Designing an Assessment Program for Nurses of Early Intervention and Disease Prevention in Child Care Centers, Capstone Project Example

Abstract

In relation towards the need of creating a more holistic approach to healthcare assistance needed by patient from all around the globe, this presentation and discussion is dedicated towards the focus on the issue of preventing diseases in child care centers. The children, being the more vulnerable group when it comes to health issues, need much concentrated attention from healthcare assistants, primarily the nurses.

Being the closest medical personnel contact of the patients, nurses are expected to create a more responsive environment of recovery for the individuals they are attending to. Relatively, the capacity of nurses to provide such an environment to the patients they attend to, especially that of the children, could better be determined by the efficacy that nurses are supposed to apply especially when it comes to assessing the condition of the patients at the point of receiving the individuals within their facilities.

In child care centers, it is essential that nurses keep an updated documentation of the reports and updates that are necessary for pointing out the capacities of recovery that the patients could undergo further. With these documented forms, healthcare officers and personnel would have a better vision on the condition of the patients even at the point of transferring the individuals from one healthcare facility to another. Considering this primary need, the discussion presented herein intends to create a more dependable option for nurses to use when it comes to assessing the situation of patients between ages 0 to 11 years. This presentation hopes to make an impact on how early intervention and disease prevention among young patients is fully given attention to with high competency on the part of the nurses as they perform their task towards their stakeholders in the society.

Introduction

Healthcare procedures are often dependent on the course by which assigned healthcare personnel are able to respond to their responsibility to protect the welfare of the society. In relation to this role, healthcare personnel are dedicated to follow the protocols that have been set for them to complete especially in relation to identifying their patient’s healthcare situation. Nurses are often the front liners in the process hence making them responsible for taking over the primary aspect of healthcare provision which is the assessment process.

Healthcare assessment process is referred to as the first step towards gaining an understanding with regards the case of a specific patient. Nurses are required to take notes on the most important elements that will make up the medical record of the patient involved. From this particular documentation, the record of the patient shall be given attention to and the case of their healthcare issues would be better defined and well attended to. When it comes to handling patients within the younger age-range, nurses are faced with the dilemma of dealing with the assessment process from a general stand point towards a more specifically focused approach.

It is deemed that through improving the assessment procedures that the nurses take into consideration, their capacity of determining courses of healthcare development through early detection of specific health problems, early interventions could be applied immediately hence helping in the process of completing a more competent way of preventing diseases from spreading. This case is especially important considerably when it comes to dealing with populated facilities like child care centers where communicable diseases could easily spread especially if not dealt with early on. Question is, what then should be considered so as to make sure that the assessment procedures considered by nurses would fit the needed function they have to convey with when they are dealing with the responsibility of handling child care center nursing roles?

Problem Statement

To note, child care centers are particular areas where parents often leave their children for a few hours or so to be able to go to work and deal with their own parental responsibilities. Most often than not, the average population of youngsters present in such facilities range from at least 14-15 or at times even 20 individuals each day. Spending at least eight to ten hours together, these children intermingle between each other while being attended to by at least three to four healthcare attendants, mainly nurses. About 10% of these youngsters often belong to eh infant age while the other percentage of population left often include toddlers and children aging 2 to 5 years of age. While there are some children aged 5 and up that are still accepted in such facilities, they often come in minimal numbers as most of them are already going to school. In a way, child care centers are identified by the function that they take into consideration and the type of clients that they serve. Nevertheless, no matter what the nature of a child care center is, the common factor that each of these facilities share is that they attend to young children who are often vulnerable to incurring communicable diseases between each other as they intermingle and play.

How then could a possible passing of a communicable disease be prevented? This particular question is directed towards the analysis on how the caregivers [in this case, the nurses] are able to contend to the need of protecting the children from incurring communicable diseases especially when they are handling a specific number individuals in their facilities of care. For this discussion, this is the primary concern that shall be given attention through research and investigation procedures.

Purpose of the Study

It is desired that this study be focused on increasing the competence of nurses as they handle child care responsibilities. Relatively, through developing an assessment tool that shall serve as a protocol for the said healthcare representatives to take into consideration when dealing with young patients, it is assumed that the process of providing better healthcare service to the children would become a much dependable source of confidence.

