WORKING WITH FAMILIES

Individualised Care and Working with Families

Individualised Care and Working with Families

Introduction

Primary care for the family is a system of care in which the child receives health care in a primary care medical home, where the family forms an integral part of that care. The concept of a medical home was developed by a paediatrician, Cal Sia of Honolulu, and was adopted by the American Academy of Paediatrics in 1967 as a means of improving care and health outcomes for children with special health care needs (Smith, 2008, p. 202). Today, the primary care medical home is the recommended standard of care for all persons. The medical home concept offers compassionate, comprehensive, around-the-clock, culturally sensitive, and team-oriented care (Billings, 2006, p. 327).

Primary Care in the 21st Century.

Many 21st-century innovations are changing the face of health care and paediatric primary care. Access to information through the Internet can both enhance and pose challenges to appropriate care. Parents are often confused by an array of information from many sources and look to their health care provider for clear answers. Electronic medical records and protection of personal health information are innovations being tested and implemented to save and protect the privacy of personal health information (Wennberg, 2006, p. 145).

All children need standard preventive services, like physical examinations and immunizations. However, this is only the beginning. Primary care clinicians face huge challenges in addressing the broad-ranging list of problems that may need to be addressed in primary care (McMichael, 1984, p. 120). The paediatric primary care visit offers the clinician the opportunity to observe parent-child attachment and the reaction of the caregiver to the child. This may provide a window to future social-emotional developmental issues (Stuck, 2002, p. 1022-80.

The taking of a thorough family history forms a key to knowledge about ...