Implementation of a Psychiatric Nurse-Led Outreach Service at Older Adult Homes: A Hong Kong Experience

Abstract

This article reports on the implementation of a local pioneering psychiatric nurseled service that was designed to address the unmet mental healthcare needs of adults residing at older adult homes. It also describes features of potentially wider relevance to nurses interested in developing healthcare service for other underserved populations. We highlight the view that the crux of developing a successful service involves understanding existing service gaps, grasping the pulse of changing healthcare service policies, involving relevant stakeholders in the planning process, validating service outcomes, and seeking support from management. A central goal of the service was to enhance the accessibility of mental healthcare services to people with unmet needs. This model of service is preferred by service users (both the care providers and the residents in the older adult homes), is efficient in terms of providing prompt psychiatric nursing interventions, is able to supply primary care providers with ractical advice in response to their enquiries, and helps primary care providers to detect and manage the mental healthcare needs of older adults.