RESUMO
This article describes how a provincial health authority in Canada improved patient care and staff satisfaction by transforming the role of home care (HC) liaison. The transformation focused on clearly defining the role, function and reporting structure, and identifying which healthcare providers could fill the liaison role. The transformation included adoption of transition best practices, leveraging an electronic referral system, creation of an interprofessional team, standardization of tools/orientation, and strong evaluation metrics, centralizing decision making, and developing a process for streaming referrals. The authors identify key success factors that made the transformation possible, as well as challenges and work that remains to sustain the change.
Assuntos
Envelhecimento/fisiologia , Continuidade da Assistência ao Paciente/organização & administração , Serviços de Assistência Domiciliar/organização & administração , Enfermagem Domiciliar/organização & administração , Equipe de Assistência ao Paciente/organização & administração , Assistência Centrada no Paciente/organização & administração , Idoso , Idoso de 80 Anos ou mais , Canadá , Feminino , Humanos , Comunicação Interdisciplinar , Assistência de Longa Duração/organização & administração , Masculino , Papel do Profissional de Enfermagem , Inovação Organizacional , Melhoria de Qualidade , Populações VulneráveisRESUMO
In 2005, the home health nursing sector of a large Canadian health authority was on its way toward changing a hiring prerequisite of acute care (medical or surgical) experience for entry to practice into home care nursing. At that time, home healthcare services in Canada and the United States were generally requiring acute care experience as prerequisites for working in home health. However, much of the research beginning as early as early 2000 challenged this perspective and universities and colleges offering baccalaureate degrees in nursing began including home health content in their curricula. The findings from research add to the ongoing critique of this acute care requirement and support the concept that acute care and home care are different practice areas with distinct competencies. This article discusses the contextual background that influenced the undertaking of our research, the relevant research literature, our research findings, model for integration, and evaluation of our pilot and lessons learned. The successes seen as a result of New Graduate integration are now being utilized by other home care nursing offices as a result of this work.