Hlten515B Implement and Monitor Care for Older Clients...

HLTEN515B implement and monitor care for older clients Written assignment 1 There are many different forms of dementia and each has its own cause. Some of the main type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common form of dementia affecting 50%-70% of dementia patients (Alzheimers australia, 2005). This is a degenerative illness which attacks the brain, this is achieved buy tangles which are in the middle of shrunken brain cells and plaques which eventually cause the brain cells to die meaning information can no longer be recalled or assimilated. There are also other types of dementia which include vascular dementia which is caused by circulation of the blood to the brain, Parkinson’s disease which is a disorder of the†¦show more content†¦These strategies may help with relieving distress, agitation and challenging behaviours. Strategies when dealing with dementia patients may include, â€Å"introduce yourself at each encounter, use touch as appropriate, try to determine the cause of the behaviour and then try to reduc e or eliminate it. These behaviours may be caused by boredom, which you would try and use activities as a distraction, Pain which we3 will try non-pharmacological treatment first e.g.: heat packs, Anxiety where we will use reassurance and diversion. Often using a soft approach such as smiling, pleasant voice tones while talking calmly in short sentences will help defuse a situation. There are many community services out there to aid dementia patients these may include community nursing, meals on wheels, homecare, home modification, Alzheimer’s Australia, commonwealth centerlink centres, carers association, counselling, ACAT and respite care. Dementia has a huge impact on not only the lives of them self’s but also the family and carer. Watching the person you love degenerate from a fully functioning person to some one that needs to be fully cared for. As a carer, you are likely to experience a range of different feelings. This is particularly difficult because as dementia gradually causes the person’s abilities and personality to change the nature of relationships will also change (better health). TheShow MoreRelatedImplement And Monitor Nursing Care For Older Clients1795 Words   |  8 PagesDiploma of Nursing HLT51612 HLTEN515B Implement and monitor nursing care for older clients Assessment 2 – Case Study Elements 4 5 - Part 1 – Alcohol Related Dementia - Korsakoff’s syndrome Definition: â€Å"Korsakoff’s psychosis, a form of amnesia often seen in chronic alcoholics that is characterised by a loss of short- term memory and an inability to learn new skills. The person is usually disoriented, mat present with delirium and hallucinations, and confabulates to conceal

America’s Failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration Free Essays

string(128) " are caught in possession of illicit drugs, is doing nothing to contribute to lessening any of the problems attributed to them\." For over a century, America has waged a failing war on drugs even as it feeds a cultural apathetic and underground acceptance of drug and alcohol use. The views of the dominate group have placed blame on society’s ills on the evils of rampant drug use throughout the past few hundred years, which have given way to a practice of outlawing , persecution, and imprisonment. Such a view has led to the overflow of our state’s prisons, the race to build even more, and need to fund a culture of imprisonment that has a difficult time in trying to figure out if it wants to help the addicted person, or continue to try and fund a gluttonous prison machine. We will write a custom essay sample on America’s Failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration or any similar topic only for you Order Now We will look at some of the causes for the failed war on drugs, and some of the consequences if our society continues to ignore the need to help the addict, or simply lock them away. America’s failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration America has always had an underlying culture of drug use with even many of the harder drugs, like cocaine and heroin, being legal up into the early 1900’s, and drugs like methamphetamine and MDMA, or ecstasy, being legal well into the 20th century. Even one of the most invasive drugs of our culture, alcohol, is widely advertised and taken to be a norm of American culture, and prescription drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin are used by millions legally every day (Brecher, E. M. , n. d. ). However, while alcohol as been able to enjoy its place as an accepted part of the American lifestyle, drug use of the illicit kind has been steadily demonized, criminalized, and used as a means to incarcerate an ever growing number of people, most often minorities and the poor who are unable to afford outside representation. (Steiker, C. S. 2011) It has created an industry and culture of incarceration dependant on keeping certain drugs illegal, and drug use a felonious criminal act, as those in the industry of building prisons and providing prison services, along with many in law enforcement, continue to lobby state and federal government to keep up overzealous laws on drug use, even laws on drugs proven to be less dangerous than alcohol, such as marijuana, which have come to be quite profitable to all involved. The extent of the problem with this unsuccessful war on drugs includes millions of non violent offenders losing parts of their lives, many sentenced to terms in the tens of years under mandatory sentencing, some simply for no more a heinous crime as first time possession of a small amount of marijuana or crack cocaine. The ability to get federal help for school as well as other federal help programs, to engage in certain basic liberties and rights afforded to all Americans by the Bill of Rights, such as the right to vote, or the right to bear arms, are taken away and either incredibly hard to get back, or all but impossible. Furthermore, even when they have finished paying society for their crime, they are still haunted by the deed whenever they look for work, unable to get jobs because of felony convictions, relegating them to jobs of much lower pay and status, even though they themselves may have the education and experience to fulfill jobs of a