Health-Related Quality of Life, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Quality of care for older adults poses a continuous concern for many Americans, particularly as this population continues to grow in numbers and requires additional resources from the healthcare sector. As a result, many areas are strained, and this impacts how care and treatment is administered to many older adults. When quality of care is compromised for older adults, it is likely that quality of life will follow suit and create additional challenges for this population. In a case involving an older adult patient in a healthcare situation involving pressure sores, quality of care is of critical importance to prevent long-term complications. However, this requires healthcare workers to be attentive to the patient and to exercise high quality of care principles in order to effectively manage the patient’s condition and long-term health. For older adults, quality of care is a critical matter that requires further investigation; therefore, it must be addressed in a timely fashion and support a means of expanding knowledge to achieve successful treatment results.

Body

A healthcare organization must be able to deliver a high quality care model to the older adult population with the intent to prevent additional and unnecessary complications that could compromise quality of care for patients. This is an important step towards the discovery of new strategic approaches to improve health and to optimize conditions effectively to meet the needs of the patient population at a high level. There must be a greater emphasis on quality of care and an overall ability to work proactively with older adults and apply models of significance that will contribute to effective outcomes for older adults in need of effective support and treatment guidance from the healthcare community. There must be a greater reflection on the needs of the patient population and an overall ability to work proactively towards specific models of care and treatment to improve outcomes.

Healthcare practice settings must operate in a manner that is consistent with the quality-based principles of healthcare delivery in order to meet expectations at a high level. This represents a need to further investigate the conditions under which healthcare organizations administer care and treatment to their patients and whether or not these circumstances reflect the best possible approaches to patient care quality that are available. It is expected that organizations must operate under conditions whereby healthcare practice is observed to be effective and timely in meeting patient care needs and in advancing the key principles of quality and to impact organizational needs at a high level. The nurse practice environment (NPE) must reflect the key principles of high quality care and treatment and convey the importance of developing new strategies for growth to accommodate patients and provide a means of expanding knowledge at a high level to meet patient needs (Capezuti et.al, 2012). Nurses working with older adults, particularly with patients who face issues such as pressure ulcers, must be able to capitalize on the overall development of their practice methods to address these issues at or before their onset and to optimize their own level of care to minimize these risks (Capezuti et.al, 2012). If nurses do not have an effective model in place, they will not be able to achieve the intended outcomes and patient care quality will subsequently suffer at a high level (Capezuti et.al, 2012).

In the context of care, nurses must be able to exercise a sound focus on the care and treatment of older adults in an effort to produce effective outcomes that include high quality approaches to care and treatment that will have a positive and lasting impact on outcomes (Capezuti et.al, 2012). This strategy is likely to be effective because it will impact how patient care is administered and how nurses aim to improve the quality of care that they provide to these patients under difficult circumstances. In general, older adults must receive high quality care on a consistent basis in order to support their overall ability to overcome health matters such as pressure ulcers. Nurses must be able to work under a variety of conditions in order to effectively produce high quality care for their patients, and this reflects a need to evaluate conditions more closely and to optimize resource utilization at a high level.

When a patient experiences pressure ulcers, the healthcare setting must be on high alert in order to determine what has contributed to this diagnosis and to determine how and if nursing care and treatment have contributed to this process. A weakened organizational structure or operational mandate may be at least partially to blame under these conditions; therefore, this requires an examination of the different principles that impact quality of care and to determine what is required to ensure that patient care outcomes are effective and administered in a timely manner to meet expectations.  Healthcare organizations must be able to adapt to change and a variety of circumstances that directly impact patients; therefore, this requires an examination of key principles that are likely to influence how outcomes are achieved and recognized at the organizational level.

Care models for older adults must operate in a consistent manner and reflect the principles of high quality care that are necessary to improve outcomes, and this requires an examination of the key principles that impact outcomes and how nurses must deliver at a high level to reduce the risks associated with pressure ulcers and other conditions that often impact older adults. Health-related quality of life is a critical factor that must be addressed and requires an examination of key principles that impact organizations and reflect a need to further impact outcomes at a high level (Zubritsky et.al, 2012). The organizational structure and other tools embody a need to configure nursing practice so that older adults’ health is not compromised and that pressure ulcer risk is minimized as best as possible. Nurses must be able to exercise standards of care that will positively impact patients and that will facilitate sound judgment in decision-making to positively impact nurses when administering care to older adults with precarious health circumstances. Tools such as a quality registry are likely to have a positive impact in some organizations because they reflect a need to further examine the decisions that are made on behalf of older adults in the context of care and to determine what is required to facilitate high quality care for this population on a continuous basis (Rosengren, Hoglund, & Hedberg, 2012). This reflects a need to prevent pressure ulcers in older adult patients and to determine how this is best managed to improve outcomes and achieve successful results in care and treatment. There must be a critical focus from the organization and from the nursing team to convey the principles of high level quality in all aspects of care and treatment for older adults, and it also demonstrates a need to further examine how the organization operates with its own approach to quality care for older adults.

Conclusion

An organization’s overall structure and focus are of critical importance in reflecting the demands of healthcare practice and the need to administer high quality care and treatment, particularly for older adults. This reflects a need to investigate quality-based models to improve outcomes for this population and to reduce the risk of pressure ulcers and other complications. In essence, quality of care must be consistent and appropriate to ensure that patient outcomes are effective and timely to improve quality of care and to treat all patients with a collaborative model in place. This is an important need within a healthcare organization and requires all employees to work towards solutions that will provide optimal benefits to patients.

References

Capezuti, E., Boltz, M., Cline, D., Dickson, V. V., Rosenberg, M. C., Wagner, L., … & Nigolian, (2012). Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders–a model for optimising the geriatric nursing practice environment.Journal of clinical nursing,21(21-22), 3117-3125.

Rosengren, K., Höglund, P. J., & Hedberg, B. (2012). Quality registry, a tool for patient advantages–from a preventive caring perspective. Journal of nursing management, 20(2), 196-205.

Zubritsky, C., Abbott, K. M., Hirschman, K. B., Bowles, K. H., Foust, J. B., & Naylor, M. D. (2012). Health-related quality of life: Expanding a conceptual framework to include older adults who receive long-term services and supports.The Gerontologist.