No description available.

Quality of health care delivered in the public sector remains a major challenge with diminishing resources to meet the increasing health care demands. Improvements in quality health care are identified in the Department of Health’s strategic framework as a key challenge. In order to improve quality, one needs to measure it. The patients’ views are important in identifying what is important to them. Inexpensive, easy to collect metrics need to be developed to measure quality of care. The study investigated perceptions of patients as a reflection of quality of care provided. The study also determined the key success factors in quality care in emergency departments and priorities of quality of care for improvement. A prospective study was conducted using one of Gauteng hospitals’ emergency departments as a case study. A structured questionnaire based on an overall care index focusing on specific dimensions of patients’ experience with health care was used to collect the data. Quantitative analysis was done using the Epi Info statistical package and the results summarised in frequency diagrams and tables. The findings indicate that waiting time is a major factor in perception of quality of health care. Although other hospitality issues in health care are important to patients, the degree to which they affect perception of quality of health care is difficult to determine because of the overwhelming influence of waiting time. It is recommended that priorities in addressing what users really want from health care should concentrate on strategies to shorten the waiting time. It is further recommended that a similar study be carried out in future once the waiting times have been improved considerably thus eliminating its excessive influence. This may highlight other variables important to the patients that may need to be improved in order to improve quality of care. / Dr. Susan Jennifer Armstrong

Spiritual dimensions are an important focus for nursing care and nurses can be catalysts for spiritual care. The purpose of this descriptive comparative analysis is to examine the spiritual care needs as perceived by terminally ill clients, non-terminally ill clients, and well adults. The theoretical framework for this study is Leininger's "Cultural Care Theory" that supports the notion that spiritual care needs to be culturally congruent.Participants were obtained from a 225-bed hospital, hospice, home care, and a wellness program in a midwestern city. Permission was obtained from the hospital President, Vice President of Nursing, the directors of Hospice and Home Care, and the community's Wellness Program. The number of participants was 76. The process for the protection of human rights was followed.Findings were that terminally ill, non-terminally ill, and well-adults all agree that receiving spiritual care that is congruent with beliefs is important. The terminally ill clients rated spiritual needs higher than both non-terminally ill and well-adults. All groups rated the same in the persons from whom it was wished to receive spiritual care. Common themes of spiritual care desired from these persons for the terminally ill group was: pray for/with me and talk to me. For the non-terminally ill group it was: give me information, The understanding, and provide emotional and spiritual support. Finally, for the well-adults it was: listen to me, talk to me, be confident, and support me.No statistical difference between groups (.940) on the SPS. On the SPC, the terminally ill group was more satisfied (5.20) with spiritual support they were receiving than the non-terminally ill group or well-adults.It was concluded that regardless of the stage of illness, the same spiritual needs are prominent, all individuals have spiritual needs, and several types of interventions are preferred. It has been demonstrated in this study that prayer is the most sought after component of spiritual care among all three groups. Second to that would be someone to talk to and someone to listen to them.Implications call for nurses to facilitate spiritual care from family, friends, minister or priest, and hospital chaplain. This could be written into the plan of care by having the client describe the type of spiritual care they want to receive. Nursing Administration needs to work with nursing staff to define spirituality and religion and what they mean to the nurse. / School of Nursing