Reflective Aged Care Essay: Learning Experience From Stayyoungstayalive
Question
Task: To reflect means reviewing our inner processes of thinking and feeling. John Dewey, a key originator of thinking about reflection sees it as a special form of problem solving, which requires qualities of open-mindedness, responsibility and self-awareness. Schön emphasises the concept of ‘reflection-in-action’, where the reflective practitioner evaluates intuitive understandings intrinsic to experience as a guide to action. This ‘on-the-spot’ processing is different from retrospective contemplation, which typifies most reflection on learning.
This essay will require your thinking to go through the following levels and have your essay arrive at the third, the critical level.
- the technical or evaluative level – students typically start at the first level, mostly describing and evaluating their experiences, with little connection to theory
- the practical or sense-making level – most progress to the second level, making sense of their experiences or learning in the light of theoretical understandings
- the critical level – students tend to find the third level the most challenging, as it requires a capacity to critically examine the values, beliefs and assumptions underlying their actions.
The Essay Question:
Identify from your experience at least 1 event/scenario where you have applied, or failed to apply, Project Management Theory. This can for example be during one of the 5 process groups (Initiating; Planning; Executing; Monitoring and controlling; or Closing) or focussed on one or more of the 10 knowledge areas (see the textbook, page 11). If there is no prior experience reflect on the experience of project managing the Old Farm House Project.
Reflect on this/these event(s) by:
- giving a short description of the event/scenario,
- analysing the event/scenario using the literature[1], and
- reflecting on the event/scenario to identify how you can modify future outcomes when you are managing a project.
To help you in this assessment there will be a seminar on Reflective Writing in Week 4.
[1] This will be where you will use theory to evaluate and present most of your references
Answer
Introduction
The 5R framework had been developed in the aged care essay for providing critical reflection about the activities I had experienced while doing the project work. The 5R framework consists of a total of five core stages they are reporting, responding, relating, reasoning and reconstructing. I will use this total of five frameworks illustrated in the aged care essay to analyse my own learning experience for building an aged care nursing home in New Zealand.
Reporting
Description of the situation
The aged care nursing home will be going to health, mental and physical support for the older people who are in need of medical attention or daily living. The nursing home provides permanent residential care for all the old people who are on no need of hospital or the family members are not able to make time to take care of the older people. The aged care nursing home provides nursing facilities that have very high responsibilities to be in charge for taking care of patients (Sugimoto et al., 2018). The nursing homes provide short-rehabilitation but the aged care nursing home will provide long-rehabilitation for only an older person whose family members have no time to take care of them. The name of the aged home care nursing home that I had worked on was “StayYoungStayAlive” located in New Zealand. I had worked this project as the Marketing manager where I had to provide a marketing campaign for the new care aged care nursing home.
What is the reason for choosing the project explored in the aged care essay?
The majority of aged care homes do not provide health care services to the older person. The basic aged care homes consist of assistants who take care of the older people whose family members have no time to take care of them. The new aged care nursing home “StayYoungStayAlive” will provide different medical services like physical therapy, speech-language therapy, occupational throaty, housekeeping service and nursing service for all the older people. The majority of the older people presently receive emotional and physical abuse or verbal threats which results in depression, anxiety and mood swings for the old person (Morawska et al., 2017). The registered nurse will be going to monitor and assess the old residents. The aged care nursing home had used smart technology like CCTV, temperature sensor, alarm bell, medical report and other activities in the form of an android or iOS application for the smartphone and smart TV.
Responding
The personal response related to the project
In this section of aged care essay, I would like to mention that I am amazed to see that the aged care nursing home “StayYoungStayAlive” had planned to use the smart technology for both the old person and employees. None of the aged care homes and nursing homes had used smart technology like our aged home care nursing home (Westbury et al., 2018). As the marketing manager, I had to identify the best interface for the smartphone and smart TV application which would help both the employees and old aged patients to be communicated among themselves inside the premises. The total budget that had been provided for the particular project was about 1,450,000 AUS$ for creating the “StayYoungStayAlive” aged nursing home in New Zealand.
