Description of Service and impact on Australia’s ageing Population
A nursing home is a high-quality institution that is highly regulated for the care as well as treatment of the older population.
These people have physical health issues, mental complications or cannot get care at home.
Changes in the Australian nursing homes have been attributed to government regulations as well as consumer pressures among other factors.
Description of Service and impact on Australia’s ageing Population
Nursing home care is a combination of different services that are offered at a nursing home.
This care involves a comprehensive scope of medical, social and personal services which are coordinated to meet the physical, emotional as well as the social needs or people that are either chronically ill, disabled or lack proper care at home (WebMD, 2018).
it is meant for the elderly.
involves a wide array of other services which focus on the on the physical, social and emotional needs of their patients
personal care is also offered such as bathing, dressing as well as toilet assistance, and Room and Boarding are offered.
Description of Service and impact on Australia’s ageing Population Cont.
The provision of these types of services has had a significant impact on the aging population of Australia.
Over the years, the government has strived to ensure that these services are kept to a certain standard and that it is affordable for the citizens.
The government endeavors to improve the quality of services in nursing homes have seen more people to be committed to these facilities.
However, this has not come without challenges. According to Wynne (2006), some home care businesses have been accused of engaging in fraudulent activities, extorting the elderly and their families for services and medication that are not necessary.
Clinical Effectiveness
Serious concerns have persisted over the quality of services offered to individual patients in nursing home care.
In some areas, however, the quality of care in nursing homes might have improved even though the facilities are now serving a sicker population (Stadnyk et al., 2011).
It is the duty of the health care providers at these facilities to ensure that the elderly do take their medication at the right time and that this process is not skipped as it is geared towards maintaining their well-being health wise.
The physical services such as bathing, dressing as well as toilet assistance are implemented in the nursing care and therefore provide excellent attention to the patients.
Nursing Home Care Services
Clinical Effectiveness cont.
Apart from medical services, there are additional services that are offered such as physical and social services.
The physical services such as bathing, dressing as well as toilet assistance are implemented in the nursing care and therefore provide excellent attention to the patients.
social services ensure that the nursing homes do not only create a sense of a medical facility but rather a retirement home for the elderly where they can engage in various activities during their stay and therefore making this service quite effective.
- ii) Population Effectiveness
Nursing home care can also be channeled toward improving the health of populations via medical or non-medical services
In Australia, many elderlies are now opting for home-based care rather than nursing home cares.
home-based care has proven effective since the practitioners have been in a position to help the population through the elderly when they visit their homes either through medical or non-medical services.
Production Efficiency (Clinical Perspective)
It is commonly believed that the inefficiencies that are occurring in a nursing home and healthcare facilities are mainly contributed by the dramatic increase in the cost of healthcare in the recent years.
Nursing homes in Australia have had a great deal of expenditure that approaches 1% of the Gross National Product (GNP) and thus represent an important industry.
For this reason, many people are shying away from accessing these services for the financial burden on them and prefer care at home. However, since the government has devoted special funds for the elderly in Australia, now more people can afford the care than before.
Production Efficiency (Clinical Perspective) cont.
When funds are provided, the quality of service offered in a nursing home is set to rise as resources for the improvements can now be acquired.
This is of particular importance since government reforms have made it possible for more people to afford the care services and for the facilities to improve the quality of their service by ensuring the staff is sufficiently competent to handle patients (Clauser & Harris, 2002, p.9). Doing this ensures that facilities adhere to strict law structures.
. Production Efficiency (Population Perspective)
While the consumers are demanding for a more flexible way of providing nursing home care services, structural reforms have resulted in the health providers adopting new methods of operating.
The federal government of Australia at one point found out the extortion that was happening in nursing home facilities and thus discovered that the population was losing a lot of money for inferior services.
Clinical Effectiveness of Nursing Home Care Services
For this reason, to ensure that the community gets the value for their monies and that they do not pay more than what they are supposed to pay, the government amended the laws to ensure that the funds that were provided to the facilities from the government were cut.
- Production Efficiency (Population Perspective)
when the government found out about the allegation against these facilities, the money was instead given out to individuals in the society who were in need of the health services making it easy to prevent extortion by the facilities.
This move has proved to be efficient in the provision of better healthcare since now more people can afford nursing homes and when they pay, their money is specifically geared towards ensuring that the needs of the elderly are met.
iii) Allocation Efficiency (Population Perspective)
In Australia, the government has been crucial in the corporatization of aged care, and therefore the story of allocation efficiency cannot be told without analyzing the role of the government.
