Multidisciplinary Team Approach
Comprehensive care is a basic healthcare setting in Australia. It incorporates coordinated delivery of the healthcare requested by the patient. Comprehensive care aligns with the healthcare needs and care goals; health issues impact the well-being and life of the patient and clinical effectiveness (Pires et al., 2020). It includes actions concerning nutrition, pressure injuries, and end-of-life care. Mr. Jagger has been admitted to the emergency department due to increasing back pain, and his wife cannot manage his condition. She is afraid of his malnutrition as he has not eaten for two days. Palliative care aims at improving the quality of life of the patients and their families and carers (Palliative Care Australia, 2018). The case study of Mr. Jagger provides that he has an increasing pain; his clinical manifestations indicate that he has a pain score of 6/10, nausea, mild restlessness, and dry mouth. Comprehensive healthcare plans help patients and their families to work with their care team to plan, document, and attain healthier outcomes and individualized goals. They reflect shared decisions of the patients, families, and healthcare professionals concerning the tests, interventions, treatment activities, and other required services to attain care goals. Thus, it is essential for the delivery of quality healthcare services.
A comprehensive healthcare plan comprises three parts; the details of the patient, the multidisciplinary team, and their actions. The multidisciplinary team is essential for a patient’s treatment plan. Bowel cancer multidisciplinary team who will be involved in planning and arranging Mr. Jagger’s return home include; an oncologist, an occupational therapist, attending nurses, and a psychologist or a counsellor. For instance, an oncologist is responsible for providing targeted therapies to the patients (Fernando & Hughes, 2019). An attending nurse of nurse specialist provides support and information concerning the patient. An occupational therapist provides therapies to the patients that can enable them to perform their daily living activities, and a psychologist or counsellor is responsible for providing counselling services that will help the patient manage the stress related to the disease (Fernando & Hughes, 2019). In Mr. Jagger’s case study, he wishes to return home but does not wish to burden his wife. The multidisciplinary team will work together to promote his return home and ensure that his and her wife’s will be met. Some of the factors considered in discussion with the multidisciplinary team include finance and respite care. According to Becqué et al. (2019), respite care refers to the short-term relief offered to the patient’s caregivers. In the case study, Mrs. Jagger took his husband to the hospital because she was afraid of her husband’s malnutrition and uncomfortable managing his symptoms. Families experience high risks of financial hardships when their loved one develops cancer (Selby et al., 2019). The multidisciplinary team should consider financial constraints when planning and arranging Mr. Jagger’s return home. Taking into consideration respite care and financial constraints will help the disciplinary team to develop a better comprehensive care plan for Mr. Jagger, who wants to return home.
Partners take the physical changes of the patients in stride for a greater percentage. Finding appropriate ways to support the family and carers offering end life care is critical. In most cases, the care responsibility of such patients is given to their families (Moore et al., 2020). For instance, in the case study of Mr. Jagger, he is an older man aged sixty-seven years who has been taken to the emergency department by his wife due to his increasing back pain and his wife being unable to manage his condition. One of the strategies that can help Mrs. Jaggers while providing end life care at her home is respite care. The respite care strategy aims to relieve the burden on the family and carers who offer end-of-life care (Becqué et al., 2019). For instance, Mrs. Jagger feels uncomfortable managing his husband’s increasing back pain and is afraid of his malnutrition as Mr. Jagger has not eaten for two days. Even though respite services are often offered to the families, it is the families’ and carers’ responsibility to decide what may be helpful to them (Roberts & Struckmeyer, 2018). The dynamics influence this strategy within the family. For inpatient respite, the family and the carers may experience guilt and stress due to their worry about their patient’s care. The breaks given to the family and carers are of great significance while in the caregiving environment. The disadvantage of this strategy is that there lacks sufficient informal and professional support to help balance the stresses that align with offering end life care. For instance, MR Jagger feels overburdened while caring for his husband to fails to manage his condition. But an effective respite care strategy will help to relieve her burden. Thus, respite care is essential for the family and carers offering end-of-life care.
Respite Care
Another strategy to support the family and carers of end-of-life care is nutrition and hydration education. Swallowing difficulties, weight loss, and anorexia are common in the last days of life. Patients with bowel obstruction often have reduced ability to sustain their nutritional intake. In the case study of Mr. Jagger, his wife is worried about his malnutrition as he has not eaten for two days. The clinical manifestations indicate that he has nausea and dry mouth. Poor nutrition is a distress to the family and the carers offering end-of-life care, which may necessitate them to request parenteral routes such as artificial nutrition (Lacey & Cherny, 2021). Nutrition and hydration education is essential in comprehensive care as it facilitates knowledge and skills on healthy food choices that can help the patients. Knowing and skills in hydration and nutrition will help Mrs. Jagger liberalise diets, offer tasty foods, serve meals on time, and identify his husband’s food and time preferences. This strategy is limited to the family and caregivers who are illiterate as they will find it difficult to follow the nutrition guidelines of their patients. Thus, nutrition and hydration education are essential to the family and carers of end life care as they will be able to manage the health and well-being of their patients and reduce their stress.
Palliative care has a positive impact on the patients’ quality of life. According to Le et al. (2017), integrated care is an essential framework that encourages efficiency, patient satisfaction, and quality of care in the social and healthcare systems. World Health Organization states that integrated palliative care is an approach that aims at improving the quality of life of patients with problems related to life-threatening illnesses such as cancer and their families. For instance, in the case study of Mr. Jagger, he is admitted to the emergency department and has a history of bowel cancer in the past twelve years. Palliative care will include prevention of suffering and relief provision by identifying the disease earlier, carrying out an impeccable assessment, pain treatment, and other issues associated with the diseases, and the spiritual, physical, and psychosocial well-being of the patient and their families (Shahid et al., 2018). For instance, in the case study of Mr. Jagger, he has opted for no further treatment but to focus on managing his symptoms. Also, Mr. Jagger wishes to return home; he only came to the hospital as his wife was worried about caring for him as his health deteriorated. There are various factors associated promote or hindering palliative integrated care services. For instance, adequate staffing, communication across healthcare and social care teams, availability of information technology, culture, financial budgets, and leadership management (World Health Organization, 2018). In the case study of Mr. Jagger, culture and communication across the healthcare teams. Integrated palliative care services are affordable, safe, and effective. Thus, integrated palliative care is essential in healthcare and social care systems.
Coordinated and integrated palliative care are essential in the delivery of healthcare services. Regarding the patients and their families, coordinated and integrated palliative care refers to the healthcare services that are easy to navigate. The patients and their families get access to services that reduce the steps when securing care access and redundancy prevention (Calder et al., 2019). In-home care multidisciplinary members include house representatives, social workers, occupational therapists, and voluntary sectors. Multidisciplinary team members play an essential role; they act as bridges in the professional boundaries and prevent barriers such as organisational and physical differences towards the provision of comprehensive and continuous care services to the patients (World Health Organization, 2018). In the case study of Mr. Jagger, the attending nurse can discuss with Mr. Jagger’s wife, various strategies that she can employ to ensure the well-being of Mr. Jagger. The attending nurse will advise Mrs. Jagger on several pain management strategies such as physical and complementary therapies such as acupuncture. Mr. Jagger does not wish for further treatments but wants to focus on managing his symptoms. Mr. Jagger was admitted to the ward due to his increasing back pain, and his clinical manifestations include a pain score of 6/10. Pain management strategies will help him return to his normal life and be able to carry out his daily living activities (Fulton et al., 2019). Thus, pain management strategies are essential in their case as they will help them achieve their wishes.
References
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0020748919301087
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