Holistic care 3: Location

Through February and March I looked at holistic care definitions and other aspects. Now for location.

The place to look for holistic care is literally everywhere. Every - where?

Well yes, if we take holistic to really mean holistic.

There is the obvious physical where that applies in the various care sectors such as; primary, secondary, community and tertiary care and the places they all encompass and contain. The locations associated with buildings and other architectural and organisational structures however permanent: hospitals, hostels, surgeries and clinics, homes, schools, prisons, refugee camps and workplaces - including inner and outer space.

The other where comprises the cognitive and virtual. Our thoughts about care, the thought processes and conscious decision making about care assessment, planning, intervention and evaluation. Except in specific psychoanalytical therapies the unconscious is a less frequently acknowledged and yet undoubtedly factor. If values are to have an origin and a safe harbour (governance) then a light must be cast on the darker, uncertain places. Accepting and utilising these places facilitates a holistic perspective, an adjunct to the more usual analytically derived views.

Speaking of analytical: recently, working on a 2nd temporary secondment, I've been preoccupied (and still am) with PROCESS and CONTENT. We tend to lose ourselves in process; the nursing process, care process, process mapping workshops abound. The problems take centre stage and because they are the patient's problems that qualifies the process as being person-centred. A tick goes in the box.

At times outside of medical emergencies this may be a mistake.

In deploying 'IT' the argument goes that the benefits of information technology in health care (various reports, effective case management, safer practice...) should be transparent, that is -

a by-product of the care process: not an add-on.

To me this suggests that the care process, the energy spent negotiating the care pathway produces a reaction. Informationally this reaction can be desirable. (I'll leave you to contemplate the alternative.)

If the person is truly at the centre of care then maybe the reaction can also be characterised as precession? Just as the Earth precesses on its axis, so our care processes result in precession around the person - the 'whole' individual and their situation at the centre of care?

But only IF we choose to take notice, factually, emotionally and informationally.

There's no disputing that care is frequently wobbly. But this oscillation can provide a periodic peek into the four (5) care domains.

At times these presentations, or windows of opportunity may be physically and emotionally draining, and arise in a highly disordered manner, they are nonetheless there.

Allied with a problem space, that other for me essential location of holistic care, you have a potentially very powerful tool.

I know this may be twaddle and I may be on shaky ground, but at least I'm trying to follow the wobble...

As highlighted previously there are alternate ways of seeing.

Before I close and follow a countdown: Thank you Darcy - a star on stage : GO STS 117 stars in space.