This assignment will focus on the issue of Risk Assessment with relation to falls in the home in the elderly population. It will discuss the relationship between the community healthcare team and the individual client, the government policies related to the topic, and the influences of health policy upon the provision of community care. The role of the community nurse in public health education and promotion will also be explored. The client, in this particular instance, is Mrs Pugh. She is an 84-year-old female who lives alone since her husband's death 3 years ago. Mrs Pugh has a previous medical history of 'unexplained falls'. Her medical records also highlight the fact she is suffering from osteoporosis and arthritis. Mrs Pugh has recently been discharged home from hospital following surgical repair of a fractured tibia and fibula, the result of another 'unexplained fall' at home. Mrs Pugh has a carer who comes in daily to assist with hygiene, helping Mrs Pugh have a shower each day; she also supports Mrs Pugh with general domestic tasks. It is important to emphasise that the pair of them have developed a very good relationship. Mrs Pugh has always been a fiercely independent lady and doesn't take kindly to any, as she puts it, interference in her personal life. However, the relationship she has with her carer is very important to her. Health promotion is based on theories about what influences peoples' health and then what constitutes an effective intervention or strategy to improve health (Naidoo and Wills 1999). These theories are based on research. Research may be defined as 'any systematic information-gathering activi... ... middle of paper ... ... totally irrelevant to them can lead to time wasting and frustration (Spicer 1982b). The clients' ability to learn must then be ascertained, the nurse must approach the client in a manner appropriate to the client, using language the client will understand. Finally, the nurse should assess the clients' readiness to learn. Luker and Caress (1989) emphasise that the physical and psychological consequences of ill health can affect the learning process. The client's carer and family will also require information, education and support from the nurse to enable them to provide the appropriate support for the client. The nurse may also have to make referrals to colleagues, such as the occupational therapist; so all the information should be available to other health professionals who may be involved in the clients' care.
The purpose of this paper is to illuminate and discuss healthcare vulnerabilities of the elderly rural population in Baker County, Florida and describe how the nursing profession can address these problems. Rural health has been a complex and multifaceted challenge for government and healthcare practitioners. The elderly who live alone in the county suffer from low socioeconomic status, low health literacy rates, declining cognitive and physical health and lack of healthcare facilities. The health status of this vulnerable group is impacted by rural culture and social values, healthcare policy and funding affecting rural healthcare facilities, distance and lack of transportation, and health literacy.
If patient safety is the most important issue in Health Care facilities then how come hospital inpatient falls continue to be the most reported of all accidental falls (Tzeng & Yin, 2009)? Throughout the years, hospitals continue to make changes to decrease the risk of accidents and increase the quality of patient safety. With research studies and improvements made, patient falls still hold the largest portion of reported incidents in hospitals (Tzeng, & Yin, 2008). According to Tzeng & Yin (2008), “fall prevention programs apparently do not effectively reduce inpatient fall rates because of human factors and ergonomics in a hospital environment (p.179, para. 2). The two studies reviewed in this paper were performed with the hopes of decreasing the high fall rate among inpatients.
As technology advances and medical aid becomes readily available it is no wonder that the elderly within our communities are living longer. Unfortunately this poses a serious issue for health professionals as elderly are becoming more prevalently injured, presenting with complications of higher severity than their younger counterparts (Ng et al., 2002). This essay will discuss the epidemiology, assessment and presentation of an elderly patient suffering from a traumatic injury. It will also examine the considerations specific to the elderly in terms of management, and ethical and cultural differences.
Patients are falling in hospitals and nursing homes on a regular basis. The number of falls per hospital has caused injury and death to some, and has cost hospitals a lot of money. Patients feel like nurses have a lot of work to do, and tend not to bother them when they want to go to the bathroom, which is the reasoning behind why many patients are falling out of bed. Many believe that falls should not happen in hospitals, and many insurance companies are no longer willing to cover the costs associated with patients falling. Therefore, many hospitals have looked for ways to implement interventions that will reduce the number of falls, because it is something that can be prevented to begin with. The articles that I have chosen for this paper reflect how hourly rounding has reduced falls in hospitalized patients.
A fall is a lethal event that results from an amalgamation of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors which predispose an elderly person to the incident (Naqvi et al 2009). The frequency of hospital admission due to falls for older people in Australia, Canada, UK and Northern Ireland range from 1.6 to 3.0 per 10 000 population (WHO 2012). The prevalence of senior citizen’s falls in acute care settings varies widely and the danger of falling rises with escalating age or frailty. Falls of hospitalized older adults are one of the major patient safety issues in terms of morbidity, mortality, and decreased socialization (Swartzell et al. 2013). Because the multi-etiological factors contribute to the incidence and severity of falls in older society, each cause should be addressed or alleviated to prevent patient’s injuries during their hospital stay (Titler et al. 2011). Therefore, nursing interventions play a pivotal role in preventing patient injury related to hospital falls (Johnson et al. 2011). Unfortunately, the danger of falling rises with age and enormously affect one third of older people with ravages varying from minimal injury to incapacities, which may lead to premature death (Johnson et al. 2011). In addition, to the detrimental impacts on patient falls consequently affect the patient’s family members, care providers, and the health organization emotionally as well as financially (Ang et al. 2011). Even though falls in hospital affect young as well as older patients, the aged groups are more likely to get injured than the youth (Boltz et al. 2013). Devastating problems, which resulted from the falls, can c...
