Showing posts with label public health advocates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public health advocates. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

How podcasts can help patients with health literacy, KevinMD.com

by Robert Rodvien, MD

When a person is told that they have a serious illness, they are similar to Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

They enter a bewildering new world of discussions, tests and treatment programs that must be navigated while maintaining a job, life obligations, and relationships with friends and family. Just when a person needs more resilience to stress, anxiety can occur. The ability to function is often diminished in such a state, and, like Alice, many begin to grope for solutions. Patients, family members and friends begin to rely on anecdotes. Others find hope-based messages more acceptable than evidence-based ones. Some patients are willing to do anything that appears constructive even if there is no evidence of success.

Some patients seek to become experts in their field of illness and venture on-line to do so, but entering the world of medicine on-line often creates misguided but nonetheless strongly held beliefs. Much of the accessible material is jargon and advertising rather than unbiased information. Web sites and brochures are rife with marketing language to promote a hospital, company or pharmaceutical product, leaving many who seek information as wary consumers instead of informed patients.

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Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

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http://www.nursingexperts.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Partnership for Patients - Win, Win, Win for American Healthcare

It's called the Partnership for Patients.  (I like it already - it's focused on patients.)  It's a program being developed by the federal government, under Secretary of HHS (Health and Human Services) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, along with CMS (Center for Medicare Services) Dr. Donald Berwick, a man with an impeccable patient safety advocacy record.  But they aren't in it alone - they have dozens of private and public organizations backing them, as members of the partnership.

Can this possibly be

  • A WIN for patients.
  • A WIN for providers.
  • And a WIN for payers, too?

--

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******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Thursday, April 7, 2011

CDC Sees EHRs As Public Health 'Game Changer' -- InformationWeek

Sometimes forgotten in the rush to install electronic health records (EHRs) is that improving population and public health is a major goal of the federal meaningful use EHR incentive program. But many in the public health community are counting on greater EHR adoption and interoperability among physicians and hospitals to help identify and respond to future disease outbreaks, according to a top government health IT official.

"Public health agencies, from local to state to federal, have been building information technology for years, but because we don't have a lot of connections to y'all, we don't have a lot of information to share," Dr. Seth Foldy, director of the public health informatics and technology program office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said Tuesday. "In the future, we assume that most of our public health allies will be perched in front of their EHRs."

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******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Nurse practitioners are charting a new course - Roanoke.com

A turf war with potential economic, political and health care consequences is under way in Virginia.

It has been gaining momentum for years, having already been fought in other states.

In short, nurse practitioners -- advanced practice registered nurses with either a master's degree or a doctorate -- want to change the law that requires them to be supervised by a physician.

At stake, they argue, is the ability for patients to be seen by a qualified health professional in a timely and geographically convenient way. They point to people who struggle to find a provider to diagnose and treat them, specifically patients in rural communities or those insured by Medicaid or Medicare, as a reason for changing the law.

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

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Posterous.com
http://nursefriendly.posterous.com

StumbleUpon,
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******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Hospital worker had deadly blood infection

All Children's Hospital has contacted all the families whose children were exposed to an outpatient therapist who died Monday from a contagious infection that can lead to meningitis.

As they continue to notify staff who may be affected, officials want the public to know the hospital is safe, and the general public is not at risk.  However, they do want all of us to be aware of two key facts about the infection that could save lives.

Doctor Juan Dumois, The Director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at All Children's, has spent the last two days answering questions about a blood infection that likely killed an outpatient therapist.  “It’s an organism that we call meningococcal. And this organism has the potential to cause very serious life threatening blood infections and sometimes, once it's in the blood it can get into the brain and that's when we call it meningitis."

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

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Nursing Entrepreneurs, Nurses In Business
http://nursingentrepreneurs.ning.com/

Posterous.com
http://nursefriendly.posterous.com

StumbleUpon,
http://www.nursefriendly.com/stumbleupon
******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

AIM: Adverse event reporting is on the rise

Although the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System (AERS) database has been in existence since 1969, more than half of the incidents in it were received in the past decade, according to an article published online March 28 in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

These 2.2 million events represent a 1.65-fold increase from the prior decade, wrote Sheila Weiss-Smith, PhD, from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore, and colleagues. "Report volume increased from 2000 to 2010 at a mean annual rate of 11.3 percent,” the authors continued.

AERS is a repository of passively reported adverse drug events designed as a safety net so the FDA can monitor all marketed drugs and detect serious safety problems. Weiss-Smith and colleagues sought to characterize the current reporting patterns.

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

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http://nursingentrepreneurs.ning.com/

Posterous.com
http://nursefriendly.posterous.com

StumbleUpon,
http://www.nursefriendly.com/stumbleupon
******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Two-thirds of states cut mental healthcare funds: advocacy group | Reuters

Two-thirds of states cut mental health funding from their general fund budgets over the last two years, according to a report released by a mental illness advocacy group on Wednesday.

Kentucky with 47 percent, Alaska with 35 percent, and South Carolina and Arizona both with 23 percent made the largest percentage cuts to mental health spending in their general fund budgets, which do not include federal Medicaid funding, the study by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) found.

