Abstract
BackgroundFrail seniors often receive ineffective care, which does not meet their needs. It is still unclear how healthcare systems should be redesigned to be more sensitive to the needs and values of frail seniors and their caregivers. We thus aimed to describe key stakeholders’ perspectives on the current healthcare and services available to frail seniors.MethodsIn this qualitative descriptive study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 42 frail seniors, caregivers, clinicians, or healthcare administrators/decision makers involved in frail senior care from five Canadian provinces. We explored participants’ perspectives on the quality of care and services for frail seniors. We used an inductive/deductive thematic data analysis approach based on the Square-of-Care model, including emerging themes using the constant comparison method.ResultsWe grouped participants’ perspectives into strengths, weaknesses and opportunities for improvement, and then into nine themes: care processes, continuity of care, social frailty, access to healthcare and services, models of healthcare delivery, cost of care, healthcare staff management and professional development of healthcare providers, material resources and environmental design of healthcare facilities, and coordination of care. Our findings suggest redesigning assessment, communication with frail seniors and their caregivers, targeting care and services to the needs, and integrating care better across settings and in time.ConclusionsA systematic identification of frail older people is the first step to adapt healthcare systems to this population’s needs. Participation of frail older people and their caregivers to decision making would also allow choosing care plans meeting their care goals. The integration of care and services across settings, over time, and with various providers, is also needed to meet frail senior needs.
Highlights
Frailty is a clinically recognizable state of vulnerability caused by aging-associated decline across multiple physiologic systems, which compromise the ability to cope with normal or minor stresses [1]
In the other provinces where we used posters in geriatric clinics, recruitment of frail seniors or their caregivers remained unsuccessful despite all efforts
Most of the participating healthcare providers (HCP) were physicians (n = 11), and more than half specialized in geriatric care
Summary
Frailty is a clinically recognizable state of vulnerability caused by aging-associated decline across multiple physiologic systems, which compromise the ability to cope with normal or minor stresses [1] Compared to their age-matched non-frail counterparts, frail seniors are at much higher risk of fall, infection, hospitalization, institutionalization, and death [1, 2]. Many community-dwelling frail seniors do not receive continuing care by the same provider, which results in (preventable) visits to emergency rooms and medical escalation [10]. Such gaps in care may introduce additional health risks, unnecessary financial and social costs associated with recurrent admissions, loss of independence and diminished quality of life [8]. We aimed to describe key stakeholders’ perspectives on the current healthcare and services available to frail seniors
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