Care that falls short. Care that leaves gaps. Care that focuses one-sidedly on psychological problems. In order to address these shortcomings, the Trimbos Institute launched its national campaign ‘Care for Better Health’ in 2007. Now, over 120 improvement teams are working to achieve measurable quality improvements.
The Care for Better Health campaign
The philosophy behind the nationwide campaign Care for Better Health is based on sharing examples from practice as well as professional advice and tested methods. The aim to implement best practices and achieve measurable quality improvements in agencies for long-term care.
Continuity of care
One of the main objectives of the project 'Assertive Outreach’ is to improve the continuity of care. A problem encountered by many outreach teams is insufficient coordination in the service continuum. Contacts and projects built up with great effort may be subsequently discontinued. Clients may withdraw from programmes as a consequence.
Improving physical health care within mental health services
The project ‘The Body as well as the Mind’ is designed to ensure better physical care within the mental health services. Due to medication use and unhealthy lifestyles, many mental health patients also struggle with obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease and such conditions may remain unrecognised. Improving physical health care in agencies should result in better physical health for clients.
In all quality enhancement projects, improvement teams work on one year on the issue being addressed. Based on nationally established goals, they define specific improvement targets, laid down in a work strategy containing an assessment plan. They use novel assessment and treatment instruments to achieve the objectives set. The Trimbos Institute provides support in this process.
