Oral Hygiene Case Study

Revised Dental Hygiene Policy for Long Term Care Residents Good oral hygiene is an essential part of nursing care and if left undone can lead to larger problems such as increased risk for pneumonia, tooth loss, mucosal lesions, and increased complications of comorbidities (Delgado, 2016). There needs to be a revision to the current oral care policy because oral hygiene is not being performed on the residents. This policy will benefit the patients and the facility. Patients will benefit from better oral hygiene thus reducing the risk of overall infection. The facility will benefit by saving money related unnecessary spending on items such as antibiotics and intravenous (IV) supplies.
Target population
The revised policy will target all licensed

These policies should be founded on best practice. Policies should be reviewed and revised as necessary to keep up with new research that can better the care being given. To amend a policy at this facility, the policy needs to be reviewed by the corporate office before being changed. Then staff need to be notified of the change and reeducated by staff development. The current policy in place does not include flossing a resident’s teeth and this is an issue that needs to be addressed. The policy does not include any education requirements related to oral care. It is not common knowledge for all staff that poor oral hygiene can lead to infection. Studies have shown oral care is performed more frequently after staff has received education (Hoben, 2017). Currently the policy does not reflect the roles of who should be performing dental hygiene. The nurse should be delegating this task to the CNA, the CNA performs the care, and then the nurse follows up as needed to ensure the proper care was performed adequately. Documentation is done on bathing, toileting, and feeding, it should be no different for mouth care. This would not be difficult to incorporate on the electronic point of care system that already exists (Klein, 2017). The care will be documented by the assistive personnel and the nurse will verify the care is being done