Introduction
Healthcare today has become so dynamic and on high demand. This is partly due to the increasing in aging population that stretches the already scarce healthcare resources. As the need of healthcare increase, so does costs, ethical and quality issues. For instance, patient care might be compromised when there is a high patient to nurse ratio. This paper focuses to determine one of the quality issues (QI) that can easily be undermined as a result of poor healthcare system. Individual healthcare organizations also have a role to play on patient quality of care. Thus, the paper examines the structural organization, mission, vision and goal of Good Samaritan Society and how they influence the identified QI. More so, the paper incorporates the writers personal professional and philosophical views about the issue and a discussion of a possible solution.
Proposed QI/Ethical issue.
According to the American Pain Society, pain is defined as, “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage (2016)” It is the number one reason for seeking healthcare. Pain not only makes someone uncomfortable but all it interferes with their quality of life. (Wilkinson and Treas, 2016). It is estimated that 80% of the residents in the nursing homes leave with chronic pain. Often, inadequate assessment and treatment accounts for the high prevalence pain in this population (Lindsay and Rosemery,2012). There are numerous barriers to pain
Research has shown that there are several organizations and active advocates who are working on pain management problems to face this public health issue. The following establishments involve: The American Academy of Pain Medicine, Institute of Medicine, and American Pain Society and many for-profit and nonprofit organizations are also working at different level towards pain management. Most specifically, the IOM has been devoted to studying pain and its consequences on individuals, the healthcare system, as well as on government (IOM, 2011).
Within the dementia care environment, it is my experience that it is often unclear to nursing staff as to appropriate assessment and management of pain for clients in the palliative stage of their illness.
“Pain is much more than a physical sensation caused by a specific stimulus. An individual's perception of pain has important affective (emotional), cognitive, behavioral, and sensory components that are shaped by past experience, culture, and situational factors. The nature of the stimulus for pain can be physical, psychological, or a combination of both.” (Potter, Perry, Stockert, Hall, & Peterson, 2014 p. 141) As stated by Potter et al, the different natures of pain are dealt with differently depending on many factors. Knowing this, treating pain can be very difficult as there is no single or clear cut way of measuring it; “Even though the assessment and treatment of pain is a universally important health care issue,
Healthcare organizations throughout Canada are focusing more and more on the delivery of quality care to its patients and families. However, it is not enough to simply state this dedication, it must be proven with a plan that outlines clear aims, targets, and initiatives that implement evidence-based research (Sadeghi, Barzi, Mikhail, & Shabot, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to outline a quality improvement plan to address the rates of worsening pain in the elderly with dementia and other forms of cognitive impairment in the Veterans Centre (VC) at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
Pain is not always curable but effects the life of millions of people. This essay examines the Essence of Care 2010: Benchmarks for the Prevention and Management of Pain (DH, 2010). Particularly reflecting on a practical working knowledge of its implementation and its relevance to nursing practice. It is part of the wider ranging Essence of Care policy, that includes all the latest benchmarks developed since it was first launched in 2001.
What is pain? If you ask someone to tell you the definition of pain they will typically state something that hurts. Registered nurses should know the definition of pain and how it can be identified on their patients. However, Abdalrahim, Majali, Stomberg, and Bergbom (2010) propose that nurses did not receive adequate education in pain management and suggest the lack of knowledge hinders their ability to adequate control their patients’ pain. Therefore, the unethical treatment of pain can be traced back nurses.
Pain is a condition that is determined and described by the person reporting it. There are several components to pain including the emotional, psychological, and physical aspects. Many health professionals struggle to understand this phenomenon and thereby insert their own perspectives into the pain assessment of patient reporting pain. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) (2010), also titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act H.R. 3590, was passed by Congress and signed into law on March 23, 2010 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), 2013). Hospital value based purchasing programs (VBP) were developed to align patient quality care and outcomes to the support initiatives from the ACA. A component of the VBP includes patient satisfaction. Patient satisfaction is a self-reported response to questionnaire administered by a third party. Many hospitals utilize Press Ganey to administer the survey for the inpatient and outpatient patients. One component the survey includes patient’s self-reporting how well their pain was managed during their hospitalization. This measure of satisfaction can have an adverse effect on patient outcomes and increase opioid use in this setting. Patient satisfaction and pain management are both subjective however pain management while within scope of healthcare professionals should not be included in the patient satisfaction survey.
Nursing assessment is a substantial way of gathering physiological, psychological, spiritual, and emotional condition of the patient. It creates a whole picture of an individual and assist the health care providers to formulate a diagnosis. Assessing the comfort of the patient is equally important as taking the blood pressure or temperature. Pain is the fifth (5th) vital sign that is subjective in nature when performing an assessment of a patient. Various studies were conducted in finding the most appropriate evidence-based nursing practice in assessing and managing the pain of a cognitively impaired patient, whether it is acute or chronic or the underlying cause is cancer or post-operative incision. As emphasized by Song, Eaton, Gordon, Hoyle, and Doorenbos (2015), it is vital to ensure that “pain management is based on the best evidence” (p. 456). Perhaps knowing the causes of inability to assess and manage the pain in a cognitively impaired patient would give a clearer understanding of the practice.