In the U.S, it was the financiers as well as businessmen that have driven the marketization of such welfare services for the aged population.
In addition to this, their government has offered their support, influence, and credibility to a great extent.
iii) Allocation Efficiency (Population Perspective) cont.
In Australia, the public backlash was a significant setback that frightened this particular market.
For that reason, the government had to maintain to be the primary allocator of funds for these facilities.
When the funds were allocated to the facilities, another setback was experienced in that the centers started using the funds inappropriately and therefore reforms had to be made where the money would go to individual patients to avoid the vice (National Academy of Science, 2001. P. 6).
To distribute fair services among individuals, it is essential that the healthcare providers in a nursing home are competent and have been trained towards ensuring equity in the delivery of services to the elderly.
In nursing home care, professional standards must be maintained at all times which involves procedural equity.
Over the decades, there has been research on the patient’s reactions towards the healthcare providers and how satisfied they are with the services offered.
- i) Substantive Equity (Clinical Perspective)
There could be disparities concerning equal distribution of health care among individuals.
These disparities create a state of poor healthcare which is not the focus on many facilities in Australia.
To ensure that there are no disparities in the distribution of such services among individuals, policies have been established which clearly outline that equity should prevail when delivering services.
Production Efficiency (Clinical Perspective)
iii) Procedural Equity (Population Perspective)
In some instances, health services that are distributed are not provided fairly among specific populations for various reasons.
Nursing homes tend to of different classes, and each class has their rate.
To ensure that there everyone is treated fairly, the healthcare providers must ensure that they include procedural equity in their way of doing things (Frogner et al., 2005 p. 10).
- iv) Substantive Equity (Population Perspective)
In some areas, it is possible to find that the services that are provided are not offered to all people in a similar fashion depending on the region that a person comes from.
Various factors could contribute to the disparities in the distribution of service among some communities such as remoteness.
However, with the current infrastructure and government funding, more work has been done to ensure that there is substantive equity and that a particular population is not left out in terms of receiving proper health care.
- iv) Substantive Equity (Population Perspective) cont.
Reaching more community to provide affordable nursing home care for the elderly has been a top priority for the government to ensure that there are minimal disparities when it comes to delivery of these services to the population.
To improve the quality of service that is offered in nursing homes, it is essential to re-evaluate the current situation and find a sustainable solution for the problems in the society.
For instance, to ensure equity among patients, structures should be created around the rules to make sure that people are not treated differently due to their background or financial capacities.
The government should also be involved in ensuring that the provision of this healthcare service is affordable for all that are willing to incorporate in nursing homes.
Government should ensure that patients receive improved quality of services at all times.
This could come in the form of changing the models through which service is delivered, changing the payment as well as eligibility as well as further research conducted to understand the factors that are negatively affecting the delivery of services in this sector and correcting those issues.
To conclude, it is the responsibility of everyone to ensure that the service they pay for is what they get.
Issues can always be raised with the relevant authorities if cases of extortion are experienced and the involved persons charged always to ensure fair distribution of services.
References
National Academy of Sciences. (2001). Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care. Shaping the Future for Health, 1-8. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e494/ac95ffcdbf96f95d91a80579977f3d40fd30.pdf
Clauser, S., & Harris, Y. (2002). Achieving Improvement Through Nursing Home Quality Measurement. Health Care Financing Review, 23, 1-14. Retrieved from https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Research/HealthCareFinancingReview/Downloads/Review_02Summerpg5_p.pdf
National Academy of Sciences. (2001). Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care. Shaping the Future for Health, 1-8. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e494/ac95ffcdbf96f95d91a80579977f3d40fd30.pdf
Clauser, S., & Harris, Y. (2002). Achieving Improvement Through Nursing Home Quality Measurement. Health Care Financing Review, 23, 1-14. Retrieved from https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Research/HealthCareFinancingReview/Downloads/Review_02Summerpg5_p.pdf
Stadnyk, R., Lauckner, H., & Clarke, B. (2011, August 9). Improving Quality of Care in Nursing Homes: What Works? Retrieved from NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153508/
WebMD. (2018). What Caregivers Should Know About Nursing Home Care. Retrieved from WebMD: https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/nursing-home-care#1
Woerkom, M. v., & Buljac-Samardži?, M. (2018, July 2). Improving Quality and Safety of Care in Nursing Homes by Team Support for Strengths Use: A Survey Study. Retrieved from PLOS one: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0200065
Wynne, M. (2006, June). Home care in Australia. Retrieved from https://www.bmartin.cc: https://www.bmartin.cc/dissent/documents/health/hc_homecare.html
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