Policy Change for Long-Term Care Too Many

¶ … Policy Change for Long-Term Care

Too many nursing homes and long-term care facilities have become complacent and are happy to engage in the absolute minimum when it comes to the level of care that they provide for elderly residents and for patients who experience long-term care. Common signs of a low level of treatment are things like the television being on in patient rooms all the time, not enough socializing and social events for residents, not enough activities outside of movie-watching for residents, and very low levels of cultural competency from staff members. These trends will continue unless formal pieces of legislation and policies are in place in order to change them. One reason that these mediocre trends are allowed to continue is because clinicians and members of staff who work on the front lines are so overworked, undercompensated and generally burnt-out that they have almost no energy to put in an extra effort with clients. Thus, the policy changes need to be a two-part solution in order to improve this issue. The first part of the solution needs to make the day-to-day jobs and work of these staff members more humane. The second part of the policy change needs to then hold long-term care facilities to a higher level of care.

Administrative personnel and other higher-up personages in long-term care facilities often do not have an accurate idea of the daily experiences that people who work on the front lines of care actually go through. "Workers, especially frontline workers, frequently have a more negative view of their work environment than administrators have. Repeatedly, administrators and managers overestimate the level of staff satisfaction and the quality of the work environment" (Bowers et al., 2007). Necessary changes in long-term care should include things like built-in social support structures t for new and current nurses. Prevention of bullying with older nurses to younger nurses (Laschinger et al., 2010). In fact, studies have found that new graduate nurses are generally less exposed to bullying and other negative work experiences when their professional environments offer more access to empowering structures and that such conditions can bolster nurse health and well-being (Laschinger, 2010). Having actual structures in place to thwart nurse burnout out is important and patients will reap the benefits as well. For instance, "Offer live classes and computer-based sessions about self-care stress reduction techniques. Be sure to tailor the sessions so they make sense for busy staff nurses. For example, a session filled only with strategies that aren't applicable to the nurse environment won't be as helpful as one that includes easy to implement techniques such as deep breathing that can be performed during a quick meal break" (Hendren, 2010). Changes like these need to be more than simply highly recommended, or else the bulk of institutions simply won't enforce them. They need to requisites of policy that all institutions follow whether they like it or not.