Mending the fabric of America's healthcare system with quality, safety, and the nursing process
“Never be afraid of open windows … .” ~ Florence Nightingale, 1860. This timeless adage came back to relevance during a phone call last week. When asked by a director of nursing at a nursing home in LA County whether his staff may open windows to give isolated residents fresh air, I froze. I told myself, “This is exactly what Florence Nightingale preached.” However, I […]
I have a friend. Let’s call her Jill. Jill is a middle-aged woman who leads a healthy and active lifestyle, and has since childhood. Last Spring/Summer, Jill began experiencing stressors in her personal and family life. Over a six-month period of time, these stressors started to manifest physically, as evidenced by significant weight loss and cardiovascular symptoms. Upon seeking medical attention, Jill encountered a multitude […]
During Prohibition, “Bathtub Gin” (a spirit made at home by amateurs) caused documented instances of sickness and death among American citizens. As cannabis legalization rolls-out across America, cannabis vaping concentrates manufactured for and sold on the black market exhibit a similar public health risk. Over the past year, users of cannabis vaping products following national news and public health concerns may have lost their spark […]
On 11/12/19, at 1:00 p.m. EST, the American Nurses Association (ANA) hosted a webinar (Title, Managing legal issues in nursing leadership) describing the intersection of day-to-day nursing leadership and the law. The offering was educational and free (as part of ANA membership). Nurse managers and risk managers were its intended audience. During the webinar, the Presenter (Edie Brous, Esq., PC) provided a global survey of […]
I had an experience the other day that made me re-think the importance of customer service as it relates to volunteer programs at healthcare organizations. The fact of the matter is this: many volunteer programs don’t teach the skills necessary to allow volunteers to competently interact with the customer at the point-of-service. Healthcare likely presents one of the most common human-to-human interactions in the daily […]
In his recent New Yorker article, Atul Gawande talks about the time it takes for innovations to spread. From the title of the article, one can easily deduct the gist without reading it: the spread of innovations takes longer than it probably should, with this temporal gap directly affecting the health, safety and general well-being of those without access to the innovation. Innovation isn’t new to […]
The changes taking shape in rural parts of our country are causing access issues for rural consumers. Not surprisingly, money is at the root of the problem. General practice physicians in rural areas just aren’t able to maintain the financially viable private practices they once were. Decreasing reimbursement rates are frustrating the private practice business model. Federal reimbursement rates, most notably, have been decreasing over […]
The US population is aging. Markets in the health care industry are changing as a result. People are getting older at a faster rate than children are being born. In fact, the present US birthrate is at its lowest level since 1920! According to the graph above, over the next forty years, the ratio of 0-17 year-olds and 18-64 year-olds in our population will be […]
We’ve all heard it by now. We know that health care costs are increasing. We know that things will soon be “unsustainable” if our present health care practices continue. Interestingly, despite all the stimuli we receive through the mainstream media, it doesn’t appear that the US people care as much as they should. People haven’t done enough to appreciate the cost issue. Aside from the […]
“But a bulldozer will do the same thing in a fraction of the time. IT was like this—speeding up dramatically work that can be done by hand.” EPIC, the wonderful health informatics software that will revolutionalize health care, will be rolled-out in many of our Country’s top hospitals over the next few years. For those who don’t know, EPIC is an EMR database (electronic medical […]