Notably though, carrying into consideration the need to take note of the most important elements that should be added into a more effective system of assessment still needs to be reevaluated in this study hence assisting nurses in becoming more aware of the healthcare needs of the children under their care in an earlier manner of detecting healthcare anomalies or possibilities. With this approach, it is expected that the competence of the nurses shall be redefined and thus receive more conceivable response from the parents of the children left under their care.

Significance of the Study

This study is deemed to be rather significant especially that the modern society at has become more dependent on private facilities that provide child care services especially to parents who are on the go. Having confidence on the capacity of those taking care of their children specifically provides these parents a sense of peace of mind. Also, being more competent in servicing the children as well as keeping track of their healthcare needs shall help the parents save much money that are to go out for emergencies if incase early interventions are not applied once particular symptoms have been observed. In the same manner, the nurses would be able to help in the integral development of their young patients if they were given the right assessment tool they need to provide ample attention to the children they are supposed to take care of.

Research Question(s)

Expected to serve as the primary backbone of this study, these research questions shall be given attention to all throughout the process of seeking for the most confident form of nursing assessment that could be used to improve child care assistance provided by nurses on different child care center facilities:

Child care centers are expected to take on the responsibility of caring for children that are left under their supervision. Nurses, being the primary healthcare providers are particularly assigned to attend to the healthcare needs of the youngsters they serve. Relatively, when it comes to children, there are some common diseases that are easily detectable and there are some other diseases that are rare enough to be noticed immediately. What particular elements of assessment could nurses use so as to make sure that they are able to completely adhere to their responsibilities amidst the differences of such occurrences?

How important is it for child care centers to secure previous medical records of the children and could IT programs dedicated to medical assessment information recording help in the process of updating and keeping track of the healthcare case of the children enrolled in a center?

How much improvement on nursing competency issues can technological options of operation offer? Would the changes imposed be significant enough to support the need of nurses to become more specific with their assessments and thus give more accurate medical response to their patients?

Along the process of completing the study, these questions shall stand as the guideline for the researcher to follow. Giving attention to the importance of nursing assessment programs applied, this study shall also try to examine a new age system of assessment that involves the utilization of IT or information technology programs that would surely ease out the process of recording data and further improve the capacity of nurses to be more accurate in the medical procedures that they are expected to provide the children with.

Literature Review

Children, as adorable as they are, becomes the target of several communicable diseases. This is of course because of the fact that they are more vulnerable to incurring specific ailments that their immune system could not fight yet. Relatively, this is the reason why it is most often than not that they become the target of medical issues such as common cold, runny nose, cough and other communicable diseases that often appear among children who have not been properly vaccinated at an earlier age.

Child care facilities are areas where children are able to intermingle between each other. It is this particular culture in such facilities that make it easier for common diseases to be communicated and passed on to other individuals possible making way for a course of healthcare “outbreak”. This is the reason why nurses who are assigned to care for children in such facilities are expected to be alert enough to make sure that such incidents are fully controlled. The consideration over an assessment tool that could provide an updated and well recorded data regarding a particular individual would help so much in attaining the aimed result of healthcare protection in such areas.

Relatively, the nurses with whom the children are left with are the ones who have closer contact with the youngsters hence allowing them to become more familiar with the characteristics of each child. Nevertheless, it would still help if the parents would be required to provide the basic medical history record of their child/children upon enrolling the youngsters into a particular child care program within a specific center. This would serve as the primary basis of the record that shall be kept by the facility for future references especially when special emergencies occur. To further improve the process, IT-based records are often hoped to be applied in such facilities. EHR  or the Electronic Health Record system has become one of the most efficient developments in the medical industry that hospitals and other healthcare facilities use today.

Creating a localized EHR program for child care centers would help a lot in improving the assessment procedures that nurses in such areas consider as they serve the needs of their young clients. The features of EHR specifically provide nurses with a specific guidance as to what particular data they should get in a daily basis so as to keep record of the healthcare condition of patients. When embedded within the operational system of a particular child care center, such a program could allow the nurses to see through historical data of the medical condition of a particular child and address any particular abnormalities or dysfunctions that may have occurred through time. Considerably, through this, the nurses are given the capacity to assess early on if a specific child needs special medical attention and care hence preventing the spread of communicable diseases that are sure to take over the group children that they are giving attention to. Early intervention then becomes possible.

