Clinical Agency Assigned to is Care Partners

Health Promotion Assignment

Payton Verge

100655974

Durham College

NURS 3527

Nicole Daniel

October 8, 2019

Introduction

My clinical agency I am assigned to is Care Partners. This is a fortunate placement as I am able to go to houses, apartments, retirement homes, and workplaces to provide care for all different types of people with many different situations of needing home care. Care partners offers health professionals who are enthusiastic about their work and care about their patients. Care partners have an understanding that having an ill family member is a worry to the whole family and will provide a care that they would want for their own families (CarePartners, 2019).

This agency offers 24/7 service and expertise that all clients can trust. In the community setting you are able to help a population who are unable or unwell to visit you. My assigned community is Whitby, this is where I promote care to clients in their areas of need. My assigned population is in a range of sixty to ninety-five years of age, both male and female.

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Assessment

During the past couple weeks working with the agency I have been able to notice core elements of the assigned community and population. Whitby was founded as a town in 1855. It was first known as Perry's Corners, after Perry Perry, a dynamic early settler. It was known as the town of Windsor but got renamed Whitby in 1848. In 1968 it formed a new municipality called the Town of Whitby (The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2019). According to Whitby, Ontario, Whitby's average total income for this year was ,105.

The average household income is around $132,491. Whitby's official language is English and not far behind is French. Whitby also had about 12,567 movers whether that was moving to or out of the town (Whitby Ontario, 2019). Whitby offers many different types of quality of life recreational facilities including parks, playgrounds, conservation areas, recreational and waterfront trails, ice pads, swimming pools, community centers, clubs, golf courses, tennis courts, and domes. The town of Whitby has core values, beliefs and principles that guide the actions and decisions to align the vision of a mission. The first value Whitby tends to believe is collaboration. This means everyone works together to achieve better outcomes by sharing knowledge and information openly, strength brings everyone together as a team, seeks solutions together and no one is at fault, and lastly prioritizes common goals. The second goal is accountability. This goal means you are responsible for your actions and for living in the values by actively contributing to a high performing, innovative and safe workplace, take responsibility for roles in the process, not just the end result, learning from mistakes, and providing optimal customer service both internally and externally. The third value is respect. The town does this by demonstrating acceptance and appreciation of others, ensuring body languages are professional, listening actively to better understand others and their experience, and positively speaking to others. The final value is engaged. This means the town is focused, productive and efficient each day. You work hard and commit to job excellence, explore popular and developing solutions (Whitby Ontario, 2019).

The population history of Whitby was about 200 people when it was a small fishing community. The gender was both male and female and contained all different ages. Today the population of Whitby has increased. It now ranges around 136,235 people as of 2018. The age segment from 50-59 is the largest of all ages in Whitby and Ontario. The age segment of 59 plus is particularly smaller than Ontario's. Whitby is known to have a younger age profile (Whitby Ontario, 2019). Whitby offers a variety of housing options including waterfront, condos, townhouses, and traditional family homes. You have the option of living right in the downtown core of Whitby or you can live in more of a rural environment. As for values and beliefs of the population, it follows the community values of collaboration, accountability, respect, and engagement. Everyone is treated with these core values which makes the town of Whitby have the population it does.

The town of Whitby offers getting around transportation to all of its population and community. The town offers a Durham Region transit (DRT) that connects community's through seamless travel, anywhere in the region. You can pay a single fare to go on all DRT routes that also connect to GO transit buses making travel simple and affordable. You can also use Whitby's bike and ride program which combines cycling and DRT rack-equipped vehicles to make longer rides easier. The buses have bike racks installed on every bus, which makes it easier for cyclists to travel around Durham Region. Also, there is no additional fee for transporting your bike. Lastly there is the GO transit, which includes a rail and bus. This offers services to most communities in the Greater Toronto area, while VIA rail has daily passenger service to major cities across Canada (Whitby Ontario, 2019).

Some public safety Whitby offers are crime prevention and emergency preparedness, which simply is an organization that helps families prepare if an emergency was to happen in their home. They ensure families have a plan, know the risks, how to make a proper safety kits and how to stay in touch with contacts who are important to them. Whitby also offers EMS, fire services and police for the obvious reasons along with flooding services (Whitby Ontario, 2019).

