Gerontological Quality Improvement
The population of people over 65-years old has been increasing and will continue to rapidly increase over the years to come. There are many people in skilled nursing homes that need proper nursing care. The nurses and staff need to be proficient in knowing how the body and mind age and the unique care needed to take care of the elderly. The purpose of this paper is to discuss improving the care of the elderly, age-related challenges, to review five articles, the physical and emotional changes in the elderly, barriers and solutions to quality improvement programs and the future impact on the care of the quality of care for the elderly.
Age-Related Changes
There is a multitude of physical changes that everyone
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The nurse not only needs to speak clearly to the patient but also have attentive listening skills. Sometimes if you are so focused on an end result you stop listening as well and therefore miss a great deal from the patient. A solution for this could be to slow down and work in small steps. There needs to be more and better patient education. Another barrier to quality improvement is a lack of leadership and training. There is a nursing shortage especially a gerontology nursing shortage which makes it much more difficult to get all of the staff on board and no time to get quality improvement done correctly if the staff is already spread so thin. By creating more time in nursing school for geriatric training there will be more staff on hand to take care of the patients and do the best quality improvements possible for the patients. The staff also needs to be recognized more for all of their …show more content…
Thaler, S. (2016). Reducing Hospital-Acquired Clostidium difficile on a Medical-Renal Unit. Retrieved from Institue for Healthcare Improvement website: http://www.ihi.org
Beauvais, A., & Beauvais, J. (2014). Reducing the Fear of Falling Through a Community Evidenced-Based Intervention. Retrieved from Home Healthcare Nurse website: http://www.homehealthcarenurseonline.com
Bradley, S., Segal, P., & Finely, E. (2012). Impact of Implementation of Evidence-Based Best Practices on Nursing Home Infections. Retrieved from Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory website: http://www.patientsafetyauthority.org
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services website. http://www.cms.gov
Gillis, K., Tency, I., Roelant, E., Laureys, S., Deviendt, H., & Lips, D. (2016). Skin Hydration in Nursing Home Residents Using Disposable Bed Baths. Retrieved from Geriatric Nursing website: