A Case Management Practice Model Focused on the Health Center for Patients with Chronic Mental Illness

Abstract

The enterprise object of me nt al health care of the twenty first century is an individual being, a family, and a community: and mental health care is not only to provide comprehensive heal' h care services but also to emphasize not disease treatment but health niaintenance, promotion, disease prevention and rehabilitation. Also mental health care puts emphasis on the direct participation of the clients in their health choice. The Mental Health Acts established in 1995 prescribe that the nation and the local autonomous entity must take charge of the finding of the patients with mental illness, counseling, medical consult and the management of arsons with chronic mental illness who returned to the social rehabili tation through the health center.In this si y has been suffering a bitter pain of IMF, and now il pursues new change.Therefore in order to act up to this, the establishment of innovative health policies, health service of higher quality and cost effectiveness are required. The health center now begins mental health services, and tries to develop practice models and to fix them which will be able to provide comprehensive and continuous services for the offer of good quality of services, cost effectiveness, and relapse prevention. The case management provides comprehensive health care for the patients with chronic mental illness as well as effective methods that can bring deep satisfaction of clients for the services, rehospitalization prevention, and the decrease of expenses. On this assumption, this study looked over general concept and model about case management, the goal and content oi mental health project based on mental health acts within the health center: and developed case management practice models which could be suitable for specific quality of this community: and identified the roles of men tal health nurses who work in the health center as a case manager. This practice niodel was modified and revised through one year's model enterprise, and so it will be expected to be helpful as a practice guide in the accomplishment of menial health project in the health center.