patient | Distance Learning Systems (DLSI)

Improving Patient Care

Every health care provider aims to provide the highest level of care for their patients. They are molded to become not only skilled in their field but also exhibit the utmost patient care as well as professional dealings. Medical professionals are always faced with the issue of how to improve patient care. They are aware that skills are not the only thing that matter to deliver the best patient care. More often than not, patients appreciate it when they are handled in a most human way.

Patients are now more aware of issues underlining the medical practices like malpractice and they fear being involved in one. This creates a reason for them to seek medical practitioners who will deliver the best patient care. They will likely go to someone whom they trust rather than someone who is popular because of being expert in their field. People will go for competent, affectionate and empathetic health care professionals. For this reason, professionals in health care system are now seeking ways to develop interpersonal skills as early as during their education. Patient care is now emphasized in educational curriculum.

The quality of patient care is not only quantified through technical and personal skills. The health care system needs to ensure that delivering patient care is at its best because of the new technology and infrastructure. The advancement of technology is a contributing factor in innovating new equipment and methods to efficiently get results from patients’ diagnosis.

Moreover, patient care needs to be accessible to the patients anytime and anywhere. This is a great challenge to all health care professionals considering that there are still areas around the globe that are far beyond reach.

Nursing Home Quality

Many reports have published information on the quality of care administered by nursing homes. This includes data on resident and family satisfaction and care outcomes. Information regarding a nursing home must be reviewed if you know that a family member needs nursing home care. Of course, we need to be sure that the facility is secure and the services they offer are above standard. You can also visit nursing homes yourself to check it or ask friends and family for their thoughts and experiences.

There are agencies that monitor and check nursing homes regularly. The Office of Facilities Regulation examines nursing homes to guarantee that they follow state and federal standards. You can contact them to learn more about a facility’s inspection results and recommendations.

The Healthcare Quality Reporting Program issues reports comparing the quality of care provided by different nursing homes in the state. Use the reports to learn about the outcomes that resident at different nursing homes experience and how often they get health conditions that good care may prevent.

Learn what residents and families say about their experiences with nursing homes by viewing satisfaction survey results. You may have heard horror stories about the quality of nursing home care. However, there are good nursing homes as well as bad ones. The nursing home should be hygienic and well maintained. A bad smell may indicate the staff is too busy to help residents to the bathroom or to change clothes. Rooms and public areas should be comfortable. The dining room and kitchen should be clean, and the food should be hot and appetizing or else their patients will lose weight due to lack of appetite.

Another thing, find out how the nursing home complies with the state and federal government regulations such as patient/staff ratio and training. Notice how staff members treat residents. Your choice will be a big factor to the health of your family member. Make sure you make the right decision and to continually monitor their program.

Patient Care Quality

Many view quality health care as the overarching umbrella under which patient safety resides. Quality patient care, dedication to patient satisfaction and rigorous attention to patient safety are the best services a healthcare institution can offer. Because we believe that people can make better decisions about their healthcare if they have accurate information, there is an organization that made a commitment to report publicly how hospitals rank on a range of quality standards and benchmarks.

Maintaining and improving the quality of the Nation’s health care system is an important part of keeping patients safe. The aim of every healthcare institution must be to improve patient safety and health care quality in many areas of health care, reduce health care-associated infections and the adverse drug events

Patient or consumer centered care is health care that is respectful of, and responsive to, the preferences, needs and values of patients and consumers. Different definitions and terminology have been used to describe the concepts in this area, but key principles of patient centered approaches. Treating patients, consumers, care providers and families with dignity and respect is a must in a quality care.

The participation of the patient and family is encouraged in the decision making in every decision about healthcare. Communicating and sharing information with patients, consumers, and families is also a must.

The collaboration with patients, consumers, carers, families and health professionals in program and policy development and in health service design, delivery and evaluation is highly needed to upgrade the services of the institution.

Patient or consumer centered care is increasingly being recognized as a dimension of high quality health care in its own right and there is strong evidence that a patient centered focus can lead to improvements in health care quality and outcomes by increasing safety, cost effectiveness and patient, family and staff satisfaction.

Internationally, healthcare services use a range of strategies to promote patient centered care and partnerships with patients and their families. A range of organizations provide frameworks and tools to help implement these strategies.

