Critically Evaluating of Aged Care Services by the Australian Government - Literature review Example

CRITICAL LITERATURE REVIEW Critical Literature Review Author Author’s Affiliation Date Aged care is the popular term that is commonly used in Australia. It is a facility that is provided by the Australian government to the old people of Australia. Aged care is for all those old age Australians who either need some help or do not want to depend on the other member of their family. In general words, Aged care services are nursing services for older people by the Australian government. It is one of the good initiative of the Australian government. The aged care services include two kinds of services (Scott & Sorrentino, 2011). One is home care services and the other kind is residential care services. In this section of my research, I will critically evaluate different kinds of literature which includes journals, reach papers, reports and other books. According to one of the research report that has described the current scenario of the aged care system of Australia. The research described that many Australians need aged care services. The number of old aged people is increasing day by day in Australia. The old age people are expecting from the government to increase formal aged care services. In the research the strengths and weakens of current aged care system have also been discussed. The strengths of current aged care system are the range of aged care system is increasing. The quality of services is very impressive and service standards are also improving day by day. The workforce, nursing staff and medical services is also very good. On the other hand, there are some weaknesses as well like there is no provision of training for nursing staff and other workforce of the system that is the reason most of the staff is the lack of sufficient skills. Moreover, complaints are not properly addressed and Australian government is showing hesitation in introducing reforms in the current system and current system direly needs reforms. If the government will not introduce reforms in aged care then it will face many challenges in the near future because the need of aged care service is increasing with the increasing population of Australia (Productivity Commission Australia, 2011). The only limitation of this research report is it doesn’t suggest any proper solution that can help Australian government in introducing some reforms. This research only gives detail overview on shortcoming of the current aged system of Australia. The purpose of the Australian aged care system has elaborated by the research report ( Council on the Ageing , 2012) in which it has been discussed that aged care centers were needed by the Australian government because effective and quality based aged care are necessary to promote healthy aging in Australia. According to this research healthy aging involves around a number of factors like healthy diet, regular physical activities, clean environment, on time quality medical facilities, financial security, accessibility to shops and other facilities. The research also criticized the Victorian government and their policies and said there is a need for improvement in aged care center. The government should determine health related determinants to work on the quality and facility. The researcher also suggested some ways by which Victoria government could overcome the shortcoming of the aged care system like to check all the policies and its implementation. Similarly, other research explains the quality care of an Aged care system of Australia in which the researcher has described several themes that are provided by aged care for old age people. The theme includes positive interpersonal relationship, Autonomy, control of life, decision making power, independence, positive stimulations and enjoyment. According to the research, all these themes are promoted by the Australian aged care center. It gives the feeling of independence to old age people. It also inculcates positivity and self-respect in them. In this research, the quality of care system is described by the provision of these themes. The research is based on interviews of participants that includes members of aged care system. The research is based on the perceptions, views and the thoughts of members of old age (O’Keeffe, 2014). But the limitation of this research is it provides the data and facts based on the perceptions of the client of aged care. The biasness and wrong interpretation can make the results of this result, unreliable because emotions and perceptions can be interpreted differently by different people. Moreover, similar research that was conducted by review of services for older explains the Australian policy context regarding aged care. According to the research the policy is based on different contexts. The contexts represent the phenomena on which the changes in policies have been introduced. The context includes change in living patterns, urbanization, modernization, changing the definition of dependency and increase need of care based packages for older people. The change in policy is based on these contexts because now people of Australia have become modern and urbanized and number of homeless old age Australian increasing day by day. Moreover, the number of older Australian who reliant on pension is also declining. The Vulnerability among older people increase when they have no home to spend their last years of life. Thus, to save those from the vulnerability the range of aged care and accommodations has increased in the new package of policy. But according to the research their implementation is still very slow (Brotherhood, 1994). The limitation of the research is it has stressed on low income class old age people, but at the same time there are many high income class old people who are surviving in aged care. There are two kinds of services are generally provided in the aged care system of Australia. The home care and residential care services. The home care services are given to a dependent older person in its home. In home care he does not shift in an old age home. The government provides financial and facility to the person at his home like transportation, medical, or other important allowances (Hitchcock & Thomas, 2003). On the other hand, residential services are also known as nursing services that are provided in the special old age homes or hospital to the old age persons. Most of the researches cover residential aged care because it helps in understanding what kind of services are being given to older people of Australia in the hospitals and nursing centers. A research paper (Alzheimer’s Australia Inc, 2013) describes some quality related issues in residential aged care. The issues are restraints, inadequate staffing and lack of transparency in complaint registration. The majority of the patient of aged care has a diagnosis of dementia and other psychological illness. It is because they are continually experiencing depression. Moreover, the staff is also unskilled and one client even do not have proper information about registration the complaint about the staff members and workplace of aged care center. Furthermore the complaints are not addressed that is the reason Government still does not know much about the problem of the residential aged care. But this research gives more elaboration to clients’ psychological