Health, Promoting Good Practice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Health, Promoting Good Practice - Essay Example She is currently on an acute mixed ward for older people; this is her 3rd day of hospital stay. Mrs Marie Brown lives alone in her own 4 bedroom detached house in the suburbs of the city. Her husband died 4 months ago from cancer. She had been married 58 years. She has one daughter who lives nearby called Claire. She works full time, but helps with shopping and housework(1). Mrs Brown keeps a large amount of cash in the house to pay bills rather than use the bank. Marie's nationality is French and English is not her first language. Marie has exhibited signs of short term memory problems since the death of her husband and has recently started to revert to her mother tongue of French. Mrs Marie Brown has osteoporosis and chronic obstructive airways disease. She uses a nebuliser 3 times a day to assist her breathing. She becomes short of breath on exertion. (Becomes short of breath when she moves around). Prior to admission Mrs Marie Brown could shuffle a short distance of 5-6 steps, whilst using her zimmer frame. She sleeps in one of her downstairs rooms, with a commode next to the bed and her armchair is within easy reach. At present she is unable to stand by herself and requires assistance of one person for toileting and personal care. A home carer attends twice a day, to assist with a.m. getting up, washed and dressed and making breakfast. They also attend in the evening to assist Mrs Brown to get undressed and into bed. The home carers hold keys to the house. Professionals Involved prior to admission A social worker (SW) for older people, from social services (SS) has assessed Mrs Brown following the death of her husband. The SW has arranged for the care package (Home Care and Meals on Wheels) to be in place. An Occupational Therapist, (Also from SS) has assessed Mrs Brown and has recommended and arranged for a commode, zimmer frame and bed and chair to be raised. The patient chosen for the purpose of this essay will be referred to as Mrs. Marie Brown. Mrs. Marie Brown is 78 year old women who suffer with rheumatoid arthritis. This also resulted in Brown having bilateral hip replacements. Brown is on steroid treatment, which leads to thinning of the skin and susceptibility to trauma (Mallet and Dougherty 2001). Brown lives with her husband and two grown up sons. Brown was refereed to the district nurse on her discharge from hospital following her second hip replacement. The initial referral was to check the surgical wound. However on arrival it was pointed out by Brown that she had a skin tear on her left shin that wasn't healing. The district nurse performed an assessment and concluded the wound was a venous leg ulcer as it had been present for 6 weeks. The district nurses used Sorbisan and Telfa to dress the wound. Twice weekly visits were carried out to Joe for a further 4 weeks, and it became obvious that the ulcer was not improving. The d istrict nurse had to make a decision on what care to provide. The decision was to try another dressing Aticoat which is impregnated with silver, and not to refer the

Accountability, representation & control Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Accountability, representation & control - Essay Example Accounting is the means to measure performance and maintain control in the organization. All organizations and businesses utilize some form of accounting whether it is basic ledgers or management and cost accounting. Accounting is the means to identify elements of sales, expenditure and profit as well as budgets, inventory and forecasts. Thus it is a method of achieving accountability as it monitors and accounts for every financial transaction and thus keeps a check on fraud, embezzlement and suspicious acts within the firm. However, accounts focuses on quantitative rather than qualitative data. It does not measure qualitative performance data such as satisfaction, achievement of goals, job commitment and quality among others. Accounting does not take into account the environmental degradation, labor practices, work environment and safety rules and regulations. Thus the issue of whether accountability in an organization is best measured by accounting is a complex one. Accountability is the willingness to assume responsibility for one’s actions. In the organizational context, every employee is responsible for his actions at the workplace and thus he should be held accountable for them. In order to be effective in maintaining accountability within the organization, organizations need to be focused on setting goals that are measurable and train employees to feel accountable for their actions. Consequences of their actions should be predefined and communicated and the organization should implement the rules that it has set. (Building Organizational Accountability). Apart from internal accountability, the concept of the organization being accountable for its actions is extremely important. As organizations develop into powerful systems that affect the world and its citizens they need to be held accountable for their decisions and policies. Accountability in the financial context does control performance and finance; however it is not really effective in contr olling child labor and sweat shops. Is accounting the most effective means of achieving accountability in organizations? All organizations are involved in book keeping; they keep accounts of their costs and expenditure and their sales and revenues. This results in accountability of the actions of managers and employees. At a higher level for corporations, audits provide accountability for processes and procedures as well as transparency and accuracy of accounting records. Internal audits result in employees being accountable to the company for their actions and external audits result in the organization being accountable for its procedures and policies. The Enron case resulted in stricter guidelines for organizations regarding representation, transparency and control. The Sarbanes Oxley 302 and 404 focus on corporate governance and practices that better control the organization’s practices and prevent corruption. However, as accounting and auditing deal invariably with financ ial aspects and maximization of shareholder value, it is vital to establish the basics of accounting which is cost. The concept of cost is the fundamental of finance. However, in accounting cost is monetary cost associated with consumption of resources whereas in economics cost includes opportunity cost which is the cost of foregone alternatives. In actuality, consumption of a resource leads to many costs including the cost to society, cost to environment and other living things for example; an organization manufacturing furniture will only take into account the cost of labor, materials and processes but not the costs of deforestation and environmental degradation. Thus the concept of cost used in accounting is limited and hence every control or measure implemented by accounting methods is limited to that definition of cost that does not hold the organization for costs it imposes on others. (M. Chwastiak) This results in the