The Australian Government endorsed a national evidence based oral health model when it introduced the first Nursing Home Oral and Dental Health Plan in 2010. Called Better Oral Health in Residential Care, it promotes a multidisciplinary approach with doctors, nurses, care workers and dental professionals sharing responsibility for the four key processes of oral health screening, oral health care planning, daily oral hygiene and access to dental treatment. Frail and dependent residents are most conveniently treated on‐site, hence an aged care/dental partnership is encouraged to facilitate the use of portable dental equipment in the delivery of dental care.
Currently, few dentists provide services to residential aged care facilities (RACFs), with loss of clinical time in practice, difficulty in providing clinical care in a non‐dental environment and lack of referral pathways from the RACFs to the dentists contributing to the problem. The need to establish a model of care involving dental hygienists/oral health therapists in RACFs has merit.
Minimal intervention treatment using glass ionomer cement (GIC) and silver fluoride is ideal in aged care. However, GIC has limitation in dry mouths with low pH caused by polypharmacy or disease. Palliative and definitive treatment techniques need to be individualized with consideration of a patient's ability to maintain their own mouths as well as their mental and physical competence.
The range of products available to address the oral diseases common to the frail elderly is growing. The oral health care provider is required to establish a preventive regime that is tailored to the patient's needs, is realistic and under revision as the patient's needs change.
The BOHHC Model provided an evidence-based approach for community-based prevention and early detection of oral health problems. Improving oral health for older people in the home care setting has significant practice and policy implications which require ongoing intersectoral facilitation involving aged care, vocational health education and dental sectors.
, A. (2019). Can oral healthcare for older people be embedded into routine community aged care practice? A realist evaluation using normalisation process theory.
Building the oral health capacity of nurses and care workers is one way of reversing oral health neglect and improving the quality of care provided to older people.
This follow-up survey on trends in Nursing Informatics (NI) was conducted by the International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Student and Emerging Professionals (SEP) group as a cross-sectional study in 2019. There were 455 responses from 24 countries. Based on the findings NI research is evolving rapidly. Current ten most common trends include: clinical quality measures, clinical decision support, big data, artificial intelligence, care coordination, education and competencies, patient safety, mobile health, description of nursing practices and evaluation of patient outcomes. The findings help support the efforts to efficiently use resources in the promotion of health care activities, to support the development of informatics education and to grow NI as a profession.
An international survey to explore current and future trends in Nursing Informatics (NI) was done in 2015. This article explores responses to questions about: what should be done to further develop NI as an independent discipline; existing policies and standards influencing NI; perceived support towards NI as a discipline; and advice from NI specialists to students and emerging professionals.Nurse and allied health professionals in academia and practice were reached with snowball sampling. Open-ended questions were analysed with thematic content analysis and the mean and standard deviation is reported for the perceived support towards NI (scale ranging from 1 (not at all supportive) to 10 (very supportive)).A total of 507 respondents from 46 countries responded to the survey. Respondents reported mediocre support towards NI from the environment (M 5.79, SD 2.60). Results showed that NI education needs development to better meet practice demands, that current NI resources seem insufficient, that NI expertise is not used to its full potential in health institutions and the community, and that NI needs to show its value through research and increase visibility to be recognised among stakeholders worldwide.In conclusion, there is a need to clarify NI as a discipline and a need for strong leadership to impact policy making. An increase in NI teaching at undergraduate level in nursing as well as an increase in postgraduate NI programmes worldwide would better support practice demands. National policies and international white papers in NI are needed to guide resource distribution to better support practice.
The importance of nursing informatics (NI) is highlighted because of changing healthcare landscapes in response to rising digital health and technology integration and use. However, NI education, competency requirements and roles are not standardized across the world, and the potential of NI is modestly understood internationally. This paper explores opportunities and challenges in NI discussed in a panel at the 14th International Congress on Nursing and Allied Health Informatics. The panel was organized by the International Medical Informatics Association's-Nursing Informatics Working Group's Student and Emerging Professionals group. Discussions during the panel session were synthesized and analyzed using content analysis. Results indicate that challenges in NI education, career opportunities and roles continue to exist across healthcare settings and regions. Findings suggest that the following issues need attention: (1) collaboration to build stronger infrastructure to guide NI education, research and practice; (2) improved visibility and SPECIAL FOCUS ON NURSING AND DIGITAL HEALTH 8 9 Emerging Professionals' Observations of Opportunities and Challenges in Nursing Informatics appreciation of NI; and (3) greater dissemination of evidence of NI in various health settings. This paper offers recommendations for nurse leaders on strategies to address these issues in NI at the local, regional and global levels.
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