Question

What are possible levers for achieving our (potential) target group?

Problem description

We are a new team and for the moment we have not reached, yet, our potential target group.  Not all care professionals are informed about our project and functioning, what explains why many patients remain at home without adequate support or are referred to hospital for an admission that could possibly be prevented by interventions of our mobile team.  Potential partners are not enough familiarised with our project, and don’t know when to appeal to us.

The collaboration with other partners operating inside or outside mental health could be improved as well. Also, our co-operation with admission and urgency/emergency departments is poorly structured

Impact - effect

We fail in terms of expected workload, and this has an impact on various levels: patients who could benefit from our team’s interventions don’t come to us, yet;  the collaborators of our mobile team occasionally have calm periods; referents are not aware of or familiar with our project.

To do

In Lille-East, de-institutionalisation of mental health is already running for 30 years.  All (potential) partners were informed and the population sensitised, which made the mobile teams were known by many.  In our region as well, there is a need to raise awareness and to inform about psychiatry at home and in the community, and this in order to promote tolerance, de-stigmatisation and acceptance of being different.

We could also invest in establishing a comprehensive network and a good co-operation between various partners and (potential) referrers such as GP’s, mobile teams, pharmacists, mental health centres and hospitals, psychiatrists with private practice… The external partners are vary divers: pharmacists, mayors, sport facilities, community services.  We must learn to know each other and co-operate and with this goal in mind we could work with conventions to describe and formalise the co-operations.

Another useful idea is that – as in Lille- we should proactively start looking for persons living in the region that are hospitalised because of a psychiatric crisis.  This will allow us to seek out proactively the preconceived target group

Theme

Starting up and further development/deployment of mobile teams

Topic

critical success factors for starting up and further development/deployment

Reference -  contact

Hélène Soete

Mobile team

2A

Project

Gent-Eeklo (PAKT)

Intership abroad - place

Lille

Date

November 2013