Responsibilities of nurses in patient education are helping patients learn health-related behaviors to achieve the goal of optimal health and independence in self-care. It is also the responsibility of the nurse to assess the patients’ learning needs, readiness to learn, and learning styles. Needs and problems of individual patient and family are very important (Wingard, 2005). Some patients need information to understand more about their health condition and how to overcome or prevent the complication of disease. The others may interest in improving quality of life with current diseases. Patients’ problems include patients’ culture, race, ethnicicy, religious orientation, socioeconomic status, age, gender, educational background, literacy level, and emotional state (Wingard, 2005). Next, nurs...
Based on this theory, it is focuses on individuals who are in poor health and under the physician’s care. She believes that major concern in nursing is resolving individual’s need for help by using an interactive discipline process that is gained through training. Orlando (1990) observed that her interpretation of nursing process is wider than the one usually advocated in undergraduate nursing curriculum. This theory give large impact on nursing education in North America and globally, although the emphasis on the process itself may have detracted from wider intent of theory to improve the interaction between client and nurses. She defines the actual role of nurses is to perceive the client as an individual. Nursing students are unaware that original intent of Orlando’s theory was to provide a theory of efficient practice and not an instrument to guide the nurse’s
420). Where in each situation I encountered, many conversations had passed before I developed the ability to communicate appropriately; it is essential to also anticipate what will happen and build off of that so initial communication is more insightful. Jasmine (2009) found that each individual’s insights and understandings of a situation could directly affect the capacity in which they respond to a certain type of care or how a nurse delivers that type of care. How an individual perceives what is happening in their surroundings or what they have learned through health promotion will affect the level of care they are seeking and in turn help the nurse to anticipate the result of the method they used (p. 420). Jasmine (2009) also stated that in addition to the virtuosity behind nursing, it is also valuable to look at the science and know that it is important to understand the cognitive thinking that goes into the practice. A nurse must be able to use their knowledge base to develop objective information about the client as well as interpret the subjective information that is divulged by the client (p. 240). Jasmine has contrasting opinions to those that I stated, where she finds that technical ability is just as important as drawing on personal experiences to relate with the client. I whole heartedly agree with everything
Another focus for change is that over the years the demand for home and community care over hospital care has continued to grow, as stated by the Queens nursing institute “Recent health policy points to the importance of improving and extending services to meet the health and care needs of an increasingly older population and provide services which may have previously been provided in hospital within community settings”.
The relationship between the person seeking help and the nurse/counsellor should be appropriate for producing therapeutic change, to ensure that the patient maximizes from the therapeutic relationship. The health care provider should ensure that they communicate effectively to the patient/client. The skills explained in the above essay are the relevant skills that nurses in the contemporary hospital environment should adhere to and respect.
Patient safety is a major issue in health care, especially in the public sector. Studies show that as many as 10 patients get harmed daily as they receive care in stroke rehabilitation wards in hospitals in the United States alone. Patient safety refers to mechanisms for preventing patients from getting harmed as they receive health care services in hospitals. The issue of patient safety is usually associated with factors such as medication errors, wrong-site surgery, health care-acquired infections, falls, diagnostic errors, and readmissions. Patient safety can be improved through strategies such as improving communication within hospitals, increasing patient involvement, reporting adverse events, developing protocols and guidelines, proper management of human resources, educating health-care providers on the need for patient protection, and commitment of the leadership to the task. This paper talks about patient safety and how it can be improved in stroke rehabilitation wards of both public and private hospitals.
Despite numerous clinical, regulatory efforts and huge expenditures, poor quality of care in nursing homes is still a big problem. Falls among nursing home residents happened frequently and repeatedly. 50% to 75% of nursing home residents fall each year. That’s twice the rate of falls for people living in the community. Although 5% of adults 65 and older live in nursing facilities, nursing home residents account for about 20% of deaths from falls in this age group [3].
...ches indicate how nurses can ensure prevention and mitigation of the problems experienced due to falls. There are various strategies that can be used to enhance the safety of individuals from falls. In order to be able to deal with these issues within the healthcare facilities, nurses must be involved in the effective policy making so that the risks of patient falling can be amicably dealt with. On the other hand, the nurses must be placed at the forefront of the implementation process of the designed interventions. Leaders must engage the nurses in applying the evidence-based therapies so that they can ensure good safety for the patients. Nurses are important in ensuring advocacy, education and the management of the facility environment. The nurses will therefore apply various necessary interventions that guarantee safe environments for the patients and the nurses.
Of course no nursing home wants one of its residents to successfully elope, however a prevention policy to reduce the number of occurrences is essential. Representatives from the corporate and management team met and decided to make some security changes to prevent any further escapes. All windows either permanently locked or secured so can’t be opened more than two inches. All employees went through education and re-training program for elopement prevention and emergency response protocol. Resident with high risk of elopement moved to lock unit. Visual face to face checks every 15 minutes on known elopers. Wonder guards changed and all residents assessed for elopement risk. Nursing staff required to head count when begins the
In a health care facility, like a hospital, nursing home, or assisted living, an incident report or accident report is a form that's completed to go in a record of details of an uncommon event that happens at the facility, like an injury to a patient. The aim of the incident report is to document the precise details of the incidence whereas they're within the minds of these individuals that witnessed the event. This data is also helpful within the future once managing liability problems stemming from the incident.