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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Doctor, Did You Check Your Checklist? from Kaiser Health News
When Frances Barnes had a stroke in August 2008, she was taken by ambulance to Howard University Hospital. The 80-year-old grandmother was there for about two weeks when she began complaining about pain in her legs. Her daughter Althea Hart pulled back her mother’s blankets and noticed a strange odor.
Hart thought the smell was coming from the compression stockings wrapped around Barnes’s legs to help with circulation, so she took them off. She found that her mother’s left foot had turned black.
Hospital staff had failed to follow physician orders, which required taking off the compression stockings after each shift for at least 30 minutes, according to a DC Department of Health investigation.
"We called a nurse right away, and they tried to heal her infection," says Patricia Moss, another of Barnes's daughters. "But they couldn't."
For the full article please go here.
Hart thought the smell was coming from the compression stockings wrapped around Barnes’s legs to help with circulation, so she took them off. She found that her mother’s left foot had turned black.
Hospital staff had failed to follow physician orders, which required taking off the compression stockings after each shift for at least 30 minutes, according to a DC Department of Health investigation.
"We called a nurse right away, and they tried to heal her infection," says Patricia Moss, another of Barnes's daughters. "But they couldn't."
For the full article please go here.
Protecting Yourself from Hospital Complications from Bettermedicine.com
Protecting Yourself from Hospital Complications
People are born, mended, and consoled in hospitals, hopefully without incident and undue harm. Doing no harm is the ethical guiding principle of doctors, nurses and hospitals. It is what we, as patients and consumers of healthcare, hope for the moment we walk through the hospital door.
But not all hospitals are created equal and on occasion complications arise – in both good and inadequate medical facilities.
What Is a Hospital Complication?
A hospital complication is any condition that arises while you are in the hospital that is unlikely to be related to your condition when you were first admitted. Complications often prolong your stay or cause you to be readmitted to the hospital. One measure used as a marker to evaluate hospital effectiveness is to compare complication rates among hospitals side by side. In this way, you can determine if one hospital has more or less complications than another hospital for a specific procedure or surgery.
For the full article please go here.
People are born, mended, and consoled in hospitals, hopefully without incident and undue harm. Doing no harm is the ethical guiding principle of doctors, nurses and hospitals. It is what we, as patients and consumers of healthcare, hope for the moment we walk through the hospital door.
But not all hospitals are created equal and on occasion complications arise – in both good and inadequate medical facilities.
What Is a Hospital Complication?
A hospital complication is any condition that arises while you are in the hospital that is unlikely to be related to your condition when you were first admitted. Complications often prolong your stay or cause you to be readmitted to the hospital. One measure used as a marker to evaluate hospital effectiveness is to compare complication rates among hospitals side by side. In this way, you can determine if one hospital has more or less complications than another hospital for a specific procedure or surgery.
For the full article please go here.
Electronic Medical Records Still Need Work, Report Says from Huffington Post
WASHINGTON — America may be a technology-driven nation, but the health care system's conversion from paper to computerized records needs lots of work to get the bugs out, according to experts who spent months studying the issue.
Hospitals and doctors' offices increasingly are going digital, the Bipartisan Policy Center says in a report being released Friday. But there's been little progress getting the computer systems to talk to one another, exchanging data the way financial companies do.
"The level of health information exchange in the U.S. is extremely low," the report says.
At the consumer level, few people maintain a personal health record on their laptop or electronic tablet, partly due to concerns about privacy, security and accuracy that the government hasn't resolved.
"How will sensitive health data be kept confidential and secure in digital data-sharing environments?" the report asks. "Many consumers ... are waiting for a reassuring answer to this question."
For the full article please go here.
Hospitals and doctors' offices increasingly are going digital, the Bipartisan Policy Center says in a report being released Friday. But there's been little progress getting the computer systems to talk to one another, exchanging data the way financial companies do.
"The level of health information exchange in the U.S. is extremely low," the report says.
At the consumer level, few people maintain a personal health record on their laptop or electronic tablet, partly due to concerns about privacy, security and accuracy that the government hasn't resolved.
"How will sensitive health data be kept confidential and secure in digital data-sharing environments?" the report asks. "Many consumers ... are waiting for a reassuring answer to this question."
For the full article please go here.
Friday, January 27, 2012
5 Common Marketing Blunders that Health Care Providers Make from Nurse Together
Most health care providers who have a clinical practice, or any type of business where they rely on clients, will need to market in order to sustain and grow that practice and business. While knowing how to market is essential, it's also just as valuable to know what you should not be doing when you are marketing. Today let's focus on the five of the most common marketing blunders I see health care providers make.
For the full article please go here.
For the full article please go here.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Data: Medicaid Eligibility Remained Stable in 2011 from H and HN
The number of Americans eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program remained relatively stable in 2011, a new report from the Kaiser Commission on the Uninsured finds. The report found that 11 states expanded eligibility for Medicaid or CHIP in 2011, which was attributed in part to Affordable Care Act provisions that require states to maintain existing coverage. Eight states expanded eligibility for children, while three offered increased coverage of parents and other adults.
Among the other findings:
For the full article please go here.
Among the other findings:
For the full article please go here.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Using Evidence to Motivate Hospital Employees from H and HN
All too often, we miss out on opportunities to learn from another area of our business. One clinical approach that can be emulated throughout the hospital is evidence-based practice, which integrates current research, caregiver perspectives and experience, and patient preferences. [For more information, see Evidence-Based Practice in Nursing & Healthcare by B. Melnyk and E. Fineout-Overholt;Philadelphia, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2005.]
Physicians and nursing professionals have been using EBP in various forms since the 1970s to improve patient care outcomes. Its longevity is due to its documented success in many different areas, including infection prevention and patient falls.
In more recent years, scholars have studied and written about evidence-based leadership and evidence-based management. A logical progression in this thinking is evidence-based employee engagement. Employees are engaged when they are satisfied (they like what they do), energized (they put effort behind it) and productive (their work contributes to organizational goals). Leaders who are effective in engaging others are facilitators of the engagement process. Because no one external source can motivate an employee, providing an environment that encourages intrinsic motivators is critical.
For the full article please go here.
Physicians and nursing professionals have been using EBP in various forms since the 1970s to improve patient care outcomes. Its longevity is due to its documented success in many different areas, including infection prevention and patient falls.
In more recent years, scholars have studied and written about evidence-based leadership and evidence-based management. A logical progression in this thinking is evidence-based employee engagement. Employees are engaged when they are satisfied (they like what they do), energized (they put effort behind it) and productive (their work contributes to organizational goals). Leaders who are effective in engaging others are facilitators of the engagement process. Because no one external source can motivate an employee, providing an environment that encourages intrinsic motivators is critical.
For the full article please go here.
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