The elderly are among the populations that require special attention from the medical community. Ill health and limited capacity are some of the challenges that the members of this community face. Their hardships are compounded when they lack social support and are from poor backgrounds. In the United States, there have been efforts to ensure that all the needs of the elderly are met. However, these efforts fall short and are unable to deliver total comfort to these patients. To understand why the US has failed to adequately address the needs of the elderly, an assessment should be conducted. This assessment should reveal that whereas there are strengths that safeguard the wellbeing of the elderly, the facilities are fraught with weaknesses which expose the elderly to health and other hazards.
Phase 3: Analyze the Aggregate (Elderly) Strengths and Weaknesses
There are various tools that can be used to analyze the remarkable strength that the elderly possess and the daunting challenges that they grapple with. However, the mobilize, assess, plan, implement, track framework is the most effective. This tool is usually used by practitioners to draw plans and implement interventions for different patient populations (Offiong et al., 2011). To understand whether the community in which the elderly reside is adequately equipped to address their needs, this model was applied. The following discussion focuses on the results of this assessment.
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Strengths
Mobilization is one of the components of the MAP-IT framework. Essentially, this model concerns the need for building partnerships and coalitions. Through mobilization, different stakeholders are able to consolidate their effort to ensure that the needs of the elderly are satisfied. The community in which the elderly reside was observed to encourage partnerships and teamwork. For example, the practitioners who care for this population partner with the families of the elderly and government agencies. The partnerships are a strength because they boost the capacity of the practitioners and the wider community to deliver quality care. It is important to note that the elderly have also established partnerships that enhance their wellbeing. For example, they have formed groups through which they enjoy the warmth that company and friendship delivers. Most of the elderly find that the friendships that they have established are rewarding and fulfilling.
Assessment and planning are other components of the MAP-IT framework. These components are important because they allow for the needs of patients to be determined. With the needs clearly defined, practitioners can meet them satisfactorily. After an assessment of the elderly and their community, it was noted that a thorough needs assessment is carried out routinely. The community strives to ensure that all the physical health, spiritual and emotional needs of the elderly are satisfied. Furthermore, the community develops clear and concrete plans that facilitate the delivery of services. For example, through planning, the community is able to establish the cost of delivering care. The community then works with its partners to secure funding and the resources required to deliver services. It is important to note that there are some strengths that the MAP-IT framework does not account for. For example, the elderly tend to be resilient (Janssen, Regenmortel & Abma, 2011). Their resilient spirits allow them to thrive despite the many challenges that they face. It was noted that the elderly are remarkably resilient. They have refused to let their isolation, ill-health and advanced age to dampen their spirit.
Weaknesses
Plans and strategies are only useful when they are implemented. An assessment of the elderly population and the community where it resides revealed that some of the plans and strategies are never implemented. This is among the weaknesses that hamper the effective delivery of care to the elderly. For example, the facility had planned to expand the range of services that it offers. Due to inadequate funding and lack of moral support from its partners, the facility was unable to implement this plan. As a result, some of the needs of the elderly have remained unmet. While the community is largely to blame for the failure to implement the plan to expand the facility, the elderly should be assigned some portion of the blame. It was observed that they are uncooperative with some of them strongly opposing the expansion plans.
To ensure that the initiatives that have been implemented are effective, organizations are advised to conduct regular evaluations. The tracking of progress allows the organizations to confirm that the initiatives are meeting the needs for which they were implemented (Parry et al., 2013). The elderly population and its community were observed to have failed to establish proper evaluation procedures. This failure made it impossible to determine if implemented initiatives were yielding the desired results. For example, as part of efforts to enhance the delivery of care, the community adopted electronic health records management. However, the adoption of this system was not accompanied with an evaluation procedure. Therefore, the community is unable to establish if the new information management system is helping or hindering the delivery of care.
Phase 4: Risk Assessment
The importance of risk assessment cannot be overstated. By performing a risk-assessment, it is possible to determine the hazards that a particular population faces (Culo, 2011). With the hazards identified, action can be taken to eliminate them, thereby protecting the population. In their book, Marcia Stanhope and Jeanette Lancaster (2016) explore various risk assessment approaches. They note that the best approach is that which defines health broadly. While conducting the assessment, one needs to consider such factors as economic, physical and social which have an impact on human health. The resources available to a particular patient population should also be included in the assessment.
To conduct the risk assessment, a family from the elderly population was interviewed. The purpose of the interview was to gain insights into the challenges that this family faces in its quest to obtain quality and affordable care. This family was urged to open up about the economic hardships and the social challenges that its members encounter. It should be noted that the assessment extended beyond an evaluation of the experiences of the family. An observation of the home and the larger environment was also performed. This evaluation was intended to highlight how various external forces influence the health outcomes of the elderly population.
The risk assessment revealed a number of interesting insights about the hazards that the elderly population and their families face. In response to the question on the challenges encountered, the family that was interviewed shared that their homes are not designed to accommodate the elderly. For example, they stated that one of the elderly members often suffer falls because the house is slippery and lacks the facilities needed for the stability of the elderly. Poverty which hampers access to quality care is another risk that the family identified. They lamented that they have been forced to take care of their elderly parents because they lack the resources needed to afford professional nursing services. An observation of the home and the environment confirmed the issues that the family raised. For example, it was observed that the floors were dangerously slippery and that the family was forced to care for its elderly members. Overall, thanks to the risk assessment, it was understood that there are various hazards which expose the elderly to different threats. Unless urgent action is implemented, the health of the elderly cannot be guaranteed.
In conclusion, the elderly are among the most vulnerable population. The medical community needs to focus its interventions on this community. As they endeavor to serve this population, practitioners should account for the unique strengths and weaknesses of the elderly. They should also recognize the value of collaboration and leverage the remarkably resilient spirits of the elderly. However, practitioners also need to understand that there are various weaknesses that compromise the wellbeing of the elderly. A risk assessment should enable them to understand that there are numerous hazards which have adverse impacts on the wellbeing of the elderly population. Once these hazards have been identified, the practitioners should strive to eradicate them.
References
Culo, S. (2011). Risk assessment and intervention for vulnerable older adults. BCMJ, 53 (8), 421-5.
Janssen, B. M., Regenmortel, T. V., & Abma, T. A. (2011). Identifying sources of strength: Resilience from the perspective of older people receiving long-term community care. European Journal of Ageing, 8 (3), 145-156.
Offiong, C. Y., Oji, V. U., Bunyan, W., Lewis, J. A., Moore, C., & Olusanya, O. A. (2011). The role of colleges and schools of pharmacy in the advent of healthy people 2020. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 75 (3), 56.
Parry, G. J., Carson-Stevens, A., Luff, D. F., McPherson, M. E., & Goldman, D. A. (2013). Recommendations for evaluation of health care improvement initiatives. Academic Pediatrics. DOI: 10.1016/j.acap.2013.04.007
Stanhope, M & Lancaster, J. (2016). Public Health Nursing: Population-Centered Health Care in the Community (9th ed.). St. Louis: Mosby.
