Hodges' Model: Welcome to the QUAD

- provides a space for reflections on a HEALTH, SOCIAL CARE and INFORMATICS model that has universal potential in terms of application and users. If time permits you will find a current list and growing archive of highly eclectic posts about Hodges' model, its ongoing development plus items on education, conferences and computing. The website, on-line since 1998 needs a major overhaul. With this and more in mind I am (slowly) learning Drupal and Ruby.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Nursing and the care 'event horizon'

The axes of Hodges' model as illustrated:

HUMANISTIC - MECHANISTIC
and
INDIVIDUAL - GROUP

- are quite straight forward to understand, hence the ready utility of the model.

Nursing care is often described in terms of care that is 'visible' and that which is 'invisible'.

Hodges' model then makes explicit the division between physical - task-based care (upper-right SCIENCES domain) and that which concerns mental health and emotional care (upper-left INTRA-INTERPERSONAL domain. Within Hodges' model what is considered the individual axis can be likened to the astrophysicist's 'event horizon'. An irrevocable barrier and division between two fundamental areas (quadrants) of care that we are still working to conjoin and integrate.