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This chapter qualitatively explored the impact of including parent liaisons (i.e., parents with lived experience caring for a child with complex needs, who support other caregivers in navigating child and family needs) in a case conferencing model for children with complex medical/social needs. Case conferences are used to address fragmented care, shared decision-making, and set patient-centered goals. Seventeen semi-structured interviews were conducted with clinicians and parent liaisons to assess the involvement of parent liaisons in case conferencing. Two main themes included benefits of parent liaison involvement (10 subthemes) and challenges to parent liaison involvement (5 subthemes). Clinicians reported that liaison participation and support of patients reduced stress for clinicians as well as family members. Challenges to liaison involvement included clinical team/parent liaison communication delays, which were further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Parent liaison involvement in case conferences is perceived to be beneficial to children with complex needs, their families, and the clinical team. Integration of liaisons ensures the familial perspective is included in clinical goal setting.

Since the 1990s, public health agencies as well as nutrition and child health experts have recognized breastfeeding as the most appropriate infant-feeding mode for optimal health and psycho-emotional development. Consequently, breastfeeding has become a standard of good mothering, internalized by mothers, who implement a demanding self-discipline to perform breastfeeding. This dedication reflects the delegation of biopolitics to individuals in modern neoliberal societies: authoritative experts inform new parents, who then bear the responsibility of their children's health risk management. They are expected to choose appropriate practices as part of a collective strategy of risk management and anticipation of the future by changing current behaviours, aiming at the emergence of a ‘healthy body and mind’ society. Among these practices, breastfeeding holds a central place due to medical consensus about its benefits. In my ethnography of postpartum consultations by independent midwives in Switzerland, I studied the breastfeeding practices and experiences of home birth parents as part of the ‘holistic care’ provided by these midwives. Shadowing midwives during their postpartum visits between 2014 and 2017, I witnessed parents committing to the body and emotional work required to carry out their ‘breastfeeding project’, designed in continuity with their out-of-hospital birth choice. During their follow-ups, midwives engage with parents in a shared construction of meanings around breastfeeding, anchoring parenting identities in the body. I explore in this chapter the issues raised by the production of lactating maternal bodies and how women engage in body and emotional work to achieve it.

A plethora of youth development programmes exist across South Africa that can be characterised as social crime prevention or building youth resilience. However, many of these programmes can be seen as one dimensional, focussing largely on skills development and preparing youth for the labour market. In addition, a large number of these programmes are short-term interventions, with the long-term impact not always measured. A number of scholars over the last two decades have emphasised the importance of sustainability and envisioning a continuum of development, particularly for youth who have become disengaged from social institutions. Consequently, there is an urgent need to examine the different approaches to youth development and their value, and more importantly, to provide a platform for youth voices to be heard on their perceptions of what they need to enhance their growth and development, particularly in the context of the growing number of youth who are not in employment, education or training (NEET). An approach that is gaining currency in South Africa with NEET youth is that of a holistic approach. The purpose of this chapter is to explore a holistic approach to personal transformation in the youth sector as implemented by the Chrysalis Academy (CA) over the past 18 years. Its approach embraces the development of the whole person and encourages education in its broadest sense, including the arts, technical and vocational training, emotional intelligence, psychosocial support and spiritual development.

This chapter aims to describe the case of Buurtzorg Nederland as a good practice of Being-Centered organizational innovation. We use the concept of corporate peace as an expression of a workplace that induces both employee and client satisfaction. This in turn strengthens several organizational outcomes such as productivity and creativeness. The innovation has been framed as Being-Centered, providing capacity for a holistic view while introducing a multi-level process structure: physical, vital, mental, psychic, and non-dual. Such a holistic view fits the organic worldview framework. This framework is being developed as an alternative to the mainstream competitive economic view. A competitive view of the world has a set of assumptions that describe how we organize a workplace. In practice it has the belief of the organization as a zero-sum game containing players who are motivated by their self-interests. These organizational assumptions often encourage hostile competitive behaviors resulting in undermining corporate peace. Management scholars urge for developing alternative principles. The principles are often labeled as sustainable, spiritual, or organic. Good practices where alternative principles of organizing are implemented assist the scholarly field to further develop alternative frameworks as opposed to the competitive economic worldview. This chapter contributes by examining a good practice. A Case Study Approach has been followed using the single case perspective with face-to-face interviews for the data collection by purposive sampling and internal company reports. In total, 38 respondents were interviewed and five interviews with the founder of Buurtzorg were conducted. Based on the case study, we suggest a Being-Centered Approach as the main explanation of the good practice at Buurtzorg rather than a focus on one single concept such as: management structure, ICT, community-based care, or a patient focus.

