and experiment with our model of functioning (criteria for 2a and 2b, visits in pairs, develop an approach for helping and solving problems in home situations, etc…), but we also have to consider the needs of the hospital to which we are administratively attached. The mobile team wants to develop its specific tools, while the hospital also looks for opportunities following a period of hospitalisation, and appeals to the mobile team while a long waiting list is present.

Moreover, ambulatory mh-care is very poorly developed in our rural working area; it’s not easy to find a relay after a crisis situation or after a hospitalisation

Impact - effect

At the level of the mobile team functioning: 1) continuously maintaining a joint language towards our patients and network partners is difficult; 2) ambiguity in terms of: taking charge of the patient independently or taking charge of the patient subordinated to hospital by means of the psychiatrists sending us out for a mission, or taking charge of a patient as an assigned task including feedback to the referring doctors…. Also ambiguity in the formulation of our official position, formulated as follows: administrative dependency and functional independency.

Given the lack of outpatient facilities, psychiatrists looking for care continuity will have the natural reflex to look in our direction

To do

1) presenting and illustrating more frequently our practice to our medical direction, for instance during the monthly psy107 meetings regarding the deployment of the project.  Illustrating the practices of other mobile teams could be recommended as well;

2) the best way seems to us to find a practice similar to the one applied in Lausanne: a sort of joint management by the various branches (policlinic consultations, liaison mobile teams…).  In such a context, without any hierarchy between network professionals, the mobile team can maintain the specific mission of being the connecting thread, supported by the psychiatrist or the treating doctor

Theme

Starting up and further development/deployment of mobile teams

Topic

critical success factors for starting up and further development/deployment

Reference -  contact

Emmanuel Paquot, EM d’Henri Chapelle

Mobile team

2B

Project

RéSME

Intership abroad - place

Lausanne - SPN Prangins

Date

February 2014