The 4 Areas of Patient Care

The 4 Areas of Patient Care

Patient care is the care or development of medical health through diagnosis, prevention, therapy, cure, rehabilitation, or recovery of illness, disease, injury, or other physical and mental disabilities in patients. Health care providers deliver patient care with specialized nurses, doctors, therapists, and other allied health care fields. The goal of patient care is to help the patient live a life as they would want to live. Patients receive medical treatments that are associated with their individual needs and conditions.

Nurses are the primary medical care providers for patients. They are usually the front line of patient care. They provide routine medical care such as administering medications, drawing blood, conducting physical examinations, and preparing patients for surgery. Some nurses specialize in specific medical fields such as pediatric, oncology, gynecology, men’s and women’s health, trauma, or pediatric. There are also nurses who are employed in nursing homes, retirement communities, or skilled nursing facilities.

The second area in patient care focuses on achieving positive outcomes. Positive outcomes include achieving minimal invasive surgical procedures, achieving expected mortality rates, preventing hospital admissions, achieving organ-oncological outcomes, and achieving overall health outcomes. Different approaches are used to achieve these results including educational, behavioral, psychosocial, technological, and interpersonal programs. All of these efforts strive to improve the quality of life of patients and families as well as to improve their health and the productivity of healthcare providers and hospitals.

Psychological therapy and counseling is used to support patients and families in managing stress and trauma and improving their overall health and well-being. Counseling helps families and healthcare professionals to deal with patients’ transitions from childhood to adulthood and deals with the change in physical and/or mental health and wellness and their coping strategies. Many healthcare professionals refer their patients to therapy in an effort to build better relationships and trust between patients and healthcare professionals. Counseling can be part of a integrated whole care health system or conducted on its own.

The third area of patient care focuses on achieving optimal outcomes. Optimal outcomes are those that are the most favorable result for patients and families. Possible outcomes could be anything from length of hospital stay to whether a patient dies. Optimal outcomes are continuously assessed throughout the entire health care system so that improvements can be made if need be and services can be improved where needed.

Patient care also includes emergency preparedness, follow up care, occupational therapists, physician triage, and other emergency medicine services. Emergency services include physicians, nurses, paramedics, and technicians who are ready to help at the first sign of a medical emergency. These emergency medical services may include the use of EMT’s, LPN’s, emergency room staff, and emergency trauma teams. In addition to the emergency services mentioned above, patient care professionals work to improve the quality of patients’ overall health care. This includes identifying and treating any problems before they become serious, monitoring patients after they leave the hospital, encouraging patients to participate in regular health programs, ensuring that all patients receive appropriate medical treatments, providing emotional support to patients with psychiatric conditions, and referring their patients to appropriate caregivers.