Whitby offers a lot of education from all different aspects of learning. This includes Elementary schools, both public and Catholic including French immersion programs. Pre-schools are offered for children of the ages from 1/12-2. Post-secondary schools, private schools, school boards, Secondary schools and special need schools for educational opportunities to students with special needs (Whitby Ontario, 2019). Perceptions is a belief or opinion, often held by many people and based on how things seem (Cambridge Dictionary, 2019). My perceptions of the town of Whitby is most of the population lives within their values and beliefs. Everyone has respect for each other and understands the community's differences.

Nursing Diagnosis

During the past couple weeks in clinical, one concern I had for the population within the agency was the improper use of mobile devices which are leading to more falls than needed. During the time I have had with the population and the agency, there has been a couple situations that lead to my concern. One example is we have a gentleman who was getting admitted to us and I noticed he had a cut on his forehead. I simply asked what had happened and he stated he fell because he didn't use his cane to go to the washroom in the middle of the night. An explanation was given to him about how this fall could have been a lot worse and why it is important to use your mobile device. Another client hasn't had a fall, but she never locks her walker when getting up and down from her bed or chair this could cause the walker from moving as she attempts to get up. There are people in the community I believe should be using mobile devices who aren't steady by themselves but are not using one at all. This only increase falls and I want to prevent that from happening.

It is proven by public health agency of Canada that between 20% and 30% of seniors fall each year (Public Health Canada, 2014). A strength that some patients have is they always have the motivation and show readiness to change. This means when they are told why using proper mobile devices is important and the consequences that can happen when falling, they always show the motivation to change and start using their mobile devices. The families also always show encouragement when we give the lesson on risk for falls and proper use of mobile devices. For the agency, they always promote client centered care and understand that every client needs different ways to learn why it is important to use their walkers, wheelchairs, canes, etc. The agency wants to ensure all clients are safe before leaving the home.

Plan

Health program planning involves a systemic decision on broad goals and specific objectives on the basis of various types of information. The intent of health promotion programs is to have a positive impact on the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of clients. Health program planning can benefit clients and community health nurses and focus attention on what the community health nurse and other community partners are attempting to do with a client to address a certain health concern (Sonya L. Jakubec, pg.286).

In order to promote risk for falls and proper use of mobile devices, I intend to create a brochure that states facts about my concern. These brochures will be given upon admission to every client. In order for me to implement my plan, I will need to ensure it is okay with the nurse manager. This is the person that manages what the nurses do on the road and create their schedules. If the nurses need anything changed or done within their day, they go to their nurse manager. My nurse manager would be the west end manager. Within the agency they have north, east and west divisions. My nurse works within the west end district for care so that means I would speak to the west end manager. To do this I would simply email the west end nurse manager and explain my concern. I would state how I believe this will help the agency and along with the population within the community. I would explain that they would be handed out with the administration packages when new clients were being administered with care partners. The resources I would need would be a laptop to make the brochure, paper to print the brochure on, a printer, ink for the printer and one hundred dollars from the agency so I can go get all my required supplies. I would make nearly one hundred and fifty broachers to hand out. I would also give them to existing clients who are already within the agency who are at risk for falls or who don't use their mobile devices properly.

The CHN standard my plan corresponds with is prevention ad health protection. This is because we are preventing and protecting clients with risk for falls by giving them some tips on how to use their mobile devices properly. The brochure will include things like a background of what causes falls which is poor balance, decreased muscle and bone strength, reduced vision and hearing and unsafe conditions in and around your home. I will state in the brochure ways of protecting yourself and minimizing your risk in the bathroom, in the living room and bedroom, in the kitchen and around stairways. It will also state why using your mobile device is so important to protect yourself and help prevent injury. In the brochure I will be using the SMART program in order to make it.

Implementation

The day and time I have chosen to have my plan perfected and completed is November 11th, 2019 at 8am. I chose this because from October 8th till October 15th I am giving myself the time to email the nurse manager a professionalized letter stating my concern and what my plan is to fix the issue. From October 15th till October 22nd I am using this time to complete the brochure putting all my interesting facts about risk for falls and proper use of mobile devices. From October 22nd till October 29th I am going to have a writing tutor from SALS look over my brochure and give me any points of improvement and strength's I have within the brochure. From October 29th till November 5th I am using this time to complete any areas of improvement the person had for me at SALS and also using this time to print out my brochures and get them ready for handing out to the clients. I chose November 11th at 8am because it is the starting of a new week and I normally start seeing clients at 8am. I will tell clients to please look over these brochures and take them into consideration as I and the agency believes it would benefit them.