Patient Care and ICU Visitors

What do you do if your mother, sister, husband or father lands in an ICU? Do you stay or do you go? There are more than 5 million sufferers admitted to an ICU a year. The ICU is a special unit where sufferers who have severe and deadly illnesses are given patient care by specialized doctors and nursing employees. These sufferers require constant monitoring and support with unique devices and medications to maintain normal bodily processes. The majority of U.S. healthcare centers have restrictions on visitation rights. Close relatives need open visitation rights because it decreases patient anxiety and improves their comfort.

Most adult intensive care units have some type of limited viewing hours that limit the number of family members who can visit and the time they can stay at the room. Across ICUs there is no standardization in viewing guidelines. Moreover, there may even be different visitation rights guidelines in various ICUs in the same hospital! Close relatives can be limited to 10 minutes of visitation rights every hour or be allowed to visit any time they want. Also, how healthcare center employees implement and understand the same visitation rights guidelines can be dissimilar. This variability is a cause of pressure for nursing employees, families and sufferers. Hospitals are attempting for excellence and are now focused on family-centered patient care. Close relatives play an essential part in the ICU individual’s recovery, so an essential part of family center care is open visitation rights. Patients place a high value on having family members at their room, offering them a sense of security in a highly technological innovation driven atmosphere.

The ICU is a stressful place full of sounds, unknown people and devices. Having a familiar face at the room can decrease individual pressure and duration of stay and help respond to questions in the ICU. Also, it improves individual quality, safety and satisfaction. To see relatives, it improves communication with healthcare employees, allows family members to be involved with patient care and contributes to better understanding of the healthcare world. In addition, families cannot affect the functioning of the ICU. Infection disease precautions may be needed that can restrict visitation rights. If an ICU patient is in a shared room and this can happen, guests may be asked to leave temporarily if immediate lifesaving measures are required or sensitive conversations need to occur with another patient.

Hospitals and Stories of Tragedy and Triumph

Every day, hospitals are fields of frustrating sadness, minutes of genuine joy, hours of anxious expectation and deep doubt about the road ahead. When you stroll into the main gates of a hospital, none of the grasping dramas that are unfolding within are obvious. You see individuals in electric motorized wheel chairs awaiting trips, volunteers guiding lost individuals to the correct side and employees talking as they wait for coffee.

But like any hospital, go a little further and you will be confused by experiences of human tragedy and triumph, pain and discomfort, hope and even happiness. The individuals who work there have devoted their careers to helping others and offering the best proper care possible. The sufferers who are resting in mattresses and close relatives and friends who sit at their bedsides don’t want to be there, for the most part. Some are making an effort to recover and leave, while others are too sick or weak and have nowhere else to go. Every day is a fight, whether you are a health-care employee or patient. And it’s easy to forget once you escape to the bigger world outside.

Hospitals are not generally fun places to be. They are, as one physician advised me, where sick individuals hang out. Many surfaces have an unmistakable, yet somehow unidentifiable, distressing scent. If you are a patient, you may have to share a room with a perfect stranger who keeps you up all night moaning in discomfort. Front line health-care employees do the best they can with restricted resources, aging facilities and less-than-ideal operating circumstances. But it’s obvious there are methods we can also do better. Finding the way forward, that is the challenge.

Patient Care and Staff Recognition

All staff, from administrators to porters, needs to experience recognition, thanks and support for the work they do. Yet far too few organizations truly pay attention to their staff or acknowledge the significance of their experience. Even less act upon what they hear to make staff feel it is worth speaking out, worth raising their head above the parapet to state that employment levels are risky or that they are being harassed. We need to pay attention to staff better and act upon what they say if we want them to feel respected, remain in their selected career and provide sympathetic patient care.

The majority of people get into professional doctor and nurse education and learning inspired by principles and a sense of altruism, at least originally, but these features can become worn away eventually by the requirements of the program and the job. There are particular difficulties associated with working with, and directly caring for, sufferers or patient care in other words. We ask them to do this all day, every day, in a fast moving atmosphere where they often feel unrecognized and in need of support and where some will encounter great stress and feel burnt out. It is little wonder that some units have problems with staff revenues and recruiting.

The patient care work has found that sympathetic high ideals and principles, held dear by graduating learners, can become discontinued and mashed, with nursing staff confirming some degree of burn out within two years of certification. Across all staff groups, the requirements of patient care work mean that cynicism can develop and staff can become less understanding and more distant from their sufferers. It is therefore crucial to secure staff from the problems of patient care work. Everyone needs support and restoration.