Improving The Long Term Health Care Facility

In this report I will be investigating how care services meet the needs of individuals by firstly analysing the needs of an individual using care services. Then I will go on to explain the roles of the care planning process in identifying needs, and explain the features of a positive care practise. After explaining that, I will analysis positive care environments and evaluate how they meet needs before finally explaining the role of legislation in promoting a positive care environment.

Health care is something that everyone requires in order to lead a healthy life. After a visit to a hospital there are instances when certain individuals require further care due to their circumstances. Although hospitals may provide long-term care, it is not usually ideal. Hospitals are in place to handle emergency situations and aid in stabilizing the patients. Once the patients are stable, they must be transitioned to another facility if they require further assistance. This will avoid maximum occupancy for the hospital and allow it to remain available to other patients that may need their services. Patients who require long-term care or around the clock care and are in good medical condition should seek a long-term care facility, such as a skilled nursing facility or nursing home. For some individuals, facilities such as skilled nursing facilities or nursing homes are a blessing. These types of facilities are in existence to aid in the recovery of certain injuries and or to provide living arrangements for those who lack someone to care for them or assist with meeting their health care needs.

Hello Dr. Ullom, majority of the long term care facilities are under staffed. There is usually one registered nurse in charge to manage a 240 bed facility, with LPN's  and nursing assistance. I feel that these patients would benefit from having one RN to every six -eight patients with a nursing assistance. Not only would this benefit the patient but the nurse as well. Patient are placed in long term care facility with a certain problem, but ends up with additional condition such as UTI, MRSA, pressure ulcers, and etc. These issues are related to poor care they receive because of unstaffing. I'm not placing blame on the LPN or nursing assistance, but with a RN and low nurse to patient ratio, they will receive better care.

Types and number of staff that this facility needs, and the rationale for this. How these needs differ in facilities that attend to different long-term care populations

Long term care facilities use Joint Commission Accreditation as a benefit to show the quality and commitment to the health care organization. A long term care facility that is Joint Commission accredited will have a more appealing look to reimbursement centers and to the patient and families that they care for. Having this accreditation is also a risk management tool. The likelihood of a bad outcome is reduced if a facility is accredited by the Joint Commission. There is a team put together to come up with accreditation standards and to make sure facilities stay compliant with these standards. Performance is evaluated to ensure standards are followed.

For a long period of time, hospitals have basically been established as nonprofit and for-profit facilities with several similarities and differences between these categories. Notably, these categories have minimal differences though it's difficult to predict their quality based on their structures. The healthcare field has also been characterized by several trends in the past three decades in attempts to improve the delivery of services and patient outcomes. In relation to the provision of long-term care, hospitals and nursing homes have different roles that enable them to achieve this objective. The hospital sector in the United States has experienced several changes that have contributed to its current state of long-term care policy.

These agencies expect long-term care facilities to maintain an environment that will emphasize the importance of one’s quality of life and quality of care (Walsh, 2014).

A reoccurring issue such as bedsores is something nursing home facilities try their best to prevent. Unfortunately, the rate at which it is occurring in our nursing home is 12%, a little higher than that of the national average. This is a number that we as a facility are not proud of, and as Director of Quality Improvement, new strategies will be implemented to improve the quality of care in which our patients are receiving. This simple plan mimics that of the FOCUS PDSA and can be broken down into a few steps in order to be better assessed. The first step involves creating a team of employees to research and better understand the main source of the bedsores. The second step includes developing a strategy, without any errors, within the team

The need for effective health care and incidence of chronic health conditions are expected to increase considerably with the aging of the baby boomers’ population. It is estimated that number of Americans with chronic health conditions will reach 150 million by the year 2030 (Joseph 2006). Furthermore, current long-term care facilities designed decades ago are lagging behind the legal regulation that were established, while not accommodating the needs of the staff and the clients comfortably. Some the facilities are facing regulatory challenges that emanate from the original design and intended use. Subsequently, the requirements for cost-effective long-term care facilities must be carefully considered and planned for to accommodate current and emerging needs of all stake holders. We need to redesign our facility to meet regulatory challenges, emerging technological needs and future health care needs of the consumers and other stakeholders. Successful and effective design in long-term care originates with a master plan. In this paper, I will focus on renovation of existing long-term care facility, summarize my research findings including explanation of the need for the facility renovation and summarize the research findings and describe the types of facilities and services offered in my local community, and explore the role of health care administrators in facilities planning decisions to meet legal and regulatory challenges while including the anticipated

Flexible and inexpensive, focus groups consist of six to ten participants (Hartman, 2004, p. 408). Additionally, a moderator guides the discussion among its panel members that allows researchers to observe real-time verbal responses and nonverbal cues (Hartman, 2004, p. 402; Cooper & Schindler, 2014, p. 160). Focus groups moderators also have the ability to introduce new ideas to gain a greater understanding of concerns from respondents (Hartman, 2004, p. 402). However, a concern with focus group is the lack of anonymity due to the face-to-face participation.

This article represents a focus group type of qualitative research. According to Qualitative Research Consultants Association (2015), in focus group qualitative research, a group of individuals who share a need, life circumstance, or habit relevant to the research issue(s) at hand are led in a discussion by a modulator. The focus group discussions often include between two to ten respondents, and are often held face to face. They can also be conducted remotely through videoconferencing, teleconferencing, or

Focus group: a small interview of people who are brought together to discuss a particular topic.

The realization of such services should be supported with adequate funding. Again, the stakeholders of the organization should be the major contributors towards the long term care service provision funding. The continuum care is crucial in the sense that it ensures that the care of the patients continues amid all the challenges and at all times. In case of financial challenges, the government ought to lend a helping hand to assist fund the important services (Pratt, 2010). Other private organizations with keen interest in healthcare provision

A Focus group is defined as a research technique that collects data through a group interaction, on a given topic from the researcher. Along with this definition are some essential components. Firstly, it states that, focus groups are research methods devoted to data collection. Secondly, it signifies the interaction of group discussion as a source of data. Lastly, it acknowledges the active role of researchers in establishing the group discussion in order to collect data (David, 1996.p.130).

Focus groups are a prominent method of enquiry, regularly used within the field of social science and in particular, qualitative research. The focus group practice involves a number of participants having an open discussion on a specific topic, set by a researcher. The researcher acts as a moderator to aid discussion by using probes to collect desirable data. This process is recorded and transcripts are used to interpret and analyse given information.