Providing inclusive, person-centred care for LGBT+ older adults: A discussion on health and social care design and delivery

Behavioral Patterns of Supply and Demand Sides of Health Services for the Elderly in Sustainable Digital Transformation: A Mixed Methods Study

The aging transformation of digital health services faces issues of how to distinguish influencing factors, redesign services, and effectively promote measures and policies. In this study, in-depth interviews were conducted, and grounded theory applied to open coding, main axis coding, and selective coding to form concepts and categories. Trajectory equifinality modeling clarified the evolution logic of digital transformation. Based on the theory of service ecology, a digital health service aging model was constructed from the “macro–medium–micro” stages and includes governance, service, and technology transformation paths. The macro stage relies on organizational elements to promote the institutionalization of management and guide the transformation of governance for value realization, including the construction of three categories: mechanism, indemnification, and decision-making. The meso stage relies on service elements to promote service design and realize service transformation that is suitable for aging design, including the construction of three categories: organization, resources, and processes. The micro stage relies on technical elements to practice experiencing humanization, including the construction of three categories: target, methods, and evaluation. These results deepen the understanding of the main behaviors and roles of macro-organizational, meso-service, and micro-technical elements in digital transformation practice and have positive significance for health administrative agencies to implement action strategies.

Providing inclusive, person-centred care for LGBT+ older adults: A discussion on health and social care design and delivery

Aim

To examine how health system design and delivery can fail to support the needs of LGBT+ older adults.

Background

LGBT+ older adults face barriers in access to care, impacting their ability to receive person‐centred care in old age, which is central to the prevention and management of frailty, disability and disease.

Evaluation

Using a conceptual framework of access to care, this commentary illustrates issues LGBT+ older adults may face in accessing health and social care services in Ireland, and provides examples of how access may be improved from the published international literature.

Key issue(s)

Health policies, service design and delivery all impact on the ability of the health system to meet the needs of LGBT+ older adults across all levels and types of care.

Conclusion

Heteronormativity and discrimination must be addressed across the whole health system to achieve the health policy goal of supporting all older adults to enjoy health and well‐being.

Implications for nursing management

We suggest nursing professionals use a systems perspective to address the multilevel issues relating to care for LGBT+ older adults. Researchers in gerontological nursing should include the experiences and outcomes of service utilization for LGBT+ older adults in their research agenda.