Meaningful social engagement in everyday activities can enhance resident quality of life in nursing homes. In this article, we draw on data collected in a multidisciplinary, international study exploring promising practices in long-term care homes across Canada, Norway, and Germany, to investigate conditions that either allow for or create barriers to residents’ social participation. Within a feminist political economy framework using a team-based rapid ethnography approach, observations and in-depth interviews were conducted with management, staff, volunteers, students, families, and residents. We argue that the conditions of work are the conditions of care. Such conditions as care home location, building layout, staffing levels, and work organization, as well as governing regulations, influence if and how residents can and do engage in meaningful everyday social life in/outside the nursing home. The presence of promising conditions that facilitate resident social participation, particularly those promoting flexibility and choice for residents, directly impacts their overall health and well-being.
SAMMENDRAG Etablering av tjenestestandarder har til hensikt å regulere, endre og forbedre fagutøveres arbeid, noe som skal føre til at tjenestene får jevnere og bedre kvalitet. Standarder i den norske helse-og omsorgssektoren er også tenkt å bidra til mer samstemte krav og forventninger til tjenestene. Hensikten med denne studien er å undersøke hvordan sykehjem i norge arbeider med «kvalitet» og om og i så fall hvordan dette påvirker praksiser på tvers av kommuner, sykehjem og avdelinger.Datainnsamlingen er gjennomført i 2016 ved bruk av et spørreskjema, individuelle intervju og fokusgruppeintervjuer samt observasjoner i fem norske sykehjem.Vi har funnet stor variasjon i praksis og rutiner knyttet til «kvalitetsarbeid», til tross for gjentatte innsatser fra myndighetene i å standardisere praksis i tjenestene. Resultatene viser variasjoner både på tvers av og innen sykehjemmene. disse variasjonene viser til det vi oppfatter som et komplisert og varig spenningsforhold mellom standardisering, lokal autonomi og kultur og lokalt innovasjonsarbeid. Vi argumenterer for at standardisering av «beste praksis» er vanskelig forenelig med flere forhold, blant annet med; a) myndighetenes ønske om stadig innovasjon i tjenestene, samt at tjenestene skal vaere individuelt tilpasset, og b) kommunenes grunnleggende autonomi, lokal arbeidskultur ved sykehjemmene knyttet til denne autonomien og lokale prioriteringer.ABSTRACT Service standards involve, amongst other things, an institutional aim of regulation, often through descriptions of «best practice». The aim of the introduction of service standards is to improve the overall quality of the services. The use of standards in the Norwegian healthcare sector, the empirical theme of this article, is, ultimately, a means to equate or level the expectations of the various services. The aim of this study is to explore how Norwegian nursing homes work with «quality» and if, or in what ways, this work has led to more unified practices within and across nursing homes.This study draws on empirical material from 2016, collected through a quantitative survey, and qualitative interviews and observations from five nursing homes in Norwegian municipalities.We found significant variation in practice and routines despite repeated efforts by the authorities to standardize practices in the services. The results show that most variables vary considerably across and within the included nursing homes. The described variation is discussed in relation to what is understood as a complex and perpetual tension between standardization, local/municipal autonomy, «workplace cultures» and the growing demand for innovative services. We argue that standardization of 'best practice' can be difficult to reconcile with (a) the desire for innovative and individually adjusted services, and (b) the fundamental municipal autonomy prevalent in Norway, and the local «workplace cultures» this autonomy is connected to.
In the context of current and expected demographic changes, the issues of which services the welfare state should offer and, ultimately, the very function of the welfare state are currently debated in Norway. The political discourse on health and care services for older adults has morphed into an accepted reality in which the system must be altered, prompting policy makers and stakeholders to find new and novel solutions to problems associated with population ageing. In this paper, we discuss one such proposed solution: the transformation of health and care services for the older adult population through the increased involvement of volunteers. We ask how volunteer efforts are articulated and delineated through official accounts and discuss the implications of such an articulation and delineation. We seek answers to these questions through a critical discourse analysis of recent governmental white papers. We investigate, in other words, volunteer efforts as a political instrument. We argue that the official representation of how efforts in health and care services should be re-aligned take the form of a distinct discourse of ‘voluntarism’. Within this ‘voluntarism’, volunteer efforts have been altered from a third sector comprising charity and non-profit organisations that contribute within or as a supplement to the largely public-run welfare system to a limitless and extensive concept that is blurring the boundaries to informal care.
Nursing home (NH) residents are increasingly in need of timely and frequent medical care, presupposing not only available but perhaps also continual medical care provision in NHs. The provision of this medical care is organized differently both within and across countries, which may in turn profoundly affect the overall quality of care provided to NH residents. Data were collected from official legislations and regulations, academic publications, and statistical databases. Based on this set of data, we describe and compare the policies and practices guiding how medical care is provided across Canada (2 provinces), Germany, Norway, and the United States. Our findings disclose that there is a considerable difference to find among jurisdictions regarding specificity and scope of regulations regarding medical care in NHs. Based on our data, we construct 2 general models of medical care: (1) more regulations—fee-for-service payment—open staffing models and (2) less regulation—salaried positions—closed staffing models. Some evidence indicates that model 1 can lead to less available medical care provision and to medical care provision being less integrated into the overall care services. As such, we argue that the service models discussed can significantly influence continuity of medical care in NH.
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