Dr. Meleis' Transitions Theory, Nursing Essay Example

Reflect on the many challenges patients face in today's complex health care system, ranging from lack of access to necessary preventative services, lack of education regarding disease management to much-needed medication for tertiary care.

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In health care, the access to health care and especially preventive care is the primary objective when it comes to delivering a positive health outcome for patients. Coverage, services, and timeliness govern access to health care and preventive care services in modern healthcare systems. Many patients lack health insurance coverage, and as a result, they are unable to get care when it is needed and if they do the medical bills are too massive for them thus they succumb to illnesses. Services involve the need of an ongoing source of care such as a clinic for preventive care which enables them to acquire better health outcomes and at lower costs.

Another challenge includes the access to knowledge about disease management. Several patients succumb to diseases which evidently with prior knowledge about preventive and control measures to the management of the disease they would not have fallen ill. Disease management falls under a branch of health care called public health in which education about disease management can be shared with a community facilitated by public health practitioners. Another challenge is the discharge from primary care to tertiary care. Tertiary care depends on the availability and access to nurses and medication.

Having understood the nature of the transitions it is paramount that a healthcare system comes up with intervention and afterward must learn to recognize the transition experience for patients themselves. The response will require the even distribution of health care facilities in all populations without any form of bias and an adequate supply of advanced practice nurses. Social, cultural and economic factors significantly influence transition experiences, and it is therefore critical that the advanced practitioners take into consideration these factors. Access to health care is affected by health insurance coverage and a lack of healthcare facilities. Many patients do not understand the importance of insurance coverage, and this is facilitated by a lack of knowledge on the benefits of one.

It is therefore evident that an intervention such as the establishment of educational seminars and workshops run by nurses to educate patients on the importance of a health insurance coverage is absent (Meleis, 2010). The establishment of facilities for access to preventive health care has not been set up. Social factors such as racial and cultural diversity may also be a factor for failure to access preventive care services. It is therefore for this reason that the transition theory suggests the need for advanced medical nurses because they are well trained to be culturally diverse and non-racially biased. These enable the patient to have the confidence to access preventive care. Another intervention involves the increase in the number of nurses that take part in public health to ensure that a significant population is made aware of diseases and disease management methods. A lack of intervention is, therefore, evidence showing the reason as to why patients are unable to successfully make it through this transitions thereby resulting in reduced health delivery.

Analyze what the various roles that family nurse practitioners can or must play to facilitate change for patients and communities before, during and at the completion of transition are? The Power of Nurses.

A transition is a process that has a beginning and ending which is the case for many patients. The process is faced with many changes, and it is, therefore, the role of nurses to help patients facilitate the experiences through the switch and to promote proper health during the process and after the procedure. Nurses are required to support the patient understand the nature of the transition they are experiencing at a particular moment and what they may face in the future. All of this requires the nurse to provide knowledge and strategies that will enable them to psychologically and physically deal with the change (Meleis, 2015). For example, in the case of a family practitioner dealing with a case of HIV/AIDS infection in a family, the nurse will, first of all, diagnose their members of the family to check if they are infected. After doing this, she will brief them about HIV/AIDS, the various stages of the infection, how it is transmitted, how it can be prevented and in the process address multiple misconceptions surrounding the disease. She will then encourage the infected members and talk to the family members on the importance of providing the financial and psychological support to the infected member. She will also monitor the diet and use of medication of the infected person. This creates a feeling of satisfaction and well-being of the patient.

Nurses also need to understand the changes the transition will bring about whether, developmental, social or situational and through this, they will help the patient to make confident decisions. For example, using the HIV/AIDS situation, if one of the spouses if positive it may lead to a divorce or a broken marriage.

The nurse will, therefore, have to deal with the situation efficiently whereby the nurse may advise the couple on tips to live a happy life together with both spouses confident that the disease will not be transmitted to the other. The transition theory, therefore, requires that advanced medical practitioners not only provide care during a transition, but it is also during the period of an event and after the event. They should also research to identify areas during a development in which research is required and develop health care policies that will enable other advanced medical practitioners to deal with the critical situation efficiently in future.

References

http://videos.nursing.upenn.edu/index.php/panmcc-afaf-en/

Meleis, A. I. (2015). Transitions theory. Nursing theories and nursing practice, 361-380.

Meleis, A. I. (2010). Transitions theory: Middle range and situation specific approaches in nursing research and practice. Springer publishing company.