Patient-Centred Care and Fall Prevention Strategies for Older Adults: A Case Study

This assignment reflects the outline of experience in patient care, persistent family focused care and collaborative care, their significance in providing quality health care and the rationale behind the patient care, also referring the medical services encountered by Mr. Taylor, focussing more on the facilitations and the limitations faced by him and the different elements that would advance the patient-focused health care.

Introduction
The quality of care and health services delivered to the patients and families depends
profoundly on a nurse and the overall medical team. This assignment reflects the outline of
experience in patient care, persistent family focused care and collaborative care, their
significance in providing quality health care and the rationale behind the patient care, also
referring the medical services encountered by Mr. Taylor, focussing more on the facilitations
and the limitations faced by him and the different elements that would advance the patient-
focused health care. It will also reflect the intervention of healthcare professionals about the
harms from falls and what strategies have been acquired by them to prevent fall.
Description
Falls among older adults can cause serious health hazards which may be life-threatening too.
Mr William Taylor is a 74-year-old man. He has a history of regular fall and has been visiting
the medical clinic every now and then due to his various other medical conditions. His first
fall created a 30cm tear in the muscle that goes over the shoulder. In order to prevent his fall
risk, proper strategies are required by the healthcare professionals. It is important to focus on
the quality improvement and patient care experience to gain a better patient result and
outcome. Also, it is equally important for the nurses to provide the patients a complete care
by gathering the correct history and analysing their experiences of the past.
Feelings and thoughts
The critical incident really made me feel sad and being a healthcare professional I also got
disappointed that he refused to visit hospital as his previous experience with hospital was not
satisfying. Apart from that, I also feel that before providing care to any patient, the
background information about the patient’s health should also be collected. In order to
provide effective care to the patients, my personal view is to embrace cognitive as well as

affective practice. I feel, building a therapeutic relationship is highly essential and it can be
built only when a nurse is empathetic and compassionate to the patient. The description from
the surgeon about the health condition of Mr. Taylor was really fragile and I think such words
can really hurt the emotion of a patient.
Values and Beliefs
I believe, any healthcare professional should be fully committed to their patients and while
taking care of older adults, nurses and doctors should be more sympathetic (Sinclair et al.,
2017). When the surgeon described the condition of Taylor his choice of words made the
patient disappointed and such behaviour also creates impact on the relationship between
patient and healthcare professionals. I also believe that giving value to the emotion of the
patients makes the care process more effective as well as successful. Fall among older adults
is quite common but they are extremely harmful to their health. Mr. Taylor is anaemic and
due to dizziness, the risk of falling is quite high in his case. A patient-centred clinical
approach always improves the clinical outcomes and it also meets the actual need and
expectations of the patients (Rathert, Williams, McCaughey & Ishqaidef, 2015). I also
believe that if patient-centred approaches are applied then patients and their families also
become satisfied during any decision making situation. A comprehensive care approach has
always received top priority in nursing education.
Analysis
Having the background information before treating any patient especially to an older adult is
extremely important to provide a safe and secure treatment but in case of Taylor, after his
first fall, no blood tests were done and even, the role of surgeon was not satisfying. Choice of
words while communication with patients is always important part and in many studies it has
been found that showing clinical empathy to patients, improve their satisfaction on care and
also motivate them to stick to the treatment procedure. In order to access the background

information of any patient, the role of EHR is also very much essential (Arndt et al., 2017).
EHR is the Electronic Health Record that enhances the patients’ safety and effectiveness of
collaborative care. Literatures indicated that inclusion of EHR into the clinical practices of
keeping patient related information always improves the safety of the patients (Chase et al.,
2014). In case of Taylor, his previous experience with hospital was also very much
disappointing as he had to wait 11 hours to get care from the healthcare professionals and
even he also stated his father was a victim of unnecessary amputation.
However, in the case scenario, there was adequate care from the physio as she assisted well in
learning the exercises and during iron infusion the care from the nurses was satisfying
according to the patient. Exercise is helpful in fall prevention and with the supervision as well
as assistance of physiotherapist it is quite effective for the older adults in reducing the fall
risk (Sprangers, Dijkstra & Romijn-Luijten, 2015). There is strong evidence that
appropriately designed intervention programmes of exercises can effectively reduce fall risk
among older adults (Sherrington et al., 2017). Apart from that, nursing assistance all the time
is also a part of effective and collaborative patient care. Nurses provided 100% attention to
Taylor during iron infusion. The patient in this case was also happy with the discussion he
had with GP. This positive and negative experience of Mr. Taylor is efficient in shaping the
prevalent gaps of healthcare.
Conclusions Drawn
The care provided by the healthcare professionals should follow some effective strategies to
make the patient care approach successful because, if the patient is satisfied with the
caregivers then they also cooperate more. From the above discussion it is quite clear that
there were some negative as well as positive indicators. The two negative indicators from the
discussion can be drawn for the case scenario. One of them is poor communication skill. An
effective care always consists of various elements such as communication skill, cognitive

behavioural strategies etc (Jeffrey, 2016). A good communication skill is important in
gathering patients’ health related background information and providing care according to
that. In this case scenario, the background information was not collected properly before
providing care. Another negative indicator was the absence of patient centred care and
empathy when receiving care from the surgeon. A patient-centred care always comprises of
compassion and empathy for the patient and it also gives value to the opinion of patients
while making any decision (Pulvirenti, McMillan & Lawn, 2014). These two negative
indicators affect the patient care and it also hampers the effective care provided by healthcare
professionals.
One of the positive indicators was the assistance from the physio and the nurses during the
iron infusion. Patients’ satisfaction always acts as a reward for the healthcare professionals.
These positive indicators help the medical professionals to enable their efficiency in working
practices and it also helps in getting a better health outcome of the patient.
Action Plan
Patients’ satisfaction should be the highest priority for the healthcare professionals while
providing care (Inzucchi et al., 2015). For an older patient like Mr. Taylor and his family, a
multidisciplinary patient and family centred care approach would have worked well.
Establishing an open-ended communication and good interpersonal relationship would
increase the satisfaction of the patient. The action could have been better if steps were taken
in educating the patient’s family about the fall prevention strategies as well. Apart from that,
integrating good communication skill and implementing the use of EHR into the clinical
settings would help in accessing background information of the patient (Harle et al., 2016).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the knowledge regarding the nursing concepts about patient-centred care,
useful communication skill, should have built by the nurses and other healthcare

professionals. Gibbs Reflective Cycle has been used to reflect the experience of Mr. Taylor
with the healthcare providers. This essay has argued about the importance of using
communication and informatics tool like EHR for the effective communication while
gathering background information of the patient. It has also discussed the patient-centred care
approach and strategies to prevent fall among older adults. It is being assumed that if proper
strategies are acquired by the healthcare professionals then the patient gets a better and
quality care.

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