Background: Transmural palliative care interventions aim to identify older persons with palliative care needs and timely provide advance care planning, symptom management, and coordination of care. Nurses can have an important role in these interventions; however, their expertise is currently underused. A new transmural care pathway with a central role for the community care registered nurse in advance care planning aims to contribute to the quality of palliative care for older persons. Objective: To examine the perspectives of community nurses on the feasibility of a new transmural care pathway for advance care planning for older persons. Design: A qualitative study design using semi-structured interviews. Setting(s): Interviews were performed with community nurses of three participating homecare organizations in the Netherlands between March and May 2023. Participants: 19 community nurses. Methods: A topic guide was based on (1) challenges in advance care planning identified from the literature and (2) concepts that are important in assessing the feasibility of complex healthcare interventions provided by the Normalisation Process Theory framework. A combined inductive and deductive thematic analysis was performed. Results: Four themes were identified: views on the transmural care pathway, community nurses’ needs to fulfil their role, key points regarding implementation, and evaluation of the new practice. In general, community nurses were positive about the feasibility of the new practice as it provided a more structured work process that could facilitate interprofessional collaboration and improve the quality of palliative care. Overall, the feasibility of the new practice, from community nurses perspective, was determined by (1) clear roles and responsibilities in the transmural care pathway, (2) standardized registration of advance care planning, and (3) close involvement of community nurses in the whole implementation process. Conclusions: We highlighted important factors, from the perspectives of community nurses, that need to be considered in the implementation of a new transmural care pathway for advance care planning. A clear division of roles and responsibilities, standardized registration of advance care planning, and involvement of community nurses during the whole implementation process were mentioned as important enabling factors. This knowledge might contribute to successful implementation of a transmural care pathway that aims to enhance the quality of palliative care for older persons. Tweetable abstract: Community nurses’ perspectives on the feasibility of a transmural care pathway for advance care planning for older persons.
Background: In Turkey, nursing care in hospitals has gradually included more older patients, resulting in a need for knowledgeable geriatric nurses. It is unknown, however, whether the nursing workforce is ready for this increase. Therefore, the aim of this study is to validate the Knowledge about Older Patients Quiz (KOPQ) in the Turkish language and culture, to describe Turkish hospital nurses’ knowledge about older patients, and to compare levels of knowledge between Turkish and Dutch hospital nurses. Conclusions: The KOPQ-TR is promising for use in Turkey, although psychometric validation should be repeated using a better targeted sample with a larger ability variance to adequately assess the Person Separation Index and Person Reliability. Currently, education regarding care for older patients is not sufficiently represented in Turkish nursing curricula. However, the need to do so is evident, as the results demonstrate that knowledge deficits and an increase in older patients admitted to the hospital will eventually occur. International comparison and cooperation provides an opportunity to learn from other countries that currently face the challenge of an aging (hospital) population.
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Clear role descriptions promote the quality of interprofessional collaboration. Currently, it is unclear to what extent healthcare professionals consider pharmaceutical care (PC) activities to be nurses’ responsibility in order to obtain best care quality. This study aimed to create and evaluate a framework describing potential nursing tasks in PC and to investigate nurses’ level of responsibility. A framework of PC tasks and contextual factors was developed based on literature review and previous DeMoPhaC project results. Tasks and context were cross-sectionally evaluated using an online survey in 14 European countries. A total of 923 nurses, 240 physicians and 199 pharmacists responded. The majority would consider nurses responsible for tasks within: medication self-management (86–97%), patient education (85–96%), medication safety (83–95%), monitoring adherence (82–97%), care coordination (82–95%), and drug monitoring (78–96%). The most prevalent level of responsibility was ‘with shared responsibility’. Prescription management tasks were considered to be nurses’ responsibility by 48–81% of the professionals. All contextual factors were indicated as being relevant for nurses’ role in PC by at least 74% of the participants. No task nor contextual factor was removed from the framework after evaluation. This framework can be used to enable healthcare professionals to openly discuss allocation of specific (shared) responsibilities and tasks.