issues and ignore the physical and medical facilities and its need. Moreover, another paper has also discussed psychological consequences that are faced by aged care clients due to improper facilities and unskilled staff. The most common psychological illnesses found among the clients of aged care centers are Alzheimer, wandering, verbal outburst and many other abnormal behaviors. Such a psychological disturbance can prove dangerous for their physical well-being. Clients many times damage the center facilities, attack the staff or other clients and sometimes they also harm their selves. This behavior can be treated by psychologists with therapies and medications (Rovner & Broadhead, 1990). In this regard, one of the research report also suggests the ways and gives proper guidelines on how to deal with the challenging behavior of clients in the residential aged care. The research paper (Department of Health, 2006) explains that the behavioral challenges can be managed by improving the quality of care of residential care setting. In addition, improvement in orientation and training the staff can also prove advantageous in managing behavioral challenges of the client. For, improving the quality effective policies and developments are needed on a national level. Furthermore, increasing the capacity of residential aged care can also provide appropriate assessment of those older clients who are facing behavioral challenges. This is one of the best research and its result proves that the best facilities can improve the health of the clients of residential aged care but at the same time it ignores the improvement of home care services. It only covers residential aged care. As, residential aged care services are more complex in nature because, it does not require only financial and safety facilities but also proper medical facilities. The best nursing center always has the best medical facilities. One of the research papers also addresses this issue. According to the research, medical facilities must be adequate in all residential aged care centers and medication must be properly managed. Nurse practitioners have an increasing role in aged care and medication management. Different clients take different medicine of different dose. The high risk medicines such as insulin, chemotherapy agent, anticoagulants and other narcotics need careful monitoring and it only be done by skilled and trained staff and nurses. Proper beds and other medical facilities are required by every residential aged care center with trained staff that can handle medication management of the clients (Department of Health and Aging, 2012). This research is based on case study method that increases the chance of getting valid and reliable results. Residential aged care center is the best service of aged care, but most of the time people confuse the traditional residential aged care centers to hospitals. For clearing the confusion, an Eden Alternative has been introduced (Brownie, 2010). The Eden alternative model suggests that in residential aged care centers the humanistic model should be introduced. The humanistic model helps in promoting life, positivity and a feeling of home in the residential aged care centers. It is an approach that can combat the plague of aging. It eliminates boredom, helplessness and loneliness from the residential centers. The Eden alternative shows the change in culture in residential aged centers ad it is being adopted in Australia and New Zealand. The result of this cultural change through Eden alternative in residential aged care are very positive. Similarly, now there are many continuous quality improvement initiatives being introduced by Australian aged care (Devi & Miller, 2006). The initiatives are based on four major requirements. The first is a management system, staffing and organizational development in which all administrative services and training services will be improved and complaint system will make transparent. Second is health and personal care it includes the improvement in the facilities for the residential care. Third is resident lifestyle. It includes the well-being of the client, it can be physical or psychological well-being. Forth is physical environment and safe systems includes facilities like proper bedding, clean environment and positive attitudes of the staff for the residential client. The safe and clean environment can improve the health of the clients. Moreover, other research (Yu, 2012) also shows the improvement in information technology in aged care. Now, aged care system of Australia has connected with commonwealth health and aging department, which is commonly known as e-connect. This initiative has done to increase the role government in aged care centers. The aim of a project to examine the role of IT in improving the facilities of aged care. The basic electronic records have also been introduced in the hospital. The records of medicines and medicine management is also controlled by the IT system. IT system helps aged care system improvement in many ways. Thus, it is the effective and impressive initiative of the Australian government. The research explains all the planning and advantages of information technology in the aged care system of Australia, but ignore the one big fact that is the training of staff to use the latest technology. If the Australian government wants to introduce IT related system throughout the aged care centers than it should train the existing staff or hire some new trained staff otherwise this initiative can also prove disastrous for Australian aged care systems. The all what Australia needs is effective policies and their implementation in the right way. References Council on the Ageing . (2012). Healthy ageing literature review . Melbourne: Department of Health. Alzheimer’s Australia Inc. (2013). Quality of Residential aged CaRe. Talking about Alzheimers across Australia, 1-36. Brotherhood. (1994). Aged care policy and programs: a literature review . Review of services for older people, 1-34. Brownie, D. S. (2010). A culture change in aged care: The Eden Alternative. AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF ADVANCED NURSING , 63-68. Department of Health. (2006). Aged Care - Working with People with Challenging Behaviours in Residential Aged Care Facilities. NSW health, 1-41. Department of Health and Aging. (2012). Guiding principles for medication management in residential aged care facilities. Commonwealth of Australia , 1-98. Devi, & Miller, P. (2006). Continuous quality improvement in Australian aged care facilities . International Journal of Health & Ageing Management, 26-46. Hitchcock, J. E., & Thomas, P. E. (2003). Community Health Nursing. Australia: Cengage Learning. O’Keeffe, V. (2014). Client Perceptions of Quality Care in Aged Care Services. Adelaide: Centre for Work + Life . Productivity Commission Australia. (2011). Caring for Older Australians. Canberra: Productivity Commission of Australian Government. Rovner, & Broadhead, G. &. (1990). The prevalence and management of dementia and other psychiatric disorders in nursing homes. International Psychogeriatrics, 13-24. Scott, K., & Sorrentino, M. W. (2011). Long-Term Caring: Residential, home and community aged care. Australia: Elsevier Health Sciences. Yu, P. (2012). Aged Care IT in Australia – the Past, Present and Future. electronic Journal of Health Informatics , 1-3. Read More