Free «Program Evaluation: Nursing Homes» Essay Paper

There is growing concern on the quality of care within the nursing homes. The quality of care will be affected by various factors. Some of these factors, which will influence the quality of health care programs, include the staffing of the nursing home, as well as the educational levels of the nursing staff within the nursing homes. Evaluation of programs in the nursing home will be made possible by analyzing the collective reaction of individuals after receiving nursing care or attention. In the end, they will exhibit areas of strength and weakness, thus, offering more sound and valid results of the evaluation process (Donabedian, 2005).

The evaluation of programs in nursing homes will be based on the outcome of medical care for patients. Medical care recovery will be in the form of the ability of patients to recover or attain restored functioning of their bodies. The use of medical outcomes as a measure of quality of programs in nursing homes is effective since its legitimacy of results as a measurement of superiority is seldom questioned. Other outcomes, such as death, are easy to measure, while others are difficult to measure. The latter measure includes the patient’s attitude, social restoration, and physical disability. Evaluation of nursing care can be achieved by examining the process of care. This means that the judgment would be based upon the appropriateness of the nursing interventions that were put in place, physical examinations carried out, and the investigations that were conducted (Donabedian, 2005).

 

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Sources and Methods of Obtaining Information

The most authoritative source of data is clinical records. The clinical records will be able to highlight events that took place when the patient was in the nursing home. The care that the patient received, the relevant findings on examination and after investigation, as well as the management plan, would be visibly demonstrated. Clinical records would show the course of treatment and interventions that were put into place. The analysis of clinical records will thus show the nursing interventions which will now be compared to the desired outcomes (CDC, 2005).

Observation and evaluation of the patient will also provide another source of assessing the quality of care given to patients. This will entail the assessment of the patient’s condition while comparing the nursing interventions put in place and the expected outcomes. Observation and evaluation of the patient will show the progress of the patient based on the management option chosen for the patient (CDC, 2005).

Measurement Standards

Measurement of the standards will be done using both empirical and normative standards. They will allow obtaining accurate results that are based on evidence. The normative standards will be derived from the opinions of the qualified practitioners on the assessment and evaluation of the patient’s condition. Empirical standards will be achieved by carrying out a comparison between the care services that have been provided to and those expected to be provided (MacDonald et al., 2006).

Measurements of Scale

The ability to discriminate the various levels of quality of care given to the patients will depend on a scale. The scale is able to show the results of the evaluation clearly. The scale of measurement should not affect the overall judgment. This will involve using words such as excellent, good, fair, or poor in describing the quality of care. The results obtained at the end of the study should be reliable. This means that the impression created by the results will be considered to be at an acceptable level. The results will also have to be valid and identified by the study as being able to conform to acceptable standards (Donabedian, 2005).