Patient-centered care : key in promoting safety in long-term healthcare facilities amidst its daily routine

Abstract

Patient-centered care has been the main focus in creating care guidelines in order to provide efficient care to clients. A competent nurse recognizes the client and the family as a source of control and partner in providing coordinated care based on respect for the client’s preferences, values, and needs despite the routine activities. The clients in long-term healthcare facilities and their families often had little to no input into the process of care due to the client's own mental state and some families who are out of reach.

This research aimed to empower nurses as advocates of health and emphasize the need to place the client and their family as the center of interprofessional care as well as to encourage families to consistently make their own informed decisions. The data was collected through the researcher’s observation at various long-term healthcare facilities during practice. The safety practices discussed in this research are in the context and circumstances of the long-term healthcare facility setup.

According to the results, other factors and not the routine itself have greatly affected the coordination and implementation of care. This research implied that patient-centered care is consistently the focus of healthcare professionals and the best safety practices correlate to reduce error and harm to clients. However, such actions by a healthcare professional have to be influenced by another in order to provide the holistic care a client needs. Thus, not all healthcare professionals are reminded by the totality of what patient-centered care is. The 3 C’s of patient-centered care are utmostly observed.