Utilisation of the skills and knowledge for the project
For creating the android or iOS application as discussed in the aged care essay I had to hire the expert programmers who had put up hard work to create the best application for “StayYoungStayAlive”. The application consists of medical reports, CCT footage record, chat system, video calling, voice calling, media share and separate alarm bell system for the patients, nurse, assistance and doctors (Hibbert et al., 2019). The old person using a video call, chat system or voice calling can stay connected with the outside world, doctors and nurses when they are staying in “StayYoungStayAlive”. The doctor, nurse and family members of the old person can access the regular medication routine, medical report and daily diet of the old person using the “StayYoungStayAlive” smart application.
Relating
Theoretical understanding of the situation
For recruiting the best candidates for this project I and the project manager had to provide a recruitment campaign. During the recruitment campaign, I had recruited marketing assistants, labors and programmers or UI developers to make the project “StayYoungStayAlive” successful. Before the recruitment program, I had provided the research proposal to the New Zealand government for so that they would provide the fund to our new company for protecting the old aged person who is in need of emergency health and daily needs which the family members were not able to make time for them. According to the research on aged care essay, “StayYoungStayAlive” would be going to allow the older people who are above 60-65 years old. Any younger than the given age must need to have a disability for getting eligibility in the aged care rushing home (Arendts et al., 2018). The total number of beds the aged care nursing home “StayYoungStayAlive” was equal to 650 beds. “StayYoungStayAlive” aged care nursing home would be targeting to extend their service to other regions if the business is successful for about 3 next years.
Identifying the skills and knowledge used for the project
I was very happy when the New Zealand government had accepted our proposal and provided fund money of about 4,00,000 AUS$ to make the aged care nursing home successful. The rest of the budget had been provided by the owner of “StayYoungStayAlive” which was about 7,50,000 AUS$. The budget that had been provided by the owner of the “StayYoungStayAlive” and New Zealand government had the project feasible according to the given time. The total time that had been provided to us for the completion of the “StayYoungStayAlive” project was equivalent to 1 year which was great challenging.
During half completion of the project illustrated in the aged care essay, I had started to market the new aged care nursing home to the public in the newspaper, hoardings, social media, radio and television with the help of recruited marketing assistant. I and the project manager named John Smith had to make sure that we had tested the new web application every three months regularly so that none of the employees and customers faces any issues. I had to buy furniture, medical equipment, beds, chairs, desks and other related things that are required for the nursing home according to the budget. Majority of the materials I had bought from the Asian market where I had got good quality furniture and medical equipment at a cheap price.
Reasoning
Explanation of the issue
However, it is noted in the aged care essay that I am not allowed to use medical supplies from other countries without the permission of the government. I need to make sure that the equipment that had been bought by me from various companies does not have a faulty. All the bills of the materials had been provided to the project manager and project sponsored for this particular project work illustrated in the aged care essay. I had made contact with the Pharmacy Direct who would provide supplies of medicine at a 35% discount rate which was cheaper than the physical stores. However, the main issue that I had to face during the progress of the project is guiding the UI developers about the design that had to create for the “StayYoungStayAlive” nursing home.
The majority of the times the UI developers found numerous bugs while testing the smart application that I had planned to create. I had to buy the CCTV cameras which will be installed in every corner of the rooms so that the owner and other senior executives must able to track the movements of the employees and patients inside the premises. Creating authorization priority for each stakeholder in the smart application was crucial otherwise every employee would able to get hold of confidential information that they are not allowed seeing (Jokanovic et al., 2017). Any type of security breach in the smart application will be going to jeopardize the whole business.
The reason the issues had occurred
For this reason as stated in the context of aged care essay, I need to make sure that the project manager “StayYoungStayAlive” is following the right project methodology for the completion of the project. I had suggested the project manager to agile to use agile project methodology because creating a smart aged care nursing home is very complex. The project manager had accepted my request and the project had moved smoothly. Making an agreement with the construction workers was another challenge for me because the majority of the project budget would be spent on construction network and creating a smart application for mobile and television.
The project manager had to make a deal with the construction workers with the total price of 7,00,000 AUS$ for creating the “StayYoungStayAlive” building. According to the project budget highlighted in the aged care essay I had to utilize a total of 2,00,000 AUS$ for promotion activities. I had followed strict state and federal legislatures to ensure the “StayYoungStayAlive” building was being constructed under the building codes and no neighbour or society had been disturbed during the construction process. The recreational staffs include all the assistants that are dependent on the nursing home size. The activities that would be followed in the “StayYoungStayAlive” aged care nursing home would be going to meet the residents' needs. “StayYoungStayAlive” would be going to meet the social, spiritual, intellectual, vocational and spiritual needs. However, providing the details of the “StayYoungStayAlive” aged care nursing home in this aged care essay, it is clear that social media at first was a mistake because we did not get any response? For next project, I had to spend money on Facebook, Google and Instagram advertisement campaigns to gain all the targeted audience. The majority of the old person that we were targeting does not use social media or computer device.