De administratieve en registratiewerklast op verpleegafdelingen in ziekenhuizen is hoog. Hierdoor besteden verpleegkundigen slechts een derde van hun dienst direct aan de patiënt waardoor zij plezier in hun werk verliezen. Er is een scala aan arbeidsbesparende technologie voor verpleegkundigen ontwikkeld. Slechts 30% daarvan is succesvol geïmplementeerd, onder andere door gebrek aan afstemming tussen innovatie, verpleegkundigen, werkprocessen en bestaande (informatie)systemen. Idealiter worden deze perspectieven geïntegreerd in één integrale, systemische ontwerpaanpak die tot op heden ontbreekt. Het UMC Utrecht benaderde daarom de Hogeschool Utrecht met de vraag: Hoe kan niet-direct zorggerelateerde technologie* zodanig ontworpen worden dat verpleegkundigen meer voldoening krijgen in hun werk (en meer tijd en aandacht hebben voor directe zorggerelateerde taken)? Door het combineren van onderzoeksmethoden uit de wereld van co-design, procesanalyse en systemisch ontwerp wordt op vier verpleegafdelingen in het UMC Utrecht en zeven verpleegafdelingen in het Sint Antonius Ziekenhuis met verpleegkundigen gezocht naar aangrijpingspunten in het verpleegkundig werkproces voor het verlagen van de werklast. Vervolgens wordt een aantal innovaties (her)ontworpen en getest. Hierbij worden Hogeschool Utrecht en de twee ziekenhuizen ondersteund door Panton, Pontes, Ucreate en Ascom. Het intensief in het ontwerpproces betrekken van verpleegkundigen zal dit project twee of drie toepasbare en ‘gedragen’ arbeidsbesparende producten en/of diensten opleveren (bijvoorbeeld een slim verpleegkundig oproepsysteem). Het selecteren, (door)ontwikkelen, combineren, toepassen en volgen van de diverse methodes bij het ontwikkelen van de arbeidsbesparende producten en/of diensten zal resulteren in een integrale ontwerpaanpak voor verpleegkundige innovaties, bedoeld voor ontwerpers in de zorg. Ook ontstaat een aanvulling op het beroepsprofiel voor de verpleegkundige in 2020 van Verpleegkundigen & Verzorgenden Nederland (projectpartner) dat stelt dat verpleegkundigen niet alleen technologie moeten kunnen gebruiken maar ook bij kunnen dragen aan het verbeteren ervan.
For English see below In dit project werkt het Lectoraat ICT-innovaties in de Zorg van hogeschool Windesheim samen met zorganisaties de ZorgZaak, De Stouwe, en IJsselheem en daarnaast Zorgcampus Noorderboog, Zorgtrainingscentrum Regio Zwolle, Patiëntenfederatie NPCF, VitaalThuis, ActiZ, Vilans, V&VN, Universiteit Twente en het Lectoraat Innoveren in de Ouderenzorg van Windesheim aan het in staat stellen van wijkverpleegkundigen om autonoom en doelmatig, op basis van klinisch redeneren, eHealth te indiceren en in te zetten bij cliënten. De aanleiding voor dit project wordt gevormd door de wijzigingen per 1 januari 2015 in de Zorgverzekeringswet. Wijkverpleegkundigen zijn sindsdien zelf verantwoordelijk voor de indicatiestelling en zorgtoewijzing voor verzorging en verpleging thuis: zij moeten bepalen welke zorg hun cliënten nodig hebben gezien hun individuele situaties, en hoe die zorg het best geleverd kan worden. Zorgverzekeraars leggen hierbij minimumeisen op, o.a. met betrekking tot de inzet van eHealth. Wijkverpleegkundigen hebben op dit moment echter niet of nauwelijks ervaring met het inzetten en toepassen van technologische toepassingen zoals eHealth. Vraagarticulatie leidde tot de volgende praktijkvraagstelling: 1. Hoe kunnen wijkverpleegkundigen worden voorzien in hun informatiebehoefte over eHealth? 2. Hoe kunnen wijkverpleegkundigen worden ondersteund in hun klinisch redeneren over het inzetten van eHealth bij hun cliënten? 3. Hoe kunnen wijkverpleegkundigen worden ondersteund bij het inzetten van eHealth in hun zorgproces? Het project levert hiertoe drie bijdragen: - De eerste bijdrage is een duurzaam geborgde keuzehulp (een app voor tablet of smartphone) waarmee wijkverpleegkundigen toegang hebben tot de benodigde informatie over eHealth-toepassingen en die aansluit bij de manier waarop wijkverpleegkundigen zorg indiceren (bijvoorbeeld door relaties te leggen tussen NIC-interventies en bijpassende eHealth-toepassingen). - Informatievoorziening is niet een afdoende antwoord op de handelingsverlegenheid van de wijkverpleegkundige omdat eHealth sterk in ontwikkeling is en blijft waardoor er altijd een discrepantie zal bestaan tussen de beschikbare en de benodigde informatie. . De tweede bijdrage van dit project is daarom kennis over (en inzicht in) het klinisch redeneren over de inzet van eHealth. Deze kennis wordt in het project doorvertaald naar een trainingsmodule die erop is gericht om het klinisch redeneren van wijkverpleegkundigen over het inzetten van eHealth en andere thuiszorgtechnologie bij hun cliënten te versterken. - De derde bijdrage van dit project omhelst inbedding van bovengenoemde resultaten in het verpleegkunde-onderwijs van onder meer Windesheim en