Long-term care read: Toward an ideal system, Ethical issues in long-term care, Technology in long-term care, Into the future: Trends to watch
Role of Technology in Long-Term Care
Which challenges in long-term care system remain unmet? Why?
Long-term care has been slow to utilize telemedicine for the following reasons; A lack of funding for updates, not knowing how to install or use telemedicine in long-term care, worries over conflicts of interest, staffing turn over, lacking knowledge to control telemedicine, customers often lack knowledge of new technology, and the facilities and customers are unaware of the available technology relating to long-term care (International Federation on Aging Global Connections, 2012, p. 8). The biggest barriers
…show more content…
It allows the facility to cut spending, improve quality, while allowing for educated planning and implementation. For the consumer (in a facility or in the community) and their caregivers, technology allows for communication, medical education, coordination with health providers, and medical monitoring (Pratt, 2016, p. 447-450). The facility can use information gained from electronic records to eliminate unneeded programs and expenses, having all the information in one place allows the facility to say we only use fifteen bedpans a month, but buy fifty-five every month. The facility can then cut waist. The patient can stay in their home longer now with the aid of technology. Consider the commercials of the lady who has “fallen and can’t get up”, technology such as this fall monitoring system allows the patient to get help, despite being alone and unable to …show more content…
In a way, the patient can fully understand, and then allow the patient to make an educated decision. Issues related to informed consent include the patient not understanding, some patients are not mentally capable of giving consent, or the patient is incapacitated and has not made their wishes know previously. To combat this, doctors have patients sign consent forms stating they fully understand their options, and risks before treatment. When entering a facility, the patient is asked if they have a living will. If they don’t they are asked if they would like to make one. Dictating how they would like to be treated if they need life-support. In some cases, patients never make a living will, and have gotten to a point where the facility is merely keeping them alive, because that is their mission statement. In cases like this, an advocate from the courts may be assigned to the patient. To decide on the best choice of action. In others, the judge makes the final decision (Pratt, 2016, p. 354-362). Basically, if the patient has made their wishes know in writing or by appointing someone to act on their behalf the facility must follow their wishes. If the facility can not the patient can be moved to a facility that can. If the patient never made their wishes know the facility must keep them alive until someone in their family or the courts decide. Regardless as to what
As population ages, clinicians will care for an increasing number of elderly patients. Just as these patients may present unique and challenging medical dilemmas, so may they also present ethical ones. Ethical dilemmas are present in everyday practice. It provides a brief overview of the situations that may raise ethical concerns. Although, these are not the only ethical concerns that may arise during care of the elderly and are not unique to the population, they represent the most common scenarios that clinicians may encounter in their everyday course of practice. Ethics, according to (Mueller, Hook & Fleming, 2004), is the analysis and identification of the moral problems that arise in the care of patients. Ethical issues on geriatrics: a guide to clinicians (2004) reports that clinicians will care for an increasing number of elderly patients with challenging medical problems.
This assignment will identify and evaluate the legal and ethical issues within the health and social care for elderly people with dementia and living in residential homes. It will address the difference between the legal and ethical issues and the impact it has on the person suffering from the disease, their family and the role that the professionals have in decision making for the individual’s wellbeing.
Social Attitudes Survey noted that 78% of respondents believe that “the law should require doctors to carry out the instructions of a Living Will” (Park et al, 2007). These decisions become important once patients lose their mental capacity, are unconscious, or unable to communicate” (BMA, 2009). The Mental Capacity Act 2005 defines an “advance decision” as a decision made by a person 18 or over, when he or she has the capacity to do so. The implications of a Living Will, make the case against legalising assisted dying weaker. This is because if a person is legally allowed to set out which treatments they will or will not agree to, and can refuse life sustaining treatments by creating a legal document, then why shouldn’t an individual in extreme pain who is able to make the request at the time be able to ask for assistance in
This paper will review the many aspects of long-term care problems and many challenges there are within Long-Term care. We will look at rising costs within long-Term Care, patient abuse, will look at the quality of life, shortages of nurses and demand that the elderly are putting on the medical field. The type of care that Long-Term Care had been giving to its patients and the changes within Long-Term Care.
When dealing with an ethical dilemma, social workers usually reference back to Reamers 7-step process to help with ethical decision-making. In the given case study, we meet Lori a bright fourteen-year-old who is smart, involved in school activities, and sports. She has had a non-normative impacted life since she was young, such as her mother dying of breast cancer and father dying as well. She has no immediate family and was lucky enough to be placed in a foster home with a family who loves her and wants the best for her.
