In her article, Ervin (2004) looked at interagency collaboration through the eyes of families who had used three or more services from community agencies or organizations. These families were interviewed on their experiences using the services in the year prior to the interview. Ervin found that the families had received an average of 5.6 services from 4.4 agencies in the previous year, mostly health related, including medical, nursing, home health aide and therapies, and social services primarily related to financial assistance and home-delivered meals.
The study showed that agencies appeared to be aware of one another's services and assisted families in getting services from other agencies (Ervin, 2004). Families reported they knew that the providers were communicating with each other because they were told a nurse had seen forms completed by a member of another agency. However, not all families were aware of this inter-agency communication, and many reported having to fill out the same information on forms for several different agencies. Physicians appeared to be aware of services available in the community because they were the ones who usually initiated referrals to these services.
There does appear to have been consensus among the agencies providing services (Ervin, 2004). Answers from families and individuals were generally consistent and most felt they had been helped by the services. The results of this albeit small sample of families and individuals in a rural community indicated that they had few services available to them, and this had some advantages in avoiding conflict, overlap and disputes over territory. Competition among agencies is discouraged in such areas because of limited resources, and in this case four agencies provided 13 services, which no doubt gave the impression to those using he services that there was cooperation between the different agencies.
A recent report from the Institute...