“In long term and post-acute care (LT/PAC), innovation will happen as providers begin to embrace fusion with well-deserving collaborators.”
Recently, many long-term care facilities have been incorporating education into their senior care. When long term care facilities team up with colleges, and education is fused into senior living facilities, it creates a system that is passionate, state of the art, and very effective. When seniors undergo surgery in such a setting they experience a unique care setting and are able to get home faster, with more comfort and less pain.
When education is incorporated, and encouraged, in a senior home, procedures and therapies become more effective and customized. This is a great benefit to senior’s physical care. On top of these tangible benefits, when education is fused into the senior facilities the seniors become more interested in continued learning themselves. This has shown extreme benefits to their mental health and their cognitive function.
The fusion of academia and senior care also revitalizes the current care given to seniors. Care will not become stagnant, stuck, or monotonous because there is continual growth, research, and revitalization in the senior homes.
When academia is fused in with senior care, the environment becomes passionate and passion effects change. Caregivers and seniors alike create an environment of mentoring, learning, growth, and life enrichment.
Infusing academia into senior care, not only benefits the seniors, it benefits the students as well. It creates more jobs, more learning opportunities, and increases the value of practicum and training. If senior homes pare with colleges, more students receive robust clinical, volunteer, and hospitality training, which, in turn, produces job-ready, skilled graduates.
Combining college-age students and seniors also begins to close the communication gap of the generations. The young and senior can teach each other and show the value they bring to the other perspective. This mentorship relationship also improves the communication skills of both the young and the seniors.
Fusing senior care with academia not only benefits the students and the seniors. It also benefits the general community. The community reaps the benefits of the increased job opportunities, workers entering the workforce with more skill and experience, and revitalization of the entry-level medical field.
As is well known in the senior healthcare world, there is no known cure for Alzheimer’s and dementia. When academia is incorporated more thoroughly into senior care homes, dementia and Alzheimer’s care is up-to-date, and the chance for improvement, and maybe one day cure, is also improved greatly.
http://www.providermagazine.com/columns/Pages/2018/Education-and-Senior-Care-Fusion-Creating-New-Models-of-Care-Delivery.aspx