Children With Special Healthcare Needs Research

The routine need for healthcare services by children with special needs increases the costs of caring for such children presenting a key challenge not only to the healthcare system but also to the caregivers involved. Children with special needs present a significant population in the USA. A 2012 National Survey on children with special needs established that 14. 6 million of children (19. 8%) who are aged up to 17 years had special care needs. Nursing Interventions and Outcomes Nursing care process includes an assessment as a critical aspect in designing patient-centered interventions and one of the critical aspects of ensuring that the patient is involved and understands their care interventions. The assessment of children with special needs, mental illness or bipolar disorder is important in helping the nurses to identify the child's limitations, their abilities and also identify nursing interventions that are essential in modifying the limitations.

Assessment of the child includes the collaborative efforts of the multidisciplinary teams in health and includes the involvement of the family or guardians in the care of the child. Two important nursing interventions for children with special needs include behavior modification and teaching the children to learn basic skills such as meeting their daily activities of living, for example, feeding, mobility, toileting and communication among others (Lakhan, 2014). Another essential intervention by nurses for children with special needs, mental illness and bipolar disorder is the prudent medication management of the children (Olfson, Druss & Marcus, 2015). Behavior modification involves teaching the children and positive reinforcement for the children which helps them to achieve and maintain the desired behavior. Through the use of behavior modification, children with special needs such as those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are able to control impulses that are disruptive and learn more productive involvements (Pfiffner & Haack, 2014) Behavioral interventions and the use of medical management in children improvs their outcomes through ensuring that the children have a positive outcome that includes improvement in their cognitive functions and intellect, developing adoptive behaviors that enable them to positively participate in community and skills that enable them to become more independent through managing their daily activities of living (Dall'Alba, Gray, Williams & Lowe, 2014).

The management of the children with mental and psychiatric disorders through behavior modification and medication management provides a multifaceted approach to care which also involves a multi-professional team hence ensuring positive outcomes. Quality Improvement Initiative and Patient Care Quality of patient care is an imperative aspect that ensures that patient needs are adequately and judiciously addressed. Quality improvement is a gradual and an ongoing process that aims to better the processes through which patient needs are addressed, methods through which patient procedures are implemented and utilizing evidence-based information to ensure interventions are up-to-date and of high quality (Zoutman & Ford, 2017). Multi-professional involvement in the assessment, diagnosis, and care of the children with special needs as well as family involvement are also part of the critical patient care improvement interventions that nurses can utilize in ensuring appropriate patient care is maintained.

Nursing, Quality, and Outcomes Nurses are the core in the management and care of the patient and at that contribute immensely to the patient outcomes and the patient's experience of care. Nurses perform most of the primary patient interventions and are best placed to implement quality improvement interventions that touch on patient needs. It is imperative for the nurses to be involved in the quality improvement as it promotes the adoption and utilization of the quality improvement interventions as well as the continuous monitoring of the quality improvement to ensure its success. Nurses according to the Institute of Medicine report on the future of nursing should be involved in the quality improvement processes as they are adequately trained and possess skills in research and hence can positively contribute to policy development and evidence-based practice which is critical in quality improvement.