Community Engagement & Health Services: St Vincent's, PUBH650 ACU

This report discusses community engagement with reference to St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne and its Health Independence Program (HIP), particularly focusing on pulmonary rehabilitation services. It highlights the importance and benefits of community engagement in addressing health disparities and improving patient outcomes. The report outlines examples of community health programs and specific engagement strategies employed by St. Vincent's Hospital, including aged care services, health independence programs, and community rehabilitation centers. It also acknowledges limitations such as time constraints and potential biases, while suggesting future developments such as a clearer framework for community engagement. The author reflects on personal learning experiences, emphasizing the need to understand preventable illnesses, ethical considerations, and the importance of pulmonary rehabilitation for patients with chronic lung problems. References to relevant research and resources are provided to support the analysis and findings.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Background
• Community engagement can be defined as
the method of working collaboratively with
the groups of health care professionals for
addressing the health issues faced by the
population of the community.
• Importance- Addresses the health disparities,
health care professionals can reach every
section of the community.

Examples of Community engagement
• Benefits -better patient experience,
decreased mortality, decreased rates of
readmissions, decreased rates of health
care infections, avoidance of the hospital
readmissions, improving the functional
status of the patients, improving the
adherence of the patients to the treatment
regimen (O'Mara-Eves et al., 2012).
possible community health programs-
communicable disease strategies, Asthma
Community advocates for the community,
Aged care program, Child and women
health programs (Wallerstein & Duran,
2006).

Community engagement strategies by St.
Vincent hospital
• Aged and community care services
• Health independence Program
• home based allied health care services
• community rehabilitation centre
• Cardiopulmonary rehab
• Spasticity management
• occupational therapy driving assessment
• Oncology rehabilitation
• Group and individual programs
• Neurological rehabilitation and more.

Limitations/future developments
• Time limitation
• All the patients could not be interviewed
• The interviews conducted with the staff
members can be biased.
• Future development- clear understanding of the
framework for the community engagement.
Tallying the community services with that
framework

Personal learning
• It is necessary to understand the burden of the
preventable illnesses
• Necessary to indentify the ethical pitfalls
• Improve the consent process
• Create processes for solving the ethical problems.
• Understanding pulmonary rehabilitation is particularly
essential for the ones suffering from chronic lung
problems as respiratory distress deteriorate their
quality of living and any kind of initiative would help
them in managing the disease

References
• About Us - St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne. (2018). Svhm.org.au. Retrieved 12 April 2018, from https://www.svhm.org.au/health-
professionals/aged-and-community-care/health-independence-program/community-rehabilitation-services/about-us
• CDC. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/communityengagement/pdf/PCE_Report_Chapter_1_SHEF.pdf
• Concannon, T. W., Meissner, P., Grunbaum, J. A., McElwee, N., Guise, J. M., Santa, J., ... & Leslie, L. K. (2012). A new taxonomy for
stakeholder engagement in patient-centered outcomes research. Journal of general internal medicine, 27(8), 985-991.
doi=10.1007/s11606-012-2037-1
• O'Mara-Eves, A., Brunton, G., McDaid, G., Oliver, S., Kavanagh, J., Jamal, F., ... & Thomas, J. (2013). Community engagement to reduce
inequalities in health: a systematic review, meta-analysis and economic analysis. Public Health Research, 1(4).
http://hdl.handle.net/10552/3349
• Wallerstein, N. B., & Duran, B. (2006). Using community-based participatory research to address health disparities. Health promotion
practice, 7(3), 312-323. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839906289376