Toileting and oral hygiene
What’s missing in residential aged care
5 December 2019
New research from the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, reveals the gaps in care most likely to be experienced by residents of aged care facilities.
Lead author, Kristiana Ludlow, PhD candidate with the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, said
Residential aged care facilities do not always have enough resources to meet some of residents’ most basic needs, like help using the toilet or oral care.
The research is the first to systematically study unfinished care in residential aged care facilities and was published in the journal, The Gerontologist.
The research involved the analysis of published literature in peer-reviewed journals and academic databases that discussed unfinished care in residential aged care facilities in Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Norway, Canada and the United States.
The research points to inadequate staffing levels as the main reason reported for this missed or unfinished care which is in line with findings from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
Ms Ludlow said the research showed that when workload demands are greater than the available time and resources, staff are forced to make decisions about what care they provide, and what is missed.
This research is important in understanding how prioritisation of tasks occurs and what influences those decisions, so that we can better prevent care being missed in the future, Ms Ludlow explained.
The most commonly reported activities missed or rationed or assigned a lower priority were:
- Assistance toileting or changing incontinence pads
- Communication with residents and family
- Mouth care and oral hygiene
- Patient surveillance
- General mobility
The factors most frequently reported to be associated with unfinished care were:
- Staff levels (including availability of staff)
- Skill mix of staff
- Access to supplies and equipment
- Complexity of the residents’ needs
The author Kristiana Ludlow is available for comment, please contact Chrissy Clay, Research Outreach Coordinator.
Funding:
This work was supported by a Macquarie University Research Training Program Scholarship associated with the Australian Institute of Health Innovation project: Exploring complexity to create a sustainable health care system, as part of the National Health and Medical Research Council Partnership Centre grant in Health System Sustainability.
Citation:
Kristiana Ludlow, Kate Churruca, Virginia Mumford, Louise A Ellis, Luke Testa, Janet C Long, Jeffrey Braithwaite, Unfinished Care in Residential Aged Care Facilities: An Integrative Review, The Gerontologist, , gnz145, https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnz145
CENTRES RELATED TO THIS NEWS
Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT
Chrissy Clay, Research Outreach Coordinator