Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care PDF Download

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309132746
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Among the issues confronting America is long-term care for frail, older persons and others with chronic conditions and functional limitations that limit their ability to care for themselves. Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care takes a comprehensive look at the quality of care and quality of life in long-term care, including nursing homes, home health agencies, residential care facilities, family members and a variety of others. This book describes the current state of long-term care, identifying problem areas and offering recommendations for federal and state policymakers. Who uses long-term care? How have the characteristics of this population changed over time? What paths do people follow in long term care? The committee provides the latest information on these and other key questions. This book explores strengths and limitations of available data and research literature especially for settings other than nursing homes, on methods to measure, oversee, and improve the quality of long-term care. The committee makes recommendations on setting and enforcing standards of care, strengthening the caregiving workforce, reimbursement issues, and expanding the knowledge base to guide organizational and individual caregivers in improving the quality of care.

Author: Terry Mahan Buttaro
Publisher: Elsevier Health Sciences
ISBN: 0323018629
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
"Provides primary care providers with information specific to the medical management of acutely ill adult and elder patients with multiple comorbid health problems. It also contains material on advanced directives, end of life care and regulatory and compliance concerns that often affect treatment decisions in these settings. A section on staff education is also included for nurse practitioners who are directing patient care given by both skilled and unskilled staff in subacute and long term care." --Cover.

Author: Jean Galiana
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811321647
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
This open access book outlines the challenges of supporting the health and wellbeing of older adults around the world and offers examples of solutions designed by stakeholders, healthcare providers, and public, private and nonprofit organizations in the United States. The solutions presented address challenges including: providing person-centered long-term care, making palliative care accessible in all healthcare settings and the home, enabling aging-in-place, financing long-term care, improving care coordination and access to care, delivering hospital-level and emergency care in the home and retirement community settings, merging health and social care, supporting people living with dementia and their caregivers, creating communities and employment opportunities that are accessible and welcoming to those of all ages and abilities, and combating the stigma of aging. The innovative programs of support and care in Aging Well serve as models of excellence that, when put into action, move health spending toward a sustainable path and greatly contribute to the well-being of older adults.

Author: Paul Osterman
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610448677
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
The number of elderly and disabled adults who require assistance with day-to-day activities is expected to double over the next twenty-five years. As a result, direct care workers such as home care aides and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) will become essential to many more families. Yet these workers tend to be low-paid, poorly trained, and receive little respect. Is such a workforce capable of addressing the needs of our aging population? In Who Will Care for Us? economist Paul Osterman assesses the challenges facing the long-term care industry. He presents an innovative policy agenda that reconceives direct care workers’ work roles and would improve both the quality of their jobs and the quality of elder care. Using national surveys, administrative data, and nearly 120 original interviews with workers, employers, advocates, and policymakers, Osterman finds that direct care workers are marginalized and often invisible in the health care system. While doctors and families alike agree that good home care aides and CNAs are crucial to the well-being of their patients, the workers report poverty-level wages, erratic schedules, exclusion from care teams, and frequent incidences of physical injury on the job. Direct care workers are also highly constrained by policies that specify what they are allowed to do on the job, and in some states are even prevented from simple tasks such as administering eye drops. Osterman concludes that broadening the scope of care workers’ duties will simultaneously boost the quality of care for patients and lead to better jobs and higher wages. He proposes integrating home care aides and CNAs into larger medical teams and training them as “health coaches” who educate patients on concerns such as managing chronic conditions and transitioning out of hospitals. Osterman shows that restructuring direct care workers’ jobs, and providing the appropriate training, could lower health spending in the long term by reducing unnecessary emergency room and hospital visits, limiting the use of nursing homes, and lowering the rate of turnover among care workers. As the Baby Boom generation ages, Who Will Care for Us? demonstrates the importance of restructuring the long-term care industry and establishing a new relationship between direct care workers, patients, and the medical system.

Author: Ronda Hughes
Publisher: Department of Health and Human Services
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309036461
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
As more people live longer, the need for quality long-term care for the elderly will increase dramatically. This volume examines the current system of nursing home regulations, and proposes an overhaul to better provide for those confined to such facilities. It determines the need for regulations, and concludes that the present regulatory system is inadequate, stating that what is needed is not more regulation, but better regulation. This long-anticipated study provides a wealth of useful background information, in-depth study, and discussion for nursing home administrators, students, and teachers in the health care field; professionals involved in caring for the elderly; and geriatric specialists.

Author: Fong, Ben
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 152252634X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Lasting healthcare for the entire population, specifically the elderly, has become a main priority in society. It is imperative to find ways to boost the longevity of healthcare services for all users. Sustainable Health and Long-Term Care Solutions for an Aging Population is a pivotal reference source featuring the latest scholarly research on issues pertinent to health cost and finding effective ways of financing healthcare for the elderly. Including coverage on a number of topics such as provider accreditation, corporate social responsibility, and data management, this book is ideally designed for policy makers, academicians, researchers, and advanced-level students seeking current research on the innovative planning and development of healthcare.

Author: Pamela Ann Fenstemacher
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1607611422
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Long-Term Care Medicine: A Pocket Guide lessens the uncertainty involved in caring for patients in a long-term care facility. This practical pocket guide is divided into four sections: Introduction, Common Clinical Conditions, Psychosocial Aspects, and Special Issues in Long-Term Care. The chapters address all the varied components of the LTC system as well as how to take care of the patients and residents living within it. The contributors to this easy-to-read guide are passionate about LTC and many have worked within the American Medical Directors Association to create and disseminate a knowledge base for practitioners. Long-Term Care Medicine: A Pocket Guide is an invaluable resource for clinicians, practitioners, and educators who are seeking to optimize the care and living experience of residents in LTC by providing resident-centered care as well as resident choice, well-being, dignity, and an improved quality of life.

Author: Rosalie A. Kane
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780195122381
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Long-term care in the United States has taken the nursing home as its benchmark, but the monetary, social, and psychological costs of nursing home care are all too high. This book challenges the current dominance of nursing homes as the principal institution of long-term care. It offers a series of alternative models where both services and housing can be provided in a way that allows long-term consumers to enjoy dignified, "normal" lifestyles. It addresses the political and economic consequences of making this decision. The authors start with the premise that long-term care is designed to assist people who lack the capacity to function fully independently. They argue that no disabled person of any age should be required to forsake his/her humanity in exchange for care. The book rejects the artificial dichotomy between social and medical care, asserting that both play important roles in psychological and physical well-being of long-term care patients. The authors consider the need for competent and compassionate medicine and discuss the methods for improving both its coordination of care and its effectiveness. The book redefines the meaning of safety and protection in long-term care, and how this goal can be accomplished without sacrificing quality of living. As the new millennium and the aging of baby boomers approaches, more creative approaches to providing better long-term care are required. This volume outlines a useful framework for the provision of effective and humane community-based programs that are both feasible and affordable. It will be an invaluable guide for geriatricians, public health professionals, family physicians, nurses and others who care for elderly patients.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309131952
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.