Menopause Group Appointment
Susan Scott
Benedictine University

Menopause Group Appointment
Part 1: General Scope of Project
Project goal:

In a medical or clinical setting, menopause means when periods have been absent for one year. Many women experience this stage of their lives without any particular problems. For those who do have problems, the degree, and nature varies between individuals. The age that menopause occurs varies from late thirties to late fifties with the range for most women in western societies between 48 and 55 years. Information on the menopause is of key importance for women. Therefore, the project will be the Menopause Initiative Group Appointment (MIGA). The goal of this project is to allow a more effective way to educate women about the complex subject of menopause than is possible in a 15-20-minute clinical visit.
Outcomes/background information:
The Menopause Initiative Group Appointment (MIGA) is a scheduled group visit for patients with similar health problems/concerns meeting under the direction of a physician or other licensed health care professional that provides an opportunity to integrate clinical services, education, and group support. The MIGA is intended to offer an option for providing information in a group setting about a complex clinical issue; one difficult for patients and busy physicians and other health care professionals to discuss adequately in regular doctor’s office visits. Allowing a two-hour time for discussion of the issues with a group of eight to fifteen women allows an opportunity for more in-depth discussion. Women appreciate hearing other women’s questions and more time to spend with clinicians. Physicians and other health care professionals appreciate having the opportunity to go into more depth in a relaxed environment. This undoubtedly will increase patient satisfaction, increase patient confidence in decision-making about menopausal therapies, increase patient confidence in managing menopausal symptoms, and increase access to menopausal care and personal physician. Additionally this will increase provider satisfaction and sustainability.
Stakeholders:
Internal stakeholders include hospital employees working in direct care areas; physicians, practitioners, nurses, and all administrative staff of employees who work in these areas. External stakeholders include patients, their family members, and their preferred pharmacy.
Relevant political context:
Evaluation takes place within a political context. It is also increasingly influenced by the variety of positions presented by actively involved stakeholders. The political and stakeholder influenced context of evaluation is a reality that brings with it many benefits for the relevance and the use of evaluation findings. Most fundamentally, however, it is studied in epistemology (the theory of knowledge and relevance to social concerns). We have to acknowledge that the term “menopause” represents a biological process that has been shaped by social, cultural, economic, and political considerations particularly in post-traditional societies (Giddens, 2009). Women may subscribe to bio-medical measures dealing with menopause because they have not been enabled to access different sources of information. Given adequate time for reflection and reassessment women generally emerge positive, refreshed, revitalized, happy, and proud to have “managed” their menopause and look forward to the coming years with new projects and hopes. It is with these thoughts that a Menopause Group Appointment is to be offered.
“The organization’s environment is a critical piece of the puzzle in trying to determine how to successfully provide services to the community” (Finkler, Kovner, & Jones, 2007, pg. 442). Therefore, internal documentation used will be provided from the Nurse Educator in the gynecology department. Over the last several years, we have been working to develop a variety of tools to assist physicians and other health