DNP 810 Course Papers – Emerging Areas of Human Health GCU New
Health Issues for the Aging Essay Example
Aging cause major socio-economic effect for the community, including the healthcare organizations. As people ages, their health generally declines requiring more medical attention. They are also at higher risk for chronic disease such as: Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and particularly falls which can impact their health and quality of life (Awang, Mansor, Nai Peng & Nik Osman, 2018). Falls are the major reason of injury in adults aged 65 years or older.
Falls often generate moderate to severe harms like head trauma, fractures and death leading to longer hospital stays, unnecessary admissions/readmissions and increase the healthcare expenditures (Jin, 2018) DNP 810 Course Papers. Given the aging population growth and the damaging effect of falls, this paper will analyze how to incorporate quality improvement solutions into public policy in order to reduce the occurrence of falls and fall-related damage in the aging population.
Evaluation of Literature, Suggestions, Resolution to Issue
Fall is a major public health issue that can bring about serious injuries and even death in the elderly. In 2014, approximately 27,000 elderly died from unintentional fall injuries and the emergency departments treated 2.8 million elderly of which 742,000 required hospitalization. Elderly fall cost approximately $35 billion in 2012 and is expected to increase to $100 billion in 2030, without the cost for therapy and grievances.
Falls created over 20 million dollars annually and increased hospital stay to an extra 6.9 days costing the patient an extra $13,806 (Phelan, Mahoney, Voit & Stevens, 2015). Since falls can be prevented, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services since 2008 have stopped reimbursing hospitals for detrimental fall-related injuries DNP 810 Course Papers. As a result, fall prevention have become for the healthcare systems both a financial and patient safety importance.
Healthcare organizations have put into effect various programs to prevent falls among patients. Preventing falls is important to preserve patient safety and decrease the financial weight on the healthcare system (Staggs, Mion & Shorr, 2015). Decreasing and preventing falls among the elderly has been a focus of study for years due to the rising number of individuals living into older age.
Many interventions such as exercise, home safety assessment, modification and multifactorial have been established through randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and subsequently condensed in systematic reviews and meta-analyses and have been showed to be effective in preventing falls among the elderly (Stubbs, Brefka & Denkinger, 2015) DNP 810 Course Papers.
Solutions and development of approaches to decrease the incidence of falls have been a noticeable emphasis in the literature for years DNP 810 Course Papers. There is now convincing indication that falls can be averted with a variety of resolutions. Studies have shown that exercise programs and home/environment evaluations by an occupational therapist can reduce the number of falls (Pighills, Ballinger, Pickering, & Chari, 2016)
Incorporating Solution into Public Policy
The United States (US) population is aging, quickly, the number of older adults is anticipated to increase from 50 million to 75 million as the last group of baby boomers turns 65. By 2034, older adults are predicted to be more than their children in the nation’s history (Naylor, Hirschman, Hanlon, Bowles, Bradway, McCauley, & Pauly, 2014).
The urgency to incorporate falls prevention among older adults into public policy should be considered. Policy, research and practice are unified elements needed for a successful and workable program of falls prevention for the elderly DNP 810 Course Papers. The development and complicated nature of fall risk among a fast-growing aging populace requires a practical and organized approach to prevention.
The function of policy is to grant the infrastructure and funding necessary for the incorporation of falls prevention into practice. Research is essential to provide facts to support the successful application of fall prevention interventions DNP 810 Course Papers. Practice is where evidence is employed based on the guidelines and rules set by policy (Houry, Florence, Baldwin, Stevens & McClure, 2016).
Medicaid and Medicare which is the second and third major health insurance providers in the US has several policies that can be used to tackle falls prevention, however, they have not all been used to their full benefits. As the guarantor of more than 48 million Americans elderly, the Medicare program can demand, authorize, and incentivize provider actions associated to falls prevention.
Additionally, numerous Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have contracted with community-based establishments to offer falls prevention services to the elderly consisting of free fitness programs and Silver-Sneakers programs (Horton, Dwyer & Seiler, 2018) DNP 810 Course Papers.