The purpose of this chapter is to highlight some of the critical multiteam system (MTS) issues that are faced in healthcare by utilizing case studies that illustrate the transition of a patient through the healthcare system and suggest a possible approach to studying these issues.

The approach taken by the authors is a case study approach, which is used to illustrate the transition of a patient through several venues in a healthcare system. This approach elucidates the MTS nature of healthcare. Moreover, a methodological explanation, social network analysis (SNA), for exploring the description and analysis of MTSs in healthcare is provided.

The case study approach provides concrete examples of the complex relationship between providers caring for a single patient. The case study describes the range of shared practice in healthcare, from collaborative care within each setting to the less obvious interdependence between teams across settings. This interdependence is necessary to deliver complex care but is also a source of potential errors during care. SNA is one tool to quantify these relationships, link them to outcomes, and establish areas for future research and quality improvement efforts.

This chapter offers a unique holistic view of the transition of a patient through a healthcare system and the interdependency of care necessary to deliver care. The authors show a methodology for assessing MTSs with a discussion of utilizing SNA. This foundation may offer promise to better understand care delivery and shape programs that can lead to improvement in care.

Introduction: Lately, various tendencies to approach personalized medicine (PM) have developed. However, their result is a mutual application of technology without considering the essence of this field. The comprehensive approach to the concept of PM reveals some aspects that need to be dealt with for a successful implementation.

Aim: Identifying possible ways of implementing PM through person-centered care, with an overall positive economic impact, improved medical services, and customer satisfaction.

Methods: The research carried out represents a retrospective descriptive cross-sectional study. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used.

Findings: PM plays an increasingly important role in the political agenda of different countries, to approve an effective method of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of various diseases. The postponement of its implementation by the authorities and the lack of public policies lead to the unjustified expenditure of public money and contribute to halting the development of the medical system through managerial inefficiency.

The originality of the study: Different approaches to PM and its implementations are analyzed in the context of the challenges of the contemporary economy.

Implications: The research is carried out in the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova within the state research programs.

Native American (NA) women's health needs in general are underresearched, and use of holistic, community-informed, and resilience-based approaches are rare. Despite extensive documentation of the continuing health inequalities between NA women and the general US population, little research examines what healthcare infrastructure and healthcare provider factors most impact, and exacerbate, these health disparities. The purpose of the study was to provide insight into the healthcare experiences of NA women. A qualitative descriptive research methodology with “hues” of an ethnographic life-history approach was used. Data were collected through qualitative semi-structured life-history interviews with 31 NA women from the Gulf Coast region of the United States. All women identified healthcare obstacles and barriers. These barriers were predominately comprised of Healthcare Infrastructure Barriers, which entailed: (1) Cost and Insurance Barriers; (2) Concerns about Western Medication; (3) Language Barriers; (4) Distance to Medical Facilities or Specialists; and (5) Long-wait Times, and Negative Provider Relationships, which included: (1) Rushed or Rude Provider Interactions; (2) Providers not Listening, or Ignoring Patient Concerns; (3) Poor, Inaccurate, or Inadequate Care or Diagnosis; (4) Discrimination in Healthcare; and (5) The need for Personal Relationships with Providers. These findings suggest that healthcare infrastructure issues and poor healthcare provider relationships are important structural issues that contribute to health disparities. The findings from this study have important implications for the type of training those working in healthcare services receive to be more sensitive to the needs of NA women and suggest that NA women may need unique support when accessing healthcare.