Telehealth is the monitoring via remote exchange of physiological data between a patient at home and health care professionals at hospitals or clinics to assist with diagnosis and treatment. As our society ages and health care costs increase, government and private insurance payers are seeking technological interventions. Technological solutions may provide high quality healthcare services at a distance, utilize professional resources more effectively, and enable elderly and ill patients to remain in their own homes. Patients may experience decreased hospitalization and urgent care settings, and out of home care may not be required as the patient is monitored at home. However, no study has been able to prove telehealth benefits conclusively. This change in health care delivery presents new ethical concerns, and new relationship boundaries between health care professionals, patients, and family members. This paper will discuss telehealth benefits in specific patient populations, costs benefits of using telehealth, and concerns of using telehealth.
The purpose of telemedicine is to remove distance as a barrier to health care. While telehealth is an accepted resource to bridge the gap between local and global health care, integrating telehealth into existing health infrastructures presents a challenge for both governments and policy makers (HRSA, 2011). Today there are policy barriers that prevent the expansion of telehealth, including reimbursement issues raised by Medicare and private payers, state licensure, and liability and privacy concerns.
Bowles, K., Holland, D., & Horowitz, D. (2009). A comparison of in-person home care, home care with telephone contact and home care with telemonitoring for disease management. Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare, (15), 344-350. doi: 10.1258/jtt.2009.090118
Walsh, M., & Coleman, J. R. (2005). Trials and tribulations: a small pilot telehealth home care program for medicare patients. Geriatric Nursing, 26(6), 343-346.
Ethical dilemmas are the issues that nurses have to encounter everyday regardless of where their workplaces are. These problems significantly impact both health care providers and patients. Patient safety is the most priority in nursing and it can be jeopardized by a slight mistake. Medication errors and reporting medication errors have been major problems in health care. Errors with medications have been found to be the most common cause of adverse drug effects (Brady, Malone, Fleming, 2009). Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago conducted a research in 2012 that approximately forty percent of the hospitalized clients have encountered a medication error (Lahue et al., 2012). A nurse’s role is to identify and report these medication errors immediately in order to stop or minimize any possible harm to the patients. Ethical moral dilemmas arise when reporting the mistakes that have been made by one’s own colleagues, acquaintances, peers, or physicians.
I will discuss how LTC contributes to the U.S. Healthcare System, the targeted clients, employees that work within the long-term setting, the benefits and services offered within LTC, and the expected outcomes for individuals in a long-term facility. I will discuss the legalities and regulatory issues faced within the LTC setting along with ethical issues that may impede successful facilitation of a long-term facility.
According to Chaloner (2007) states that Ethics is about good and bad, where nurses are fully trained to provide quality care to the patient and raises the value of ethics by being medical centred and having emotional impact in treatment and sometimes the patient refuses nursing care resulting as bad (p22-46). To relate ethics successfully, nurse’s thinking abilities and beliefs that support ethical enquiry such as autonomy, non-maleficence and beneficence makes care plan on ways for decision making in patient care. Example, the moral values which we gain from childhood like honesty, mutual trust, respecting, and treating others fairly are used in having therapeutic nurse to client relationship.
The long-term care system consists of an integrated continuum of many institutional and non-institutional providers who deliver extended care when needed. Long-term care providers deliver a variety of care to individuals with chronic, mobility and/or cognitive impairments/limitations. These providers include: nursing facilities, sub acute care, assisted living, residential care, elderly housing options and community based adult services (Pratt, 2010). A great majority of these providers are already taking care of the many baby boomers that are present today and will be present in the future. “Baby boomers” are individuals who were born between the years 1946-1964. Since 2011, every day 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 years old (Pratt, 2010). This
Telemedicine hold a great promise in health information technology, it not only promises to improve health care delivery but it also aids in serving the most vulnerable of patients.
From state and federal levels, the healthcare industry has come a very long way, experiencing changes along the way. The development of advanced technology that has enhanced the quality of healthcare delivery systems will help all patients to be able to benefit. Doctors are able to access patient records at a faster rate and respond to their patients in a much more timely fashion. E-mail, electronic transfer of records and telemedicine will give all patients and physicians the tools needed to be more efficient, deliver quality care and deliver quality telecommunication at a faster pace than before.