Address the following questions/bullets in completing this section:
Start at the starting point – What, Where, When, Why, and How?
What is known about this topic or what is the evidence on this topic (Scoping Search)?
What is the outcome of interest?
What are the gaps in our understanding or knowing related to this topic?
NSG 6999 Research Sample Essay
Nursing Research
Starting Point
What: The topics mainly focus on enhancing the quality of care for elderly patients.
Where: The quality improvement initiative targets geriatric settings, including long-term care units, hospitals, and clinics providing care to elderly patients.
When: The initiative should be adopted once all stakeholders, including the patients, providers, and family members, have been trained adequately on the use information technologies and data science in enhancing care.
Why: The Topic is crucial since it presents some opportunities for enhancing the health outcome for elderly patients, focusing on technology and data science which may act as an avenue for dealing with staffing shortages and increasing demand for quality care.
How: Care for elderly patients will be enhanced by adopting modern technologies such as telehealth and telemedicine, mobile health, and electronic health records.
What is Known About the Topic
Several elements of this Topic are known and will be a foundation for developing this Capstone proposal. For instance, the population of older adults has been increasing alarmingly. This has increased the demand for healthcare services since old age is associated with increased chronic diseases such as diabetes, mental illness, and cardiovascular diseases (Ienca et al., 2021). The healthcare system finds it challenging to meet these increasing demands due to prevalent challenges such as staff shortage, increasing cost of care, and staff turnover. Intelligent assistive technology (IAT) systems have been designed to meet the needs and desires of older people, including assisting them in physical and cognitive tasks such as daily living activities. Other systems such as telehealth, artificial intelligence, and eHealth have been presented as effective tools for improving patient care, especially in rural and deprived areas. This includes providing remote consultation and assessment while supporting self-care initiatives, especially after discharge (Al-Shorbaji, 2021).
Data science has acted as a framework for scientifically extracting knowledge and insight from structural and unstructured sources through machine-learning algorithms, scientific methods, and big data (Subrahmanya et al., 2021). Such information is vital in developing treatment plans, determining medical examination results, and assessing insured patients. However, several challenges have hindered the effectiveness of these systems in enhancing the quality of patient care for the elderly. These include poor information sharing and knowledge transfer between the developers and healthcare professionals, inadequate consideration of user needs, and lack of clinical validation for these new systems (Ienca et al., 2021).
Outcome the Interest
Healthcare professionals are anticipated to integrate data science and technology in elderly care. Patient should be able to access care services anytime and anywhere through technological systems such as telehealth and eHealth. Also, there will be increased interaction between the patient and their providers even after discharge. In addition, it should improve the health outcome for elderly patients while lowering the cost of care.
Gaps related to the Topic
There are several gaps in understanding and knowing more about the Topic. For instance, it is not clear how many elderly patients are not connected to quality healthcare services, and urgently need technology and data science to enhance the quality of care they receive. Also, a gap exists on how effective the system will be integrated with the current healthcare systems without compromising patient safety and confidentiality, especially for patients who are unable to use the technology systems due to their age and health condition. Finally, more knowledge is needed on the possible implication of this system to the provider-patient relationship. Some patients may be reluctant to share personal health information with the providers when interacting remotely, leading to some of their health needs being unmet.
References
Al-Shorbaji, N. (2021). Improving Healthcare Access through Digital Health: The Use of Information and Communication Technologies. Healthcare Access, https://doi.org/10. 10.5772/intechopen.99607
Ienca, M., Schneble, C., Kressig, R. W., & Wangmo, T. (2021). Digital health interventions for healthy aging: a qualitative user evaluation and ethical assessment. BMC geriatrics, 21, 1-10. https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12877-021-02338-z Subrahmanya, S. V., Shetty, D. K., Patil, V., Hameed, B. M., Paul, R., Smriti, K., Naik, N., & Somani, B. K. (2021). The role of data science in healthcare advancements: Applications, benefits, and future prospects. Irish Journal of Medical Science (1971 -), 191(4), 1473–1483. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-021-02730-z
Related Services