Evaluation

After I handed out my brochures I would give people time to open and read the brochure. After about two weeks I would check and see if my clients have improved with using their mobile devices. This is called a process evaluation. This means you make a judgement about the about the program you are delivering while the program is still in process. This focuses on what the program does and for whom it does it for (Sonya L. Jakubec, pg.284). I would also ask clients what they have learned from the brochure and how they are going to improve to prevent themselves from falling. I would recognize the effectiveness of my health promotion. This means I would determine both the client and provider satisfaction with the program activities as well as whether the program met it stated objectives (Sonya L. Jakubec, pg.286). I am hoping some will say they have started to use their mobile devices better, or some will get a hearing aid to be able to hear their surroundings better, some may say they will have a family member tidy their home, so they don't trip or fall over something laying around. I hope with this brochure, I can make a difference with seniors and the risk they have with falls. If I did this process again I would have started it earlier, so I could create a presentation along with the brochure to allow people to have a visual and physical learning environment. Some may learn easier with coming to a presentation then actually reading the brochure. Also, some may not read the brochure at all so doing a presentation may give them the encouragement to do so.

Self-Reflection

Now that I have completed a couple weeks with my agency and can reflect on Community Health Care, I have noticed that community health nurses offer a lot of education to community members about ways of maintaining their health and decreasing diseases. They offer not only teaching to the clients but to the families as well. Due to this type of nursing not being in a hospital setting and not having your patient a few steps away, nurses need to teach the family ways to promote health. Public health nurses assess the populations health needs where the community delivers services to individuals, groups and families. A community health nurse promotes more independence then a public health nurse would as again for the fact that they are not always right there when the client needs them. Education relates to my health promotion plan because I am teaching clients through brochures the importance of using a mobile device to reduce falls and prevent falls risk. Older adults who have been recently discharged from hospital are at high risk for falls and other adverse events. Approximately one third of this population have developed a functional decline compared to when they were first admitted into the hospital. Up to forty percent of patients fall after their first six months of discharge. Up to 50 percent of these falls will cause an injury. When older patients are discharged from the hospital to the community there is a transfer in responsibility for health care from the inpatient team to the patient and their community health team. It is recommended that patients take role in their transition. It is proven that older patients have low levels of knowledge about how to reduce their risk for falls and engage in exercise programs (Anne-Marie Hill, 2013). This is when I believe I would step in as a student community nurse and implement my brochure and even sit down and talk to my clients about the risk for falls and statics of what can happen if a fall occurs. I would give a brief explanation on the brochure, also explaining exercise programs that can increase your muscle mass and improve your balance. Providing education and knowledge to clients helps them to understand risk for falls and why it is so important to use their mobile devices. I hope with my health promotion I can help decrease the risk for falls in my community and population.

References

Care Partners (2019). About Us. Retrieved from

The Canadian Encyclopedia (2019). Retrieved from

Whitby Ontario (2019). Whitby Demographics. Retrieved from

Whitby Ontario (2019). Values. Retrieved from

Whitby Ontario (2019). Population. Retrieved from

Whitby Ontario (2019). Getting Around Retrieved from

Whitby Ontario (2019). Town Services. Retrieved from

Whitby Ontario (2019). Education. Retrieved from

Cambridge Dictionary (2019). Meaning of perception in English. Retrieved from

Public health Canada (2014). Seniors' falls in Canada. Retrieved from

Stanhope, M., Lancaster, J., Jakubec, S. L., & Pike-MacDonald, S. A. (2017). Community health nursing in Canada (3rd ed.). Toronto, ON, Canada: Elsevier Canada.

Hill, A.-M., Etherton-Beer, C., & Haines, T. P. (2013). Tailored Education for Older Patients to Facilitate Engagement in Falls Prevention Strategies after Hospital Discharge A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial. PLoS ONE, 8(5). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0063450