Comprehensive Care for Complex Patients
The Medical-Psychiatric Coordinating Physician Model

An innovative guide for all physicians, especially psychiatrists, who are challenged to work with complex, resource demanding patients.

Steven A. Frankel (Author), James A. Bourgeois (Author), Philip Erdberg (Author)

9781107025158, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 October 2012

201 pages
24.1 x 15.9 x 1.3 cm, 0.45 kg

'Complex patients' are a sizeable population who generally require disproportionate attention for their management and respond poorly to treatment. Their systemic medical, psychiatric and personal needs have a tendency to drain or exceed the capabilities of those who treat them whilst overutilizing health care resources. As this patient population grows, we move ever closer to a crisis in health care delivery. This volume presents an innovative team-based approach for assessing and managing diagnostically complex and management intensive patients. The physician-led 'Medical-Psychiatric Coordinating Physician (MPCP)' model not only improves patient treatment, but also provides for the containment of costs by reducing redundancy and curbing excess in the use of services. Other benefits include improved diagnostic accuracy and decision making, as well as better communication among physicians and allied health professionals. This book is essential reading for psychiatrists, primary care physicians, and physicians, directors and administrators working in multidisciplinary specialty clinics.

Preface
Forewords James Rundell, Roger Kathol, and Wolfgang Soellner
Part I. Introduction: 1. Clinical complexity: the evolving place for a medical-psychiatric coordinating physician
2. Beyond the physician-patient model: the value of a treatment team for dealing with clinical complexity
Part II. Guidance for Negotiating Clinical Complexity: 3. Sorting out clinical complexity: medical and psychometric testing
4. The limitations of algorithms: details of two clinically complex treatments
5. Negotiating the subjectivity and inter-subjectivity of the clinical field: the complexity inherent in clinical work
Part III. Clinical Decisions and their Execution: Accuracy Within Complexity: 6. The intersection of data and clinical judgment: the place of subjectivity in treatment decisions
7. Clinical strategy: grappling with treatment complexity
8. Working consensus: the importance of physician-patient collaboration
9. Linking truing measures: technical and interpersonal precision in work with complex cases
Part IV. The Application of the Model: The Medical-Psychiatric Coordinating Physician: 10. Managing complex treatments: the medical-psychiatric coordinating physician
11. The medical-psychiatric coordinating physician model: its components, costs, and future
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Sleep disorders & therapy [MMZS], Addiction & therapy [MMZR], Speech & language disorders & therapy [MMZL], Obesity: treatment & therapy [MMZF], Eating disorders & therapy [MMZD], Therapy & therapeutics [MMZ], Clinical psychology [MMJ], Psychiatry [MMH]