Quality of Care in Nursing Homes - Essay Example

Even with a large amount of research being directed at nursing homes’ quality of care, there is still scant research on the impacts of leadership style and organizational structure of nursing homes. This paper aims to propose two different research proposals in the areas mentioned above.

Research Topics

Topic One

Leadership has a tremendous impact on any organization being considered since the organizational direction is settled by the senior management. The case of healthcare organizations is not very different. Several different areas have been researched for quality of care in nursing homes but organizational leadership has not been investigated in detail (Pearson, Hocking, Mott, & Riggs, 1993). In this respect, the leadership style being practiced at the nursing home is of paramount importance since it affects the patient’s well-being and recovery directly. It is expected that the leadership style of the Director of Nursing as well as the leadership style of the Director of Social Services have a large impact on the psycho-social well-being of nursing home residents.

Research in this area can provide valuable information that can be implemented in several different healthcare settings to improve the overall well-being and recovery of nursing home residents. A change in the leadership style essentially points to large changes in organizational direction such as being more accommodating to patients and their families.

Topic Two

Analogous to the research area proposed above, the organizational structure of any healthcare establishment is also of importance in determining the quality of care available to nursing home residents (Grabowski, Aschbrenner, Rome, & Bartels, 2010). Even with a large amount of research being pursued about the quality of care at nursing homes, there has been scant research in terms of the organizational structure and the underlying processes at nursing homes (Park, 2009) (Faulkner & Laschinger, 2008). It must be realized that organizational structure and the underlying process philosophies are of utmost importance since they tend to determine how well-suited the patient care techniques are. For example, similar organizational structures cannot be applied in nursing homes that cater to dementia and to nursing homes that cater to old age people only (Martins, et al., 2009). Since each situation has its demands, the organizational structures and their underlying philosophies must also support the overall organizational aims and objectives.

The organizational structure processes and their relation to the overall quality of care for nursing home residents need to be investigated to improve current levels of well-being and recovery at nursing homes.

Conclusion

Research in quality of care at nursing homes has taken into account several different factors over the years but the areas of leadership style and organizational structure processes have remained less investigated. It is essential to investigate the aforementioned areas to augment the current levels of well-being and patient recovery in nursing homes across the nation.