Diet and Physical Activity to Improve the Outcomes in the Nursing Home

Purpose

The program aims at focusing on improving the health of patients in the nursing home by adopting lifestyle practices that will promote healthy living. The daily actions undertaken by the caregivers and patients in the facility have a significant impact on the health of the elderly individuals living in this facility. Modifying the actions to improve the services to the patients has great capability of changing health outcomes and satisfaction of the clients. Besides, the program further seeks to improve practices by the management of the facility in acknowledging the need to provide proper requirements to ensure patients in the facility get quality services. The program requires the involvement of the management in sustaining the changes that will cause improvements in the health of patients. The program will also limit the rate of hospitalization of the elderly patients in the nursing home.

Target Population

The target population for the project is older adults living in the nursing home and their families. The program will target people having 65 years and above to provide the needed response. This group of people can provide the needed information to assist in improving services dealing with their lifestyle in the nursing home. The families have the ability to know the level of satisfaction of the patients in the institution. Thus, these family members can provide crucial data to assist in improving the services.

One of the areas of focus of the project will be diet and physical exercise of the elderly patients in nursing homes. These are the areas that the care providers have the ability to have significant control in the lives of the patients. The studies show that lifestyle of people has impacted on the quality of their health while at all ages. The facility is already offering physical exercise to the patients in the facility. However, the exercises offered sometimes are general and not patient centered. Thus, there is an opportunity to improve the health outcomes of the patients through considering the needs of every patient when offering guidance in physical activities. Besides, there is a need to develop physical activities suitable for the older adults who lack the ability to stand and engage in current physical activities.

The diet in the facility is already considering some of the condition of the patients to ensure there are no adverse reactions. Proper diet is necessary for the nursing homes to avoid malnutrition (Bell, Lee & Tamura, 2015). The reduced capability of the immune system in older adults requires proper consideration of their diet to ensure that they are healthy (Donini, Neri, De Chiara, Poggiogalle, & Muscaritoli, 2013). The program aims at increasing flexibility in the diets offered to the patients through diversifying the types of foods offered to the patients. Nonetheless, the program will consider the condition of the patients and ensure they receive a balanced diet. Patient-centered practices in modifying diet ensure that they receive required nutrients while at the same time maintain high levels of satisfaction. Achieving the objective of having a patient-centered diet requires high flexibility in the diets offered in the facility.

Benefits

The program has benefits to both the patients and the nursing home. The patients have the possibility of improving their health. The modification of physical activity in the facility ensures all patients participate in the exercise to improve their health (Bauman, Merom, Bull, Buchner, & Fiatarone Singh, 2016). Participation in the physical activity assists in managing and preventing the progress of lifestyle diseases. Thus, it provides the opportunity to the patients to lead a life with minimal health complications. The provision of healthy and balanced diet complements physical activity by ensuring patients get nutrients to meet their body requirement and maintain their body immunity. The nursing home also benefits from the initiative through minimal use of resources due to the admission of the patients in hospitals due to lifestyle diseases. The personnel in the facility will also have limited difficulties in caring for the patients. Besides, high levels of satisfaction will increase the ratings of the services offered in the facility. Such developments serve as a way of marketing the facility to increase revenue from the increased number of clients.

Costs and Justifications

The cost for the program will be around $200,000. The money will cover all the requirements in the program over the three month period. Part of the money will cover collection of data during the survey at the start and end of the program. Funds are also necessary for adding more exercise equipment that will be able to serve all patients in the facility. The facility is already having some of the needed exercise equipment. However, there is need to add more equipment to deliver patient-centered physical exercises. The funds will also be crucial in obtaining the ability to monitor the activities of the patients as they undertake their daily activities.

Part of the money will also be needed in enabling increased flexibility of the diet offered during the period. The program will need the additional purchase of organically produced foods that are healthy for consumptions. Besides, the need to satisfy every patient’s need will require preparation variety of meals every day in the facility.

Evaluation of the Program

Evaluation of the impact of the program will consider several factors such as the satisfaction of the customers and change in the rate of hospitalization of the patients. Assessing satisfaction of the customers will require the collection of data before the beginning of the program. This initial data will be crucial in knowing areas that the facility needs improvements. Besides, it provides knowledge about levels of satisfaction before the study that is crucial for comparison with data collected after the implementation of the program. The data showing the change in hospitalization rate of the patients before and after implementation of the program will also show the effects. The data for hospitalization will consider additional lifestyle disorders complications that arise during the implementation of the program. The data will show the effectiveness of the program in improving the health quality and satisfaction of the patients in the facility.