Comprehensive Health Strategies for Residential Aged

COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH
STRATEGIES FOR
RESIDENTIAL AGED CARE

Introduction
 Technology has a huge change in the healthcare
industry.
 The availability of new treatment had led to
better health outcomes, thus, enhancing the
quality of life (Hallikainen and Laukkanen,
2016).
 The aim of the assignment is to explore the
effect of a technological factor that is social and
physical assistive technology such as robotics
on the present and future strategies and
operation of an organisation.

Background of the company
 Bupa Aged Care is a leading private residential care centre for the aged
population in Australia.
 It has more than 70 care homes across the country.
 It offers extensive care and support to approximately 6700 older people
suffering from dementia-related, respite and residential care.

Overview of the Issue
 Prior to the introduction of technology, it was found that there were various issues
faced by the healthcare sector.
 Specifically the area of residential care for aged people.
 Dugstad et al. (2019) opined that old adults face numerous physical, social and
emotional issues that affect the well-being and health.

Overview of the Issue (Contd)
 The residential long-term care
industry has been facing several
inter-related challenges that had
heightened the requirement of
innovation in technology.
 Another study conducted by Gaans
and Dent (2019), the average rate of
mortality in Australia had fallen over
time; thus, increasing the life
expectancies of people.

Overview of the Issue (Contd)
 The rapid increase in the growth of the old population in the country has severe
implications for the provision of services required.
 It challenged the accessibility aspect and ability of social and physical assistive
technology in order to maintain the health and wellbeing of people.
 In addition to this, affordability, accommodation, availability, and acceptability posed
tremendous issues for the old people residing in residential care homes in Australia.

Impact of the issue on the health sector
 Technology has the potential of enhancing the quality
of life in older people
 The key indicators among elderly people include
 Independence
 The continued participation of family members and
community in term of social and physical assistive
technology include
 good health
 Security (Baker et al. 2019)

Impact (Contd)
 The application of Electronic Care Management (EMC) can
be used for delivery care using iPads, phones, video calling
and other electronic devices.
 It enhancing the accuracy of the recording system of social
and physical assistive technology.
 The electronic medication administration app and
telemedicine have been adopted that involve minimizing
the error rate and risks of medication dosage.

Perceptions of Stakeholder on the issue
 The major stakeholders of Bupa
Aged Care are:
 Patients residing in the care home
 Families of patients
 Professional staffs in the care
home, physicians, nurses, and
other caregivers
 Higher management of Bupa Aged
Care

Stakeholder 1- Patient
 The patients are the heart of the healthcare setting, and thus, the most impactful effect
will be on this stakeholder.
 Less technological advanced in residential care involves dependence on the caregiver
and adverse effect on health and well-being.
 According to Gerling et al. (2016), social and physical assistive technology that
includes robots is found to have the potential of helping older adults in a number of
ways.

Stakeholder 2- Family of patient
 The second stakeholder involves the families of the patient
whose importance in the care process is critical for the
vulnerable group.
 It can be seen that after reaching an age, most aged people
have dementia resulting in the requirement of social and
physical assistive technology.
 Bennett et al. (2017) opined that the use of assistive
technologies plays a critical role in helping to enhance the
well-being of those suffering from dementia.

Stakeholder 3- Staffs of the care home
 The healthcare staffs need to be aware of the
technological challenges and implement the strategies
for mitigating the issues.
 The issue of technological disruption affects the way
employers are offering care to the patient, which is
critical in nature.
 The staffs need to be aware of the social and physical
assistive technologies and details of each technology for
administering it on patients.

Stakeholder 4- Management
 In addition to these stakeholders, another important stakeholder that needs to be taken
into account in the management of the company.
 The management needs to be aware of the technological advanced and invention taking
place in the world so that it can adopt those in the care home for effective delivery of
care (Kruse et al. 2017).

Opportunities for technological factor
 The opportunities includes:
1. Reduction of emotional and behavioural responses
2. Improvement in engagement level

Opportunities for technological factor
Another opportunity that is presented by the technological factor with respect to social and
physical assistive technology. includes:
 Improve care experience

Challenges for technological factor
 Few challenges affect the utilization, current and future operation of the robotic
technology are:
 High cost and workload

Challenges for technological factor
 Another challenges in the implementation of technological advanced is influence on
prevention and control of infection.

Ethical responsibilities of the issue
 According to Niemelä et al. (2019), the main ethical challenge due to use of robotics in
Bupa Aged Care is a privacy issue as in many cases.
 There is no control of the primary users in accepting or rejecting calls.
 Even though there is a conflicting situation with respect to the usability of robots for
old people in case of social and physical assistive technology. .

Ethical responsibilities of the issue (Contd)
 Thus, it is crucial to that the choice is respected and they can avail options in regards to
the daily routine, services they use and personal way of living.
 However, in social and physical assistive technological environment, the use of the
robot is mandatory at all the spaces, thus, affecting the privacy areas.
 As per the study of Wachsmuth (2018), robot refers to robotic system that is designed
to assist and offer companionship to elder people by interacting and communicating.

Ethical responsibilities of the issue (Contd)
 Poudel and Ray (2019) opined that emotional engagement in care is stated to be a
complex problem.
 Human manifest a range of emotional involvement, thus, responding to need or
demand of elder.
 This is not possible in case of robot causing ethical aspects.

Recommendations
 The challenges and ethical issues of using social assistive technologies, especially
robots, made it necessary to implement strategies to mitigate the issue.
 The first recommendation in term of social and physical assistive technology. involves
offering the staffs of Bupa Aged Care an extensive training and development session.

Recommendations (Contd)
 There is a high chance
of contamination from
the robotic system
because these are not
capable of sterilising
itself.
 Therefore, the
healthcare
professionals of the
care centre need to
ensure sterilisation.

Conclusion
 It can be concluded by stating that
technology advanced in the healthcare
sector has promoted and changed it
drastically.
 This can be found in the residential care
home where elderly people are given
support in all forms in social and physical
assistive technology. .
 Bupa Aged Care is a residential care home
in Australia that incorporated a robotic
system to address the needs and demand
of resident.

References
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