Physical Distancing With Social Connectedness

Recognizing and supporting the many ways of investing in relationship has great potential to create a positive sea change in a health care system that currently feels fragmented and depersonalized to both patients and health care providers. The current COVID-19 pandemic is full of opportunity to use remote communication to develop healing human relationships. What we need in a pandemic is not social distancing, but physical distancing with social connectedness.In light of concerns over the potential detrimental effects of declining care continuity, and the need for connection between patients and health care providers, our multidisciplinary group considered the possible ways that relationships might be developed in different kinds of health care encounters. We were surprised to discover many avenues to invest in relationships, even in non-continuity consultations, and how meaningful human connections might be developed even in telehealth visits.Opportunities range from the quality of attention or the structure of the time during the visit, to supporting relationship development in how care is organized at the local or system level and in the use of digital encounters. These ways of investing in relationships can exhibit different manifestations and emphases during different kinds of visits, but most are available during all kinds of encounters. Recognizing and supporting the many ways of investing in relationships has great potential to create a positive sea change in a health care system that currently feels fragmented and depersonalized to both patients and health care clinicians. The current COVID-19 pandemic is full of opportunity to use remote communication to develop healing human relationships. What we need in a pandemic is not social distancing, but physical distancing with social connectedness.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154577/1/StangeAFM-674-19 ms.pdfDescription of StangeAFM-674-19 ms.pdf : Final pdf for DeepBlue deposi

Sympton-recognition, health service-seeking behaviour and the management of acute respiratory infection in infants in urban Mongolia

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The effects of social variables on symptom recognition and medical care seeking behaviour for acute respiratory infections in infants in urban Mongolia

OBJECTIVE: To investigate potentially modifiable factors associated with carers' recognition of symptoms and timely presentation of infants with acute respiratory infections (ARI) in urban Mongolia. METHODS: A prospective cohort study nested in a randomised controlled trial of infant swaddling. Data were collected on social, educational and childcare variables and all doctor contacts for ARI in primary and secondary care by regular questionnaires to carers of infants during the first 6 months of life. FINDINGS: Analyses were based on 9024 ARI related doctor contacts for 4554 illness episodes in 1218 infants. Delay in medical care seeking (>3 days from acute lower respiratory infection (ALRI) symptom onset) was associated with younger maternal age (OR (95% CI) 3.8 (1.2 to 11.6)), single child families (3.8 (1.2 to 11.61)), absent father (4.1 (1.2 to 14.4)) and residence more than 1 km from a clinic (3.5 (1.2 to 10.2)). CONCLUSION: There is a continuing need to educate carers of infants in the management of ARI, particularly those of younger age and those with limited family support