Theoretical Framework

Technology is a highly definite tool that medical facilities fully embrace today as part of the developments that they hope to apply in relation to improving their operations. Child care centers are considered to be among the healthcare servicing facilities that focus their attention on one among the most vulnerable members of the society when it comes to developing medical and healthcare integrity. Hence, the need of child care centers to be operating under the umbrella of technological development in medical procedures is vital especially when it comes to the need of protecting the child’s healthcare integrity. Relatively, it is viewed that it is with this particular improvement that child care centers could provide better service to the children as well as make the nurses more competent of completing their duties towards their young clients. Containing communicable diseases become a much easier task to contend with hence making their service more competent especially in relation to healthcare development assistance that the children mostly need.

Limitations

While technological development could help in the process of identifying healthcare needs of children, it is still vital that the nurses are well equipped and practically knowledgeable about the process of development that they are undergoing. While technology could improve the process of keeping data and recording updates about the case of a particular individual, it is still the nurses’ call to make a definitive course of decision on whether or not to pursue a specific course of healthcare attention that a child might need incase he or she develops a particular communicable disease. In a way, human input [which is effort and intelligent decision] on the part of the nurses would still be a valuable source of competence in relation to this process of development that the assessment approach is expected to encounter. EHR programs for example might be competent in keeping data about patient’s most basic information, nevertheless, it would not be able to be of better function unless the data recorded in them are fully utilized by the healthcare practitioners handling them and the data they have in memory. The diagnosis of the situation being suggested through the records still belong to the nurses hence requiring them to be alert and specifically focused on their duty especially when dealing with symptoms of disease that come out among children.

Methodology

To be able to come up with a competent form of assessment program for nurses to use, it is essential that the specialized case of children be put into special consideration. Since the target of the development is more focused on the population it hopes to address, it would help to know what basic elements make up a child’s healthcare record. Most often than not, this includes a list of vaccines that the child has been given, several doctor’s appointments that have been incurred and the reason behind such appointments, possible hospitalization notes and their outcomes and so on and so forth. Along with such data, a relative indication about the home [and school-although optional] environment that the child is involved with could be given attention to as well. Recording such matters could provide the nurses an understanding on what particular causes could an emerging symptom be when it comes to the child’s development of specific diseases.

The diagram herein provides a more complex yet detailed healthcare record. Relatively this could be adapted and specifically customized for the healthcare needs of the children being served in the child care centers. Interconnecting the data shown in the diagram within a specified health record computer-based program could help the nurses become more aware of how one specific aspect of a child’s healthcare record could be related to another element of his or her everyday lifestyle. Notably, this intends to improve the process by which the nurses are able to pinpoint to the parents what specific measures could be adapted immediately so as to avoid further spread of diseases on the patient as well as on the other children in the center.

Conclusion

Children, being active and all may have specific problems especially when it comes to being immediately diagnosed with specific diseases. Common or not, such diseases are dangerous especially if they happen to be communicable to others. Being in a crowded area such as child care centers, nurses are then expected to take the lead in identifying whether a child is developing symptoms of irregular physical functions or not. Through having a reflective and effective assessment tool, such a consideration would be easier to handle. Adding in the course by which technology enhances the process even upgrades the capacity of the nurses to assess what healthcare attention the children need and thus provide necessary immediate care for the said young patients. Relatively though, as mentioned in the limitations of the process, the final decision still lies within the capacity of the nurse to know the anomalies of the healthcare status of a child thus releasing a decision for immediate attention and care through medical assistance. It could be noticed that it is with this approach that the creation of a more effective assessment could be pushed through and applied for actual operation in child care centers today.

References:

Croft, R. (2006), Folklore, families and fear: understanding consumption decisions through the oral tradition, Journal of Marketing Management, 22:9/10, pp1053-1076.

Draper, Elaine, Joseph LaDou, and Dan J. Tennenhouse. (2011). “Occupational Health Nursing and the Quest for Professional Authority,” New Solutions 21(1):57–88

Goldberg, D (1972). The detection of psychiatric illness by questionnaire: a technique for the identification and assessment of non-psychotic psychiatric illness. Oxford: OUP.

Guidelines for Communicable Disease Prevention and Control for Childcare Programs and Family Home Day Care Agencies. (2008). http://novascotia.ca/coms/families/provider/documents/Guidelines_for_Communicable_Disease_Prevention.pdf. (Retrieved on August 9, 2012).

Lucia, Patricia R.; Otto, Tammy E.; Palmier, Patrick A. (2009). “Chapter 1: Performance in Nursing”. Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics 5: 1–40.

Menachemi, N.; Collum (2011). “Benefits and drawbacks of electronic health record systems“. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy: 47.