much higher caliber. (McVay, D. , Schiraldi, V. , Zeidenburg, J. 2004) This process of ‘tough on drugs’ prevention and incarceration keeps the chemically dependent in a vicious cycle where, unable to get help for their addictions and help for success after paying their ‘dues’, their only outcome lies in a repetitive sequence of drug use, bigger crimes to support themselves, and longer imprisonment, in a culture of poverty and incarceration. The outcome is broken hopes, broken dreams, broken families – broken individuals with broken lives. (McVay, D. Schiraldi, V. , Zeidenburg, J. , 2004) If you are not one of these individuals, the problem extends to you – in that it is your tax dollars going to pay for the unsuccessful but profitable war on drugs. Prisoners do not pay for their incarceration – the state and federal government does. The American tax payers pay for housing, food, clothing in both state and federal as well as private prisons, and supervision of these mostly non-violent drug offenders, both inside and outside prison. The tax payer provides the funds for local, state, and federal law enforcement to run their stings, and train their drug dogs and sting operatives, except in the off chance that they intercept a large amount of drug money, or take possession of larger drug dealers properties and vehicles bought with drug money, but rarely are these items sold at value. The burden to pay falls on the state and you, the tax payer, and the state is running out of money to spend on incarcerating an ever growing number of non-violent, drug related prisoners. McVay, D. , Schiraldi, V. , Zeidenburg, J. , 2004) THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES Causes While many drugs enjoyed a period of legalization, eventually most drugs have come to find a place as a scapegoat for many of society’s ills, from poverty, unemployment and homelessness, to rape, murder, and reasons to discriminate certain races based on a stereotypical link to a certain drug. (Steiker, C. S. 2011) At one time even alcohol was a major scapegoat for societal problems, but its strong history and presence in Euro-ethnic culture made it difficult to abstain from for many, and when it was shown that prohibition did nothing to stop many of the problems attributed to it and had actually caused an increase in criminal activity and dangerous binge drinking, it was repealed after 13 years, with much celebration. (Brecher, E. M. , n. d. Accordingly in this day and age, some people are coming to the realization that simply outlawing drugs, making harsh laws to imprison or remove people who are caught in possession of illicit drugs, is doing nothing to contribute to lessening any of the problems attributed to them. You read "America’s Failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration" in category "Papers" In fact, even while we see a decrease in overall crime, we can still see an increase in certain criminal drug activities meant to supply a non-declining need for narcotics, and an ever increasing bill that makes many law makers choose between other programs to help society, or to pay for the rising cost to lock up more and more drug offenders. However, it is still much easier to demonize a drug and the user for problems in society, and we can see that today for instance, as we deal with the problem of unemployment, and the desire of some to legalize marijuana, even for medical purposes. Legalization happens to be a position many of the 99% Occupier groups stand for, but many opponents counter that it’s the drug use of many of those protesters that contribute to their unemployment, and that making medical marijuana legal is just a way for them to continue to get high, but legally. (Bickman, J. , n. d. ) Consequently, many opponents also see drug use as proof f the moral decline of America, and that along with moral ills like gay marriage and abortion, contribute to the fall of our society from its once lofty heights back in the early and mid 1900’s, where homosexuality and drug use were more hidden, but no less prevalent. To this we add the common practice of giving drug possession and distribution large manda tory sentences, some of which show the disparity in the dominant class’s belief in certain drug use being characteristic of certain class or racial groups, or that some drugs are much more dangerous than others, even though science and common sense has told us otherwise. One can only need to take a look at the number of people in jail and prison for marijuana, which is almost benign in its danger when compared to a legal drug such as alcohol, or the disparity in sentencing between crack cocaine and powdered cocaine that was once 100 to 1, or the same penalty for 1 gram of crack cocaine as for 100 grams of powdered cocaine, now down to a mere 18 to 1, with the relation that crack is mostly use by the inner city African American minority, and powdered cocaine used more by the affluent, white dominant suburban group. Amar, V. D. , n. d. ) One area that is sorely underfunded, and has become a pathway to a ‘college of criminality’, is the juvenile justice system. In a 2005, five year study by the National Center on Substance Abuse at Columbia University, the report found that 1. 9 million of the 2. 4 million juveniles arrested over a 5 year period had substance abuse and addiction problems, but that only 68,600 of them received any substance abuse help. Many of those arrested were for violent crimes, however drug use played a huge part in their behavior, and it isn’t hard to take these results into the adult arena, with the finding among adults arrested who were 18 years or older, 64 percent had used drugs or alcohol when they were 17 or younger. One may correctly assume that juveniles who initiate drug and alcohol use and become arrested, and are given incarceration instead of treatment, have a greater chance of growing up to become adults who engage in criminal and drug using behavior. Brown University, 2005) Consequences The consequences of continuing the past policies of the war on drug can be seen today, there is no need to wait on verification or speculation. We can see the ever increasing number of adult and juvenile offenders incarcerated for minor drug offences, as well as those receiving large sentences for other crimes where drugs were involved. We can see the cost and