NUR 0013 HUMAN ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY 2

Reducing the rate of Re-hospitalization in home healthcare patients

This project will focus on highlighting aspects that concern is reducing the rates of re-hospitalisation in home healthcare patients. Since re-hospitalisation trends have indicated a rise in the country currently, some of the elements under study include the initiatives to be put in place to ensure there is a reduction in the rate of re-hospitalisation in home healthcare patients. Another aspect will be to identify plans whose role will be to ensure a successful implementation of the identified preventive initiatives. Some preventive actions can be implemented to curb re-hospitalisation. The preventive efforts to be addressed in this report include introducing patient seminars. The home healthcare providers can also create programs to identify patients who are at high risk of getting re-hospitalised and ensure they are monitored closely (Brook, Mitchell, Irby, Stevens, & Archibald, 2013).

This initiative can be applied and monitored in the case scenario of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).    Patients suffering from this illness often experience cases of being re-hospitalised (Niti, Tan, Cao, & Ng, 2007). In this case, applying the two preventive initiatives can help in controlling the trends of re-hospitalisation in patients with COPD. For instance, a system can be put in place by the healthcare provider to identify how risky or severe is the patient’s health conditions (Zwerink et al. 2014). The identification of the risk level will help the healthcare provider attend to the patients appropriately based on how close a patient’s health conditions need to be monitored. Alternatively, creating frequent conferences that help strengthen the patient-physician relationship and also share information on patients’ self-management can help curb re-hospitalisation in COPD patients.

Generally, the two preventive initiatives are meant to create a close patient, and physician relationship, this way, the physician can closely monitor the patient to help avoid cases of re-hospitalisation. The risk level identification initiative helps improve the appropriateness and quality of healthcare to each respective patient. This is because, through risk level evaluation, the healthcare provider can understand the stability of each patient’s health conditions and can, therefore, identify which patient still needs additional attention. The patients’ seminars on the hand help to determine the general success steps accomplished in the recovery process and discussions on the best way to manage some unique and complex cases. The patient seminars are also meant to help in curbing re-hospitalisation by enhancing communication between patients and the health providers (Bach & Hayes, 2002).

This initiative will have a different influence on the working environment, quality of care and patient health outcomes. Firstly, since these initiatives are concerned with improving patient-physician relationship, they will have a positive influence regarding creating a conducive and free environment for both the patient and the physician. Secondly, since the patient and the physician can communicate correctly, the quality of services provided by the healthcare provider will be improved and appropriate. Patients will receive the level of attention corresponding their medical conditions. With this in place, the resulting impact will be positive outcomes for the patient. The patients will be able to receive appropriate care for the respective health condition to achieve general better health conditions (Michael & Katherine, 2017).

Successful implementation of the initiatives will mean that there will be a reduction in the cases of re-hospitalisation for patients. It will also signify an improvement in the quality of healthcare. Since re-hospitalisation is a costly program, the initiatives can help in reducing the costs incurred due to re-hospitalisation. There will be an improvement regarding creating a better communication relationship to between patient and physician to enhance better healthcare. For nursing, this will be a bold step, the availability of a suitable communication environment between nurses and patients will mean nurses can effectively monitor the patients and administer the appropriate healthcare to enable a quick recovery process and avoid cases of re-hospitalisation (Curtis, Millman, & Struening, 2000).

The way forward on the implementation of these initiatives to achieve the desired reduction in re-hospitalisation cases is that; Home healthcare providers should make necessary arrangements in terms creating the relevant departments that should be in charge of overseeing the implementation of the initiatives. The departments should ensure the installation of the appropriate infrastructure and personnel in the cost of organising and providing the objectives of patient seminars are achieved (Simon et al., 2016). The healthcare providers should also hire the relevant staff in charge of over watching the process of identification of various risk levels in patients as a way of ensuring quality healthcare across all the patients (Ellery, Pakrashi, Paul, & Sack, 2006).   

References

Bach, P., & Hayes, S. (2002). The use of acceptance and commitment therapy to prevent the re-hosipitalization of psychotic patients. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology., 57-69.

Brook, J., Mitchell, J., Irby, K., Stevens, B., & Archibald, T. (2013). Association between quality improvement for care in communities and re-hosipitalization among medicare profesional. Re-Hosipitalization among patients in Medicare., (65)7 pp.733-740.

Curtis, J., Millman, E., & Struening, E. (2000). Effect of case management on re-hosipitalization and utilization of ambulatorycare services. Internationa journal of social psychiatry, 435-441.

Ellery, S., Pakrashi, T., Paul, V., & Sack, S. (2006). predicting mortality and re-hosipitalization in heart failure patients with home monitoring. Clinical research and cardiology., (95)3 pp.29-35.

Michael, S., & Katherine, F. (2017). Analysing the Re-hosipitalization Issue. Clinal Healthcare Review, 873-889.

Niti, M., Tan, W., Cao, Z., & Ng, T. (2007). Depressive symptoms and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Heart Failure issues., 46-58.

Simon, S. T., Weingärtner, V., Higginson, I. J., Benalia, H., Gysels, M., Murtagh, F. E., … & Bausewein, C. (2016). “I Can Breathe Again!” Patients’ self-management strategies for episodic breathlessness in advanced disease, derived from qualitative interviews. Journal of pain and symptom management, 52(2), 228-234.

Zwerink, M., Brusse?Keizer, M., van der Valk, P. D., Zielhuis, G. A., Monninkhof, E. M., van der Palen, J., … & Effing, T. (2014). Self management for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Cochrane Library.