Embracing the Complexity of Primary Health Care: System-Based Tools and Strategies for Researching the Case Management Process

Abstract

Kim D Graham,1 Amie Steel,1 Jon Wardle2 1Australian Research Centre in Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Faculty of Health, University of Technology, Sydney, NSW, 2007, Australia; 2National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, 2480, AustraliaCorrespondence: Kim D Graham Email [email protected]: The provision of health care is frequently a complex process, and favourable clinical outcomes are dependent on the effective management of this complexity. Contemporary medicine and health care practices that are biomedically aligned have been informed by a reductionist paradigm, potentially creating a misalignment between health care and the human organism as a complex adaptive system. Complexity science is increasingly gaining momentum within the academic literature and is being employed across a wide range of scientific disciplines, although this is less evident in medicine. Limited evidence was found within the literature of a complexity science framework being used to explore and inform individual health care practices; in this paper, this gap will be explored through consideration of the use of strategies and tools (specifically mind maps, computer-generated network mappings, exploratory data analysis, and computer-derived network analysis) which are congruent with a complexity science framework. This information may be useful to researchers investigating health care provision and to clinicians wishing to incorporate a complexity sensibility within their practice.Keywords: complexity science, health care, mind map, network mapping, case management, complex adaptive systems

Keywords

• complexity science
• health care
• mind map
• network mapping
• case management
• complex adaptive systems