Some patient’s were either on other pain medications or psychotropic medications and the nurse was unclear as to treat with medical therapy or non-medical therapy. This lack of knowledge can play in delay of treatment. Suggestions to overcome this were recommended for a pain management program. The change led to more patient routine pain scales being conducted but strategies were limited to show effectiveness since mostly non-pharmacologic measures were used. As a future advanced nurse practitioner, I believe that this article is useful to me and my career because it will remind me to use formulated pain scales and cues for pain based on the cognitive ability of the dementia of the patient. Despite the pain measures that the patient is already on, the patient should be treated appropriately for the pain that they are having. For instance, if their pain measures a 7 on the scale and they are receiving pain management scheduled and they are not due for a scheduled narcotic for another six hours then that patient should receive a PRN medication rather than a non-pharmacological
Pain is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that is subjective and unique to each individual. Pain is difficult to describe and often hard to measure; however, most healthcare professionals agree that pain is whatever the patient describes it to be. Pain is one of the most frequently used nursing diagnosis and is the most common problem for which patients in the clinical setting seek help (Cheng, Foster, & Huang, 2003). Unrelieved pain can have a profound impact on the lives of both the patient and his or her family members. The subjective nature of pain makes pain difficult to assess; therefore, many patients do not receive adequate relief. The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
Pain is defined as an “unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage. Pain is always subjective.” (Jarvis, 2016) In our society today, the older adults and older adults who suffer from dementia are poorly assessed in terms of pain assessment. Studies have shown that about 35-48% of older adults living at home suffer from chronic pain, another 45-85% of older adults living nursing homes lives with chronic. Older adults suffer from chronic pain as most suffer from conditions that can lead to chronic pain. The health care professional with the proper pain assessment skills can better manage and treat pain in the older adult. The assessment
For this assessment, the ethical issue of care quality versus efficiency in regard to lack of qualified staff in the healthcare setting will be discussed. This work seeks to describe the main issues surrounding both care quality and efficiency, outlining why one affects the other, causing issues when either is not optimised, triggering concern for managers. Furthermore, recommendations will be developed in mitigating the issue formed from personal ethical morals, using contemporary literature to support the theory, alongside how this will have an impact on staff and consumers in the healthcare setting.
The most common reason that people seek medical care is pain, and pain is the leading cause of disability (Peterson & Bredow, 2013, p. 51; National Institute of Health, 2010). Pain is such an important topic in healthcare that the United States congress “identified 2000 to 2010 as the Decade of Pain Control and Research” (Brunner L. S., et al., 2010, p. 231). Unfortunatelly, patients are reporting a small increase in satisfaction with the pain management while in the hospital (Bernhofer, 2011). Pain assessment and treatment can be complex since nurses do not have a tool to quantify it. Pain is considered the fifth vital sign, however, we do not have numbers to guide our interventions. Pain is a subjective expirience that cannot be shared easily. Since nurses spend more time with patients in pain than any other healthcare provider, nurses must have a clear understanding of the concept of pain (Brunner, et al., 2010). Concept analysis’ main objective is to clarify ideas, to enhance critical thinking, and to promote communication (Rodgers & Knafl, 2000). This paper will examine the concept of pain using Wilson’s Steps of Concept Analysis (Rodgers & Knafl, 2000).
The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage” (1979). Pain is actually the culprit behind warranting a visit to a physician office for many people (Besson, 1999). Notoriously unpleasant, pain could also pose a threat as both a psychological and economic burden (Phillips, 2006). Sometimes pain does happen without any damage of tissue or any likely diseased state. The reasons for such pain are poorly understood and the term used to describe such type of pain is “psychogenic pain”. Also, the loss of productivity and daily activity due to pain is also significant. Pain engulfs a trillion dollars of GDP for lost work time and disability payments (Melnikova, 2010). Untreated pain not only impacts a person suffering from pain but also impacts their whole family. A person’s quality of life is negatively impacted by pain and it diminishes their ability to concentrate, work, exercise, socialize, perform daily routines, and sleep. All of these negative impacts ultimately lead to much more severe behavioral effects such as depression, aggression, mood alterations, isolation, and loss of self-esteem, which pose a great threat to human society.
Pain is a basic mechanism in life that helps the body identify that something is wrong or dangerous. Without pain, the body would be severely damaged without realizing it. Pain can become an inconvenience when it spirals out of control; chronic pain, for example, leaves many miserable and unable to enjoy life to its fullest extent even with traditional medical intervention. Around 80% of people report chronic pain in their lifetime (Holtzman & Beggs, 2013). People afflicted by chronic back pain turn to modern medicine for relief, but even these alternatives are not always 100% effective.