in nascholingstrajecten voor wijkverpleegkundigen. Voor duurzame, bredere inbedding in het onderwijs wordt samengewerkt met regionale zorgonderwijsnetwerken. In this project the research group IT-innovations in Health Care of Windesheim University of Applied Sciences cooperates with care organisations de ZorgZaak, De Stouwe, and IJsselheem, and stakeholders Zorgcampus Noorderboog, Zorgtrainingscentrum Regio Zwolle, Patiëntenfederatie NPCF, VitaalThuis, ActiZ, Vilans, V&VN, University of Twente, and research group Innovation of Care of Older Adults of Windesheim to enable home care nurses to autonomously and adequately, based on clinical reasoning, allocate eHealth and implement it in patient care. The motivation behind this project lies in the alterations in the care insurance legislation per January 2015. Since then, home care nurses are responsible for the care allocation of all care at home: they determine which care their clients require, taking into account the individual situations, and how this care can best be delivered. Care insurance companies impose minimum requirements for this allocation of home care, among others concerning the implementation of eHealth. Home care nurses, however, have no or limited information about and experience with technical applications like eHealth. Articulation of the demands of home care nurses resulted in the following questions: 1. How can home care nurses be provided with information concerning eHealth? 2. How can home care nurses be supported in their clinical reasoning about the deployment of eHealth by their patients? 3. How can home care nurses be supported when deploying eHealth in their care process? This project contributes in three ways: " The first contribution is a sustainable selection tool (an app for tablet or smartphone) to be used by home care nurses to provide them with the required information about eHealth applications. This selection tool will work in accordance with how home care nurses allocate care, e.g. by relating NIC-interventions to matching eHealth applications. " Providing information is an insufficient, although necessary, answer to the demands of home care nurses because of continuously developing eHealth applications. Hence, the second contribution of this project is knowledge about (and insight in) the clinical reasoning about the deployment of eHealth. This knowledge will be converted into a training module aimed at strengthening the clinical reasoning about the deployment of eHealth by their patients. " The third contribution of this project concerns embedding the selection tool and the training module in regular education (among others at Windesheim) and in refresher courses for home care nurses. Cooperation with regional care education networks will ensure sustainable and broad embedding of both the selection tool and the training module.
In the Netherlands, 125 people suffer a stroke every day, which annually results in 46.000 new stroke patients Stroke patients are confronted with combinations of physical, psychological and social consequences impacting their long term functioning and quality of live. Fortunately many patients recover to their pre-stroke level of functioning, however, almost half of them never will. Consequently, rehabilitation often means that patients need to adapt to a new reality in their lives, requiring not only physical but also psychosocial adjustments. Nurses play a key role during rehabilitation of stroke patients. However, when confronted with psychosocial problems, they often feel insecure about identifying the specific psycho-social needs of the individual patient and providing adequate care. In our project ‘Early Detection of Post-Stroke Depression’, (SIA RAAK; 2010-12-36P), we developed a toolkit focusing on early identification of depression after stroke continued with interventions nurses can use during hospitalisation. During this project it became clear that evidence regarding possible interventions is scarce and inclusive. Moreover feasibility of interventions is often not confirmed. Our project showed that during the period of hospital admission patients and health care providers strongly focus on surviving the stroke and on the physical rehabilitation. Therefore, we concluded that to make one step beyond we first have to go one step back. To strengthen psychosocial care for patients after stroke we have to add, reconsider and shape knowledge in context of health care practices in a systematic way, resulting in evidence based and practice informed stepping stones. With this project we aim to collect these stepping stones and develop a nursing care programme that improves psychosocial well-being of patients after stroke, is tailored to the particular concerns and needs of patients, and is considered feasible for use in the usual care process of nurses in the stroke rehabilitation pathway.
