Patient Experience and e-Health Records

This essay discusses the falls experience of the elderly patient using Gibb's reflective cycle. The reflection will contain the aspects of description, feelings, values, analysis, and conclusion drawn from the experience. The patient's experience with falls shows that the occurrences lead to severe pain and injury to the victim. The essay also suggests remedies to prevent falls among the senior citizens.

Running head: PATIENT EXPERIENCE AND E-HEALTH RECORDS 1
Patient Experience and e-Health Records
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Introduction
Falls lead to severe injuries to the patients (Johansson, Dahlberg, Jonsson, & Patomella,
2015). Caregivers should invent efficient prevention strategies to prevent accidents and the
resulting harm. The case study involves a conversation between a tutor and a 75-years-old falls
victim. e-health records are an electronic version of the patient's medical history. Electronically
stored information is safer than paper charts. Therefore, health facilities should adopt e-health
records to improve the quality of care. This essay will discuss the falls experience of the elderly
patient using Gibb's reflective cycle. The reflection will contain the aspects of description,
feelings, values, analysis, and conclusion drawn from the experience.
Description: The case study indicates that the patient experienced falls on two occasions.
The first fall left the client with bruises on the nose, chin, right shoulder, and left elbow. The
client declined to seek medical attention at the hospital due to his previous unpleasant experience
at a health facility. The nurse prescribed Codeine after the patient had waited for eleven hours to
receive medical attention towards kidney stones. The client’s wife had to take him to the GP
since he could not drive the car due to injuries. The GP took an x-ray scan and referred the
surgeon for scan interpretation who realized that the fall had resulted into muscle tear. The
patient then visited a physiotherapist who instructed him on how to use his injured arm and the
walking aids. The patient’s second fall was due to dizziness; since he was anemic. The risk
factors include industrial deafness, diabetes, and hypertension (Wales, Clemson, Lannin, &
Cameron, 2016).
Feelings and Thoughts: The patient’s experience is saddening due to the severe injuries
and improper care at the hospitals. Falls injured the patient’s left elbow and right shoulder; hence
limiting his ability to drive his car. The wife has to abandon her chores to drive him to the GP.

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The act of waiting for eleven hours to receive care also makes me sad. Health facilities should
adopt e-health records to improve the quality of care (Hemsley, Rollo, Georgiou, Balandin, &
Hill, 2017). The health department should implement effective strategies to prevent falls in
elderly individuals.
Values and Beliefs: I believe that those at high risk of experiencing falls should obtain
walking aids from health facilities. Relatives and friends of the senior citizens should accompany
them to various locations to prevent them from falling. The client was walking alone from the
shop and did not have walking aid leading to his fall. My beliefs and values originate from my
experience of caring for falls patients at a hospital in Southern Australia. Preventing the senior
citizens from encountering falls preserve them from pain and injury (Cantwell, Morgans, Smith,
Livingston, & Dietze, 2017). The patient’s family also gains from the falls prevention strategies
as their members avoid pain and injury from the accidents.
Analysis: Various aspects of medical care in the case scenario were inadequate and
harmful to the patient. An example of inadequate attention is when the client visited a health
facility to seek medication towards kidney stones. The patient waited for eleven hours due to a
large number of patients and the low number of caregivers. The care provider later prescribed
Codeine to the patient to ease his pain. The experience stopped the client from going to the
health facility after falling. The patient had to take painkillers as he waited to visit his GP after
daybreak. The surgeon who interpreted the x-ray scan also offered inadequate care to the patient.
The health specialist revealed that the falls tore the muscle of the patient. However, he failed to
explain the various treatment options to the falls client. Caregivers should disclose essential
information to patients to enable them to make informed consent (Cheng, & Lin, 2017).

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Apart from the bad and inadequate care, other aspects of treatment were adequate and
helpful to the patient. The physiotherapist explained to the patient on how he can use the walking
aids and his injured shoulder. The care provider went ahead to provide walking sticks to the falls
client. Additionally, the physiotherapist explained the various physical exercise regiments that
could aid the patient to recover from the injuries. The specialist handling anemia asked the client
to take iron tablets to cure the condition. The drugs would help the patient to gain his body
balance and prevent dizziness and falls in future. The gastroenterologist prescribed a pill camera
to investigate the causes of the anemia. Caregivers should apply e-health records for safekeeping
of patient information. The diabetes specialist instructed the patient to take Metformin for type
two of the condition. The caregivers also suggested Indocin and amlodipine handle high blood
pressure (Elliott, & Bistrika, 2018).
Conclusion Drawn: The public hospitals in Australia are delaying medical treatment to
the patients. e-health record is an effective remedy to speed up care as the caregivers can easily
access the patient's medical history. The client's experience with falls shows that the occurrences
lead to severe pain and injury to the victim. The patient sustained severe injuries from the two
falls. The elderly individuals are at a higher risk of falling in comparison to the young
individuals (Chatterjee et al., 2017). Falls risk factors include hypertension, anemia, industrial
deafness, and diabetes. Anemia interferes with the ability of an individual to breathe. Anemic
blood cannot transport oxygen to various organs appropriately thereby leading to dizziness. A
person with industrial deafness cannot perceive the sound of approaching objects; thus can easily
fall. Remedies for hypertension like Indocin and amlodipine cause dizziness leading to falls.
Therefore, falls victims should seek an alternative solution to high blood pressure.

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Falls occurrences affect the victims, family, and friends. In the case study, the wife has to
drive the patient to the GP thereby abandoning her daily chores. The patient admits that the pains
due to his falls are a source of stress to his wife. The falls victims should accept the prevention
strategies for their wellbeing and safety. Caregivers should give glasses to falls patients to aid
their vision and sight at night. The patient should also wear hearing aids to assist him in
perceiving sounds. Moreover, health administrators should ensure that hospital wards are noise-
free to prevent patient distraction. Australian health facilities should abandon paper records and
adopt e-health records for improvement of care. The health specialists should also encourage the
application of telemedicine like pill camera to improve the quality of service delivery (Flodgren,
Rachas, Farmer, Inzitari, & Shepperd, 2015). Effective physical exercises eradicate falling
incidences and maintain the body fitness.
Action Plan: The first strategy is to replace the paper drafts with e-health records to
facilitate the storage of patient medical history. Care providers should encourage patients with
industrial deafness to wear hearing aids for perceiving sounds (Jiam, Li, & Agrawal, 2016).
Medical practitioners should also provide elderly individuals with walking sticks to aid in their
movement. Australian hospitals should embrace technological advancement by prescribing
telemedicine to the patients. The care providers should encourage clients to embrace telehealth as
it is an upgrade to the current methods. Family members should accompany the elderly
individuals to various locations to avoid falling incidences. Health specialists should provide
alternative remedies to high blood pressure since the medications cause dizziness. The Australian
health facilities should ensure an appropriate solution to anemia as it is a risk factor for falls
(Toye et al., 2017). The above-discussed remedies prevent the recurrence of falls among the
senior citizens like the one on the case study.

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Conclusion
Falling incidences lead to severe injuries to the patients. Therefore, caregivers should
implement corrective measures to prevent accidents. The 75-year-old patent experienced two
separate falls incidences that caused him harm and pain. Falls cause sadness to both the victim
and the family members. Caregivers should provide victims with glasses and hearing aids to
minimize the reoccurrence of the accidents. The case study showcases both adequate and
inadequate care. Health specialists should suggest efficient prevention strategies.

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References
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