the burden this increasing prison population has to the state and its tax payers, and the struggle lawmakers have to either increase taxes, lower penalties for possession for drug use, or release large numbers of un-treated, chemically dependent, prison taught and economically disadvantaged prisoners because they simply cannot afford to hold them any longer. Without changing the laws, addicts and other chemically dependent users are first convicted and then given treatment. As we already discussed in the beginning, the conviction staying on their arrest record for years, or even permanently, meaning that even after possible successful treatment, the recovering addict is still treated like a pariah when looking for work and an in-depth background check becomes part of the job seeking process. (McVay, D. , Schiraldi, V. , Zeidenburg, J. , 2004)Without any help or hope, the convicted and untreated addict’s only outlook is a continuing life of drug use, and criminal activity to support them. In states like Kentucky, that have seen an increase in its prison population quadruple over the past two decades, looking into new programs that would have offenders volunteer to enter a six to nine month treatment program in jail, rather than a one to two year program in prison that usually carries a five to ten year sentence along with it, would save the state tax payers millions of dollars a year. In Kentucky alone, it costs $500 million dollars a year to house some 22,000 prisoners, 80 percent of them being non-violent drug offenders. The state, like most others, has seen a steady rise in incarcerations with one in 31 Americans behind bars, when Twenty-five years ago, the number was 1 in 77. (Alcoholism Drug Abuse Weekly, 2009) Still, even with such approaches meant to curb the costs of incarcerating convicted addicts, the fact remains that little is being done to reduce the number of people being convicted in the first place, although the offering of more resources to people who are in their first phases of being caught up by law enforcement due to their addictions is a more effective way to start. Alcoholism Drug Abuse Weekly, 2010) Every year it becomes more and more evident, that our countries failing war on drugs and its policy to want to simply incarcerate those to mandatory sentences for even non-lethal drug such as marijuana, the rising cost to investigate, arrest, persecute and house a population of people who show no signs of serious drug use decline, can only mean that newer policies to treat the addi cted, rather than lock them away, are the right way to go if our country wants to fix the problem of our ever increasing culture of incarceration. (McVay, D. , Schiraldi, V. , Zeidenburg, J. , 2004) How to cite America’s Failing War on Drugs and the Culture of Incarceration, Essays

Hospital management system free essay sample

Hospitals deal with the life and health of their patients. Good medical care relies on well-trained doctors and nurses and on high quality facilities and equipment. Good medical care also relies on good record keeping. Without accurate, comprehensive and up to date and accessible patient notes, medical personnel may not offer the best treatment or may in fact misdiagnose the condition, which can have serious consequences. Associated records, such as x-rays, specimens, drug records and patient registers, must also be well cared for if the patient is to be protected. Good records care also ensures the hospitals administration runs smoothly; unneeded records are transferred or destroyed regularly, keeping storage areas clear and accessible; and key records can be found quickly, saving time and resources. Records also provide evidence of the hospital’s accountability for its actions and they form a key source of data for medical research, statistical reports and health information systems. Hospital Management System is powerful, flexible, and easy to use and is designed and developed to deliver real conceivable benefits to hospitals. Hospital Management System is designed for hospital, to cover a wide range of hospital administration and management processes. It is an integrated end-to-end Hospital Management System that provides relevant information across the hospital to support effective decision making for patient care, hospital administration and critical financial accounting, in a seamless flow. Hospital Management System is a software product suite designed to improve the quality and management of hospital management in the areas of clinical process analysis and activity-based costing. Hospital Management System enables hospitals and medical institutions to develop their organization and improve its effectiveness and quality of work. Managing the key processes efficiently is critical to the success of the hospital daily operations. Hospital Management System helps them manage their processes fast, accurate and efficient. 1. 2. Overview of the Current of the Technology In NCMH when admitting a patient the first procedure is for the patient’s related/guardian to fill up a form about patient medical history and financial record which this form will be kept as the patient’s medical record in the hospital. Then the hospital check its record for availability of room and if the patient will be assign to a private or public room, which this record will be in hard copies which are stored in a huge facilities. Afterwards a doctor will diagnose the patient and writes down his/her findings, consultation, prescription, and also his/her orders for the nurses and laboratories examination in a hard copy form which also will be kept as record in the hospital. Then when the nurses do their rounds they will also writes down reports in hard copy form which also will be kept as record in the hospital. The results of the laboratory’s tests and examination are also kept as record in the hospital, in hard copy form. And from all of this record like prescription of medicine, rental of rooms, consultation fees, and etc. will have billing statement for the patient which the billing department will keep records in hard copy form for the hospital. 1. 