Coordination of family’s care in an evidence-based nurse home visiting program

ABSTRACT

Interprofessional care coordination within evidence-based prevention programs like Nurse-Family Partnership® (NFP) is necessary to meet family needs and maximize program impact. This study aimed to describe the coordination of families’ care in the NFP home visiting context. We used an adapted grounded theory approach and purposively sampled seven NFP sites. We conducted telephone interviews with 95 participants: 51 NFP staff (54%), 39 healthcare providers (41%), and 5 social service providers (5%). All interviews were recorded, transcribed, validated, and analyzed in NVivo11. Many community providers in all sites described their knowledge of the characteristics of the NFP intervention, including the strength of its evidence to achieve outcomes. Care coordination was dynamic and changed over time based on client needs and staff willingness to work together. Effective care coordination in the NFP context from the provider perspective is driven by shared knowledge, integrated systems, mission alignment, and individual champions who value the program.

KEYWORDS:

• Care coordination
• healthcare
• home visiting
• public health

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Nurse-Family Partnership National Service Office and University of Colorado Frankenburg-Camp Endowment.

Notes on contributors

Venice Williams

Venice Williams is a mixed methods, public health and health services researcher at the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health at the University of Colorado.

Carol Franco-Rowe

Carol Franco Rowe is an anthropologist and qualitative researcher at the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health at the University of Colorado.

Connie Lopez

Connie Lopez is a pediatric nurse and qualitative researcher at the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health at the University of Colorado.

Mandy A Allison

Mandy A. Allison is a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Colorado, health services researcher and Co-Director of the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health at the University of Colorado.

David L Olds

David L. Olds is Co-Director of the Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health at the University of Coloradoand founder of the Nurse-Family Partnership program.

Gregory Jackson Tung

Gregory J. Tung is a public health professor and health services researcher at the Colorado School of Public Health.