An effective elderly care program is holistic and humanistic. When done properly, a care program lets the caregiving team identify each resident’s individual needs and problems and select interventions that can solve or minimise those problems. Here we discuss a few useful insights on factors that play an important role in delivering quality care that is specifically suited for a resident’s physical and emotional needs.
- Care plan: An important part of elderly care is effective care planning. A care plan is like a road map that guides all the involved team members in improving the quality of care and quality of life of older adults. To devise an effective elderly care program, you not only have to consider a resident’s physical, mental and emotional wellbeing but also his/her interests, values, religious and cultural background. To ensure that your resident wellness program promotes the concept of whole-person wellness, you must ensure that it focuses on healthy and positive ageing with aerobics, fitness and exercise programs, religious and spiritual events and increased participation in social activities.
A good care plan involves the resident’s inputs – when identifying a resident’s problems and formulating interventions, take inputs from him/her. This will encourage the resident to participate in his/her health care decisions and adhere to the care plan. Also, involving a resident in healthcare decisions gives him/her a greater sense of control – which enhances personal responsibility and makes the resident committed towards attaining health goals.
It is important to note that the care plan needs to be routinely reviewed and updated as the resident’s health status improves or declines. You can hold monthly review meetings to revise the care plan to ensure that the resident is receiving appropriate care.
- Team work: Senior care takes several levels of teamwork. Not only must the caregiving team work together, but teams from different areas such as physicians, pharmacists and social workers must collaborate too. When teams work together and collaborate, senior residents benefit from care plans that are well designed and coherent.
Honest and transparent relationships between members of the caregiving staff are important in delivery of quality care. To positively impact resident care, partnership must be created among the resident, physician, social worker, caregiving staff and family members of the resident. As a care home manager, you can create more opportunities for collaboration and communication among different team members through group discussions and collaborative workshops. Also, to promote better collaboration between different teams you must focus on avoiding potential confrontations related to staffing, shifts and medical devices.
- Medication administration: It is an important part of the care plan. Any kind of error while administering medicines can be serious. Caregiving staff can avoid medication errors if they follow 8 Rs of proper medication administration and the essential medication guidelines. A medication error occurs when any of the following happen:
- When medication is given to the wrong patient
- When incorrect drug is administered
- When the drug is administered via an incorrect route
- When the drug is administered at an incorrect time
- When incorrect dose is administered
- When wrong medication data is entered on the patient’s MAR chart due to reasons such as miscommunication. As a care home manager, you can take various steps to reduce medication errors at your care home. One of the ways to do so is implementing electronic MAR charts and other technological advancements. There are many benefits of eMAR – and one of them is reduced incidents of miscommunication regarding medication administration among the caregiving team. Electronic MAR charts ensure that all members of the team have access to the same information on medication issued and it is easily accessible on mobile devices. To know how eMAR can help your care home, book a demo today.