While making cultural changes including flexible medication passes, extending mealtimes and choices of food, and turning shower rooms into spas, the most important element of person-centered care is the quality and flow of information concerning the resident.
Starting from Scratch: Personal Information
In order to deliver meaningful person-centered care, personal knowledge about the resident must be obtained. Staff require information about the resident as a person as well as information on useful approaches for responding to and providing care for the resident. Personal information allows staff to know what’s important to the resident and is useful in developing a genuine relationship. It’s essential to know one’s preferences, likes and dislikes, what their daily routine was before they moved into the care community, and their family history. Families can be a good source for gaining this type of information.
Information on Personalized Approaches
Equally important, staff need to know as much as they can about how care was provided at home and what types of approaches were most successful. What did care look like at home, prior to moving into the care community? The individual’s daily routine is important to know about because it can lead how, when, where, and the way care is provided. Having knowledge in the resident’s up to date medical history including examinations, medications, labs, functional ability, problems related to pain or cognitive decline, and any psychological or behavioral issues would be very helpful in providing meaningful person-centered care.
How to Exchange Information
Since most nursing assistants don’t have the time to scan all of their resident’s medical records, they need to get this information somehow. Nursing staff can take the lead on this and pass on any important information to nursing assistants that will be helpful in providing care to their residents. Professional staff, including administrators, social workers and therapists can be instrumental in passing along needed information. Of course, care staff can always ask the resident or observe carefully behaviors. Information can be passed along at care meetings and according to studies, oral information tends to be more effective than written documents.
Final Thoughts on Person-Centered Care: The Importance of Obtaining and Sharing Information
Regardless of how information is passed along to care staff, it is greatly needed if true person-centered care is to be delivered. The core principle of person-centered care is to know as much as possible about the person as a whole. This includes personal qualities as well as clinical information which can be obtained from a number of sources. Information that is acquired but not used is of no benefit.