Skilled Nursing and Continuing Long-Term Care (SLP) - Essay Example

People go to SNFs when they need assistance with their medical treatments. These patients are mostly on respirators, feeding tubes, or a variety of other problems which need medical treatment. SNFs are the second choice after hospitals as these patients are treated fully in the hospitals but need constant care and assistance. The nurses in SNFs are trained professionally in dealing with patients and medicines. They provide patients with 24 hours care but these facilities are smaller than normal nursing homes (Rosdahl, 2008).

The advantages of SNFs are that they are much smaller than hospitals or regular nursing homes which mean that the patient would get full attention and would be easily able to call the nurses for their needs. If the patient is not satisfied with any part of the facility, it will be easier to reach to the social workers and a solution is given immediately. SNFs are also more focused towards rehabilitation and healthy living with activities such as regular physical therapies, occupational therapists visiting, and speech therapies for patients who need it.

They also take care of the emotional, social, and spiritual well being of the patient. Most importantly SNFs have nurses that provide patients with the direct care. They have a professional team of individuals that belong to different fields such as nurses, therapists, physicians, social workers, etc. They provide the patients with the needed treatments and are available all the time (Rosdahl, 2008). There are some disadvantages and dangers to the use of SNFs which are recently greatly developed.

These disadvantages are due to the complex and deteriorating system of long term care in the U.S. Many patients go directly from Intensive Care Units to SNFs where they need critical care but because the nurses are paid lesser, their efficiency levels are lower, and that affects the care given to the patients. SNFs have dangers such as medication errors, falls, and spread of infections. There