Brief Literature Review
The search for a universal approach that fully reflects the theoretical and practical information available on the provision of medical care during the transition period is not the least in academic literature. In part, this is because, with the development of clinical practice, the age of patients is increasing every year, which means that the medical staff’s regular and uninterrupted supervision is needed. The most vulnerable and crisis times, when a patient makes the transition between hospital departments or is discharged home, need special attention. In particular, Rustad et al. (2016) most fully reflect the specificity of the problem: there is no uniform system of patient management during the transition. According to Rustad et al., this is also due to the organizational structure of the clinic, which does not prescribe specific responsibilities for nurses in this context. However, a slightly different view of the importance of transitional care is expressed by Mitchell et al. (2018), arguing that the development of a clear concept should be based on patients’ existing desires, such as the desire to feel caring and be involved. It should be noted that the continuing development of this problem is linked to the promotion of recommendations for medical staff and patients on the correctness of care. More specifically, Jackson et al. (2016) propose six key provisions regarding the format of interaction, duration, and participation of the patient family. To better characterize the issue under consideration, Brown’s (2018) work has been studied, arguing that particular emphasis should be placed on the importance of predicting scenarios when developing transition care strategies, especially for older patients. In particular, the author writes about the need to prepare questions that a doctor should write for the first appointment of a patient immediately after discharge.
Methodology and Design of the Study
The study’s critical issue is finding a systematic approach to discussing the question of providing a quality medical approach in the transition period. It is essential to clarify that this problem is not sufficiently understood in the scientific world, then conducting a quantitative study of the problem with primary results was advisable. For the study, 50 patients and nurses were surveyed, and age was used as a manipulation variable: thus, participants were not subject to the same age and social group. The survey included a list of 25 questions on patient and nurse satisfaction, health indicators, and relevance. To solve the problem of patients’ communication, the format of face-to-face meetings was chosen when patients filled in the questionnaire before the next appointment. In general, it should be noted that the questionnaires were filled out by all trial participants regularly and were conducted at least once a week. Three months later, the quantitative data received were statistically processed to identify trends.
Sampling Methodology
As the carriers of the most critical research information are patients and the staff of the clinical organization, the methodology of selecting participants should have the properties of increased randomness, objectivity and reproducibility of the results in a repeated experiment. In particular, trial participants were randomly selected as patients who were not related to each other by any friendships, family, or kinship, hence the probability of interpersonal interaction was reduced to zero. Of the general population of all patients, 25 were selected to participate in the three-month trial. Nurses were selected from those who had direct responsibility for providing health services to selected patients.
Thus, the sequence of selection of the group is as follows:
- clarification and clear articulation of the research goals and objectives;
- identification of the necessary and sufficient number of participants for statistical processing;
- determining the physiological indicators of applicants, including age, gender, and social status;
- selection of patients on the principle of stratified sampling;
- signing a consent for medical intervention and personal data processing;
- forming the list of applicants among patients;
- analysis and selection of past and present nursing staff working with selected patients.
Necessary Tools
The study described above is inextricably linked to the probability of risks associated with the cessation of treatment of patients in this organization or dismissal of nursing staff within a three-month experimental period. For this reason, one of the first instruments is a contract signed by all parties to the process, according to which, in case of termination of interaction with the clinic, the participants undertake to keep in touch through telephone calls or the Internet. In addition, each trial participant will be required to sign an agreement with the terms of the trial and the use of personal biological and psychological data in the statistical analysis.
As a result of the three-month trial, the organizers of the experiment will receive a large amount of data. In order to model the most complete and objective picture of the data, it is recommended to use software that allows statistical interpretation of the given models (Stobierski, 2019). For example, one could use the Cronbach’s alpha or any other correlation analysis model that demonstrates the relationship of health, satisfaction, and attunement indicators during transition periods.
Algorithms or Flow Maps
The outcome of the study will be diagrams reflecting the trends identified during the trial using electronic data visualization tools. The defining feature will be a histogram showing the extent to which the overall recovery and well-being indicators (patient data) depend on trial time. The selection is based on the fact that, likely, qualitative data will not increase linearly over all three months. In addition, it may be appropriate to use new charts, figures, and tables to demonstrate structural differences in the identification of differences in service quality between participants of different ages or sexes.
References
Alert, S. E. (2017). Inadequate hand-off communication [PDF document]. Web.
Brown, M. M. (2018). Transitions of care. In T. P. Daaleman & M. R. Helton (Eds.), Chronic Illness Care (pp. 369-373). Springer.
Jackson, P. D., Biggins, M. S., Cowan, L., French, B., Hopkins, S. L., & Uphold, C. R. (2016). Evidence summary and recommendations for improved communication during care transitions. Rehabilitation Nursing, 41(3), 135-148. Web.
Mitchell, S. E., Laurens, V., Weigel, G. M., Hirschman, K. B., Scott, A. M., Nguyen, H. Q.,… & Gass, B. (2018). Care transitions from patient and caregiver perspectives. The Annals of Family Medicine, 16(3), 225-231. Web.
Rustad, E. C., Furnes, B., Cronfalk, B. S., & Dysvik, E. (2016). Older patients’ experiences during care transition. Patient Preference and Adherence, 10, 769-779. Web.
Stobierski, T. (2019). What is statistical modeling for data analysis? Northeastern University. Web.