Home care services

The purpose of this nursing research study was to gain a deeper understanding of the experience of families receiving nursing care in the home. The question guiding the study was: What is the meaning (for families) of the experience of receiving nursing care in the home? Using van Manen's phenomenological approach, six families described their experience of receiving nursing care in their homes during taped conversational interviews. Following hermeneutical thematic analysis of the transcribed texts, one common metatheme emerged: Home Nursing Care Experienced within the Gestalt of Home Health Care. Four associated sub-themes emerged: (1) Being in Relationship with the Nurse; (2) Feeling Decreased Stress/Increased Comfort; (3) Having the Nurse as Family Advocate/Mediator; and (4) Finding the Way Through Chaos to Control.

With the increasing demands of rising medical costs in combination with a boom in elderly patients in need of quality patient care medical practices are being stressed. Patient to nurse ratios are increasing and government spending in the medical domain is at an all-time high threatening the futures of government medical programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. In this thesis we propose a framework for the monitoring of a patient's vital statistics in a home-based setting using a mobile smart device. We believe that in taking advantage of the wireless sensor technology which is readily available today we can provide a solution that is both economically and socially viable offering a solid quality of healthcare in a comfortable and familiar environment. Our framework exposes both 802.11 and Bluetooth wireless protocol transmitting medical sensor devices using an Android platform device as a monitoring hub.