Reconstructing
Summary of the issue
The company “StayYoungStayAlive” chosen in the present context of aged care essay had to hire a well-experienced nurse and assistant, who would help the old aged person to use the smart devices, take medicines and other daily activities inside the premises. Utilization of the agile methodology had incurred a huge cost for the “StayYoungStayAlive” owner. For this reason, the project manager of “StayYoungStayAlive” was not able to hire more talented doctors for the nursing home which was a great downward. The project manager had to increase the total budget of the project if “StayYoungStayAlive” needs to recruit specialized doctors. This is where I had stepped in with a suggestion which made the owner very happy. I had suggested the project manager recruit young talented doctors for the “StayYoungStayAlive” nursing home. However, expert doctors will be called for special purposes if any of the aged old people require high attention by special doctors.
I had to contact some talented doctors in New Zealand to get different names of young talented doctors who would be a great fit for the “StayYoungStayAlive” aged care nursing home. The majority of the young doctors in New Zealand had shown high interest to participate in the new project to make it successful first in New Zealand. The company for some year had to pay huge expenses if the business does not work out well in the future. The pricing strategy is one of the major parts to make the “StayYoungStayAlive” business successful. It is stated herein aged care essay that for the next project, I had to examine all the packages or prices that are being charged by the nursing home or aged care homes to every visitor. After that, I had to analyse the expenses that would be incurred inside the premises every annual year. Through this examination, the project manager and I need to decide the package we had to charge each old client so that their first preference wills always our team to improve the service.
Action Plan
Creating an action plan on the given case scenario of aged care essay will help me to strengthen all the weaknesses that I had identified during the progress of the project work. The action plan that I need to follow are as follows:
1. |
To study the project background before applying the project methodology |
2. |
Creating regular meetings with the team members at different premises to make them motivate |
3. |
Utilize new marketing strategies for each project to the same |
4. |
Improving my own communication skills |
5. |
Improving personal technical skills |
Conclusion
From the overall analysis of the 5Rs framework done within this aged care essay, it could be found out that for making the project successful I need to be well being experienced with the project background. I need to improve my skills and knowledge for communicating with the team more confidentially so that it does not experience any negative environment during the progress of the project work.
Reference
Arendts, G., Deans, P., O’Brien, K., Etherton-Beer, C., Howard, K., Lewin, G., & Sim, M. (2018). A clinical trial of nurse practitioner care in residential aged care facilities. Aged care essay Archives of gerontology and geriatrics, 77, 129-132.
Hibbert, P.D., Wiles, L.K., Cameron, I.D., Kitson, A., Reed, R.L., Georgiou, A., Gray, L., Westbrook, J., Augustsson, H., Molloy, C.J. and Arnolda, G., 2019. CareTrack Aged: the appropriateness of care delivered to Australians living in residential aged care facilities: a study protocol. BMJ open, 9(6), p.e030988.
Jokanovic, N., Wang, K.N., Dooley, M.J., Lalic, S., Tan, E.C., Kirkpatrick, C.M. and Bell, J.S., 2017. Prioritizing interventions to manage polypharmacy in Australian aged care facilities. Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, 13(3), pp.564-574.
Morawska, L., Ayoko, G.A., Bae, G.N., Buonanno, G., Chao, C.Y.H., Clifford, S., Fu, S.C., Hänninen, O., He, C., Isaxon, C. and Mazaheri, M., 2017. Airborne particles in indoor environment of homes, schools, offices and aged care facilities: The main routes of exposure. Environment international, 108, pp.75-83.
Sugimoto, K., Ogata, Y. and Kashiwagi, M., 2018. Factors promoting resident deaths at aged care facilities in J apan: a review. Health & social care in the community, 26(2), pp.e207-e224.
Westbury, J.L., Gee, P., Ling, T., Brown, D.T., Franks, K.H., Bindoff, I., Bindoff, A. and Peterson, G.M., 2018. RedUSe: reducing antipsychotic and benzodiazepine prescribing in residential aged care facilities. Aged care essay Medical Journal of Australia, 208(9), pp.398-403.