3. Project Rational Because unlike the current system which uses pen and paper to write down forms and reports which can take a long time to do, is prone to error, cost more, and takes up a lot of space the proposed system will be accurate, more reliable, fast, will have less redundancy, will cost less, and more space conservative, which will make the hospital more effective and efficient in taking care of its patients. And because of this several particular reasons it is not just very beneficial for the beneficiary to implement this proposed system but also is needed for this institution to be on the edge in the 21ist century. 2. Project Description Problem Statement The system design and development was undertaken in order to eliminate the problem of redundant, erroneous, slow and incomplete data that was escalating the inefficiencies in data updating and retrieval. These limitations were mainly caused by the fact that data, under the current manual recording system was entered into books and paper files and was later stored in overcrowded storage rooms that made retrieval and updating of archival records close to impossible. 2. 1. 1. Specific Problem How will the developers create a patient-doctor medical record system that can store and retrieve data fast and accurate? How will the developers create an effective and efficient billing system? 2. 2. Proposed Research Project 2. 2. 1. General Objective To design and develop a hospital management system for a mental health hospital that would enable faster, more accurate, complete, and more efficient storage of retrieval and updating of hospital records and save space at the same time. 2. 2. 2. Specific Objective To create a computerize system that have an efficient and clear fill-up form, and a powerful search engine to retrieve data fast and accurate. To create a computerize billing system that can store and retrieve billing statements fast and accurate, and also at the same time print fast and accurate reports. 2. 2. 3. Scope and Limitation The proposed software product is the Hospital Management System (HMS). The system will be used to get the information from the patients and then storing that data for future usages, stores doctors’ consultation, prescription and orders, stores nurses reports, and stores laboratories results and billing statement. The system will also be able to print out forms and reports from various departments in the hospital and also print out billing statement from the billing department. The intentions of this systems is to reduce over-time pay and increase the number of patients that can be treated accurately. 2. 2. 4. Methodology Methodology is a term used to describe a process, technique or manner in which an action is performed. Under the development a system, a methodology refers to the process that was taken to ensure that a system is effectively and efficiently developed. In designing the hospital management system for NCMH, the following waterfall methodology was used. Waterfall Methodology: All projects can be managed better when segmented into a hierarchy of chunks such as phases, stages, activities, tasks and steps. It follows a linear structure starting from requirement analysis, through design, implementation and maintenance. Most widely accepted methodology for student projects, this model has been well tried and tested. Each phase of it has sub phases which produce deliverables. Requirements are fixed at initial stages before proceeding with development plans in system development projects; the simplest rendition of this is called the waterfall methodology, as shown in the following figure: The graphic illustrates a few critical principles of a good methodology: Work is done in stages. Content reviews are conducted between stages. Reviews represent quality gates and decision points for continuing. The waterfall provides an orderly sequence of development steps and helps ensure the adequacy of documentation and design reviews to ensure the quality, reliability, and maintainability of the developed software. While almost everyone these days disparages the waterfall methodology as being needlessly slow and cumbersome, it does illustrate. Requirements – the developers will analyze what are the resources needed for the completion of the project such as budget, materials, and human resource. Design – after interviewing the beneficiary (Joshua F. Magsumbol), the developers took some time carefully designing what the system should look and function like base on the beneficiary’s specifications. Implementation – when the developers finished the proposed system, the time of implementation is next. Verification – in this phased testing and debugging is performed for final implementation. Maintenance – when the project is finished maintaining the systems efficiency is the next agenda. 3. Project Management 3. 1. Project Description 3. 1. 1. Description of Activities Acquiring of Client – the developers when on around metro manila for less than 2 weeks to find a client, and the developers found a few clients and finally decided to go for NCMH. Planning – the developers took about 3 weeks to plan for the project. Interview – the developers met with NCMH administrator (Mr Joshua F. Magsumbol), for the proposal of the system and to gather information from him to aid us in our endeavours. Documentation – the developers started the documentation of this project around in the 8th week it was supposed to start earlier but something’s came up (details not important), and the documentation will progress as the system’s development progresses. Design – the designing of the system began on the 6th week and the developers is until now still thinking up of designs for the rest of the system. Resource Analysis – the team started analysis of resources on the 10th week and are still analysing the few last resources that are needed to finish this project. Coding or Programming – the development of the proposed system started on the 12th week and is still under development. Testing and Analysis of the system – the developers have not yet started the testing and analysis of the system. Implementation – Since the system in not yet finish the team cannot implement yet the system. 3. 1. 2. Gantt Chart of Activities A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart developed as a production control tool, a Gantt chart provides a graphical illustration of a schedule that helps to plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks in a project. In the next page a Gantt chart is shown for the phase’s schedules of this project.