Health promotion and illness prevention activities focused on older adults have been advocated as a mechanism for both improving the quality of life and decreasing health care expenditures. However, there is a dearth of evidence on the effectiveness of health promotion programs for community dwelling older adults. There are even fewer studies that identify the most frequently provided nursing interventions and analyze the nursing-sensitive outcomes in these settings.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of Health S.E.T., an agency providing health promotion and disease prevention nursing care and other health services to older adults living in 14 senior high-rise apartments in a large metropolitan area. Health promotion clinics and a care management program are the two programs provided by the agency. The research design is a program evaluation based on the W.K. Kellogg Foundation model of program evaluation (1998). In addition, identification of the most common nursing interventions provided in the programs using the Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC) system (Center for Nursing Classification & Clinical Effectiveness, 2004) is included. Assessment of NICs assisted in determining whether or not there is evidence of nursing-sensitive program outcomes based on the Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) outcomes for community-dwelling older adults (Head, Maas, & Johnson, 2003) and ANA Community-based Nursing Quality Indicators (Sawyer, et al., 2002).

Study results revealed that the Health S.E.T. Health Promotion Clinics are effective in monitoring client health status and assisting clients in obtaining needed health and social service resources. The most frequently identified NICs provided at the clinics were several categories of client education, monitoring of vital signs, listening, counseling, screening, referrals, and assistance with negotiating the health care system. The Care Management program uses similar NICs as well as NICs that focus more on working with families and caregivers, providing case management, and assisting clients with coping and decision-support. Nursing-sensitive outcomes were found in the Health Promotion clinics that related to client satisfaction and functional status along with components of self-care for instrumental activities of daily living, treatment behavior for illness and injury, and some areas of knowledge related to health behavior.