Using the Omaha System to Describe Health Problems, Interventions, and Outcomes in Home Care in Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract

Preparing nursing students to achieve informatics competencies is essential in today's information-intensive healthcare delivery systems. This study aimed to provide hands-on informatics experience to nursing students and to identify the frequency and type of home care clients' health problems, nursing interventions, and outcomes using a standardized nursing terminology, the Omaha System. Data were collected by 159 nursing students on home visits to 598 clients, who received 8657 interventions from students and faculty for 2267 problems, in addition to the services provided by the home care centers. Skin, neuromusculoskelatal function, personal care, nutrition, and urinary function were the most common problems. The most common intervention category was teaching, guidance, and counseling (47%), followed by treatments and procedures (22%), surveillance (22%), and case management (9%). Outcomes evaluation showed significant improvement in 97.5% of the identified problems. Students gained informatics experience in the use of a standardized nursing language in electronic health records, data management, and use of nursing data at the basic practice level. This study demonstrated that the Omaha System was a useful data collection tool for evaluating problems, interventions, and outcomes in home care and a positive teaching and learning tool for baccalaureate nursing education.

Application of the Omaha System in the Determination of Healthcare Needs of Individuals Receiving Home Healthcare

“…In the health-related behaviors domain, impairments were most frequently observed in personal care (56.4%), self-feeding and nutrition (15.4%), medication management (12.1%), sleep and rest (10.5%) and physical activity (5.7%). The problems identified in the present study are similar to problems identified in several other studies conducted with individuals receiving home healthcare services [16,20,21,25]. The most common problems identified by Erdogan et al in the health-related behaviors domain were related to personal care, and self-feeding and nutrition [16].…”

“…As in the present study, the majority of individuals participating in several other studies were elderly people [16,[19][20][21][22]. This situation reveals the necessity of home healthcare services for the elderly in Turkey where the average life expectancy is increasing with each passing day.…”

“…In a study conducted with the elderly [13], of the nursing diagnoses, most were related to the physiological domain, followed by health-related behaviors, psychosocial and environmental domains. In another study conducted on the home healthcare by Erdogan et al, the most common problems were determined in the physiological domain (63%), followed by health-related behaviors domain (16.8%), environmental domain (10.3%) and psychosocial domain (9.9%) [16].…”

“…Similar to the results of this study, in Erdogan et al 's study, the most common problems were related to the physiological domain. The problems were related to skin, neuro-musculo-skeletal system, and urinary function in 92%, 47% and 18% of the participants respectively [16).…”

“…Among these studies are "effects of the use of the Omaha system in the development of women's health on the lifestyle and quality of life [12]", "determination of nursing practices, and the healthcare needs of the elderly living in nursing homes [10,13]", "determination of elementary school students' health problems [9]", "assessment of occupational health nursing interventions with the Omaha nursing interventions scheme [5]", "the use of the Omaha system in occupational health nursing practices, advantages of nurses' using a common language in the assessment of health problems, diagnosis and interventions [14]", "application-based use of the Omaha System in the family nursing training [15]", "the use of the Omaha System to identify of health problems, health applications and results in the provision of home healthcare [16]", and "the use of the Omaha system in the nursing care of children with acute care needs [17]".…”