"Cutting mental health means that costs only get shifted to emergency rooms, schools, police, local courts, jails and prisons," said NAMI executive director Michael Fitzpatrick. "The taxpayer still pays the bill."

"Some states are trying to hold the line or make progress, but most are cutting deep. This stands in contrast to the intense national concern about the mental health care system following the Arizona tragedy two months ago," he said.

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

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http://nursingentrepreneurs.ning.com/

Posterous.com
http://nursefriendly.posterous.com

StumbleUpon,
http://www.nursefriendly.com/stumbleupon
******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Friday, March 11, 2011

Joseph Nowinski, Ph.D.: Rethinking Societal Attitudes About People Who Get Cancer

In her 1978 book, "Illness as Metaphor," Susan Sontag argued that societal myths and metaphors surrounding disease can kill. How? By instilling shame and guilt in the sick. Sontag was the first writer to point out the basically accusatory tone of the metaphors we use to describe illness and its causes, as well as the essence of its cure. Examples she cited included tuberculosis, which was once popularly thought of as an illness that afflicted only individuals with delicate temperaments. Because they were supposedly constitutionally weak, these individuals were prone to wasting away. Accordingly, the "cure" for tuberculosis involved "rest" -- a prolonged stay in a sanatorium.

Sontag applied the same reasoning to debunk what she thought were myths surrounding cancer: It is not a curse or punishment, she argued. Our personality does not make us more or less likely to get cancer, and its successful treatment is not essentially a matter of our outlook. We do not get cancer because we are angry, or because we are lacking in some spiritual quality. To quote Sontag, "Theories that diseases are caused by mental states and can be cured by will power are always an index of how much is not understood about a disease." That was true for tuberculosis in the 20th century, and it is true today for cancer. Despite that truth, some cancer patients -- and in particular those who have been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer that has spread to other organs -- continue to experience what amounts to a societal stigma. Consider the following correspondence between me and Ellen, who has metastatic breast cancer:

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

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StumbleUpon,
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******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Prevalence and Correlates of Eating Disorders in Adolescents: Results From the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement, March 7, 2011, Swanson et al. 0 (2011): archgenpsychiatry.2011.22v1

Lifetime prevalence estimates of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder were 0.3%, 0.9%, and 1.6%, respectively. Important differences were observed between eating disorder subtypes concerning sociodemographic correlates, psychiatric comorbidity, role impairment, and suicidality. Although the majority of adolescents with an eating disorder sought some form of treatment, only a minority received treatment specifically for their eating or weight problems. Analyses of 2 related subthreshold conditions suggest that these conditions are often clinically significant.

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

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Nursing Entrepreneurs, Nurses In Business
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StumbleUpon,
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******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Texas Senate panel advances bill to protect nurses | AP Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

A Texas Senate committee approved legislation Tuesday aimed at strengthening protection for nurses who report abuse by doctors.

The bill filed by state Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, protects nurses from being fired, discriminated against or punished. Nurses would be immune from criminal prosecution under the bill.

The bill now goes to the full Senate. If enacted, doctors would be fined up to $25,000 if convicted of retaliation.

Lawmakers saw a need for a more stringent law after two West Texas nurses were fired and criminally charged after reporting a doctor for allegedly practicing bad medicine.

The charges were dropped against Winkler County nurse Vicki Galle, but Anne Mitchell was prosecuted for "misuse of official information" and threatened with 10 years in prison.

Galle and Mitchell anonymously filed their complaint against Dr. Rolando Arafiles with the Texas Medical Board in 2009. But with help from the sheriff, Arafiles found out who the nurses were.

Despite Mitchell's acquittal, the case stirred outrage from medical communities nationwide. Nursing advocates want to ensure nurses can report malpractice without fear of retaliation.

"Patients are best served when nurses can advocate on their behalf," Nelson said. "The case of the Winkler County nurses highlighted the need for additional protection for nurses."

Mitchell said the decision to report Arafiles was carefully considered, and one she felt she had to make on behalf of her patients.

But the price she paid was high. She said her nursing career is over, her income has been cut in half and she continues to endure the effects of being labeled a whistleblower.

"That label basically reads 'don't hire me'," she said. "Nurses are frequently the last safety net for patients. If our voices are stifled, our patients will suffer. My hope is that the passage of this bill will prevent other nurses from having to go through what we went through."

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

--

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Nursing Entrepreneurs, Nurses In Business
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StumbleUpon,
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******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

HHS Releases National Plan to Improve Health Literacy | HHS.gov

Today, the United States Department of Health and Human Services released The National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy aimed at making health information and services easier to understand and use. The plan calls for improving the jargon-filled language, dense writing, and complex explanations that often fill patient handouts, medical forms, health web sites, and recommendations to the public.

According to the report, efforts to improve the health literacy skills of both the public and health professionals are needed to achieve a health literate society—a critical need as health reform generates more demand for consumer and patient information that is easy-to-understand and culturally and linguistically appropriate.

According to research from the U.S. Department of Education, only 12 percent of English-speaking adults in the United States have proficient health literacy skills. The overwhelming majority of adults have difficulty understanding and using everyday health information that comes from many sources, including the media, web sites, nutrition and medicine labels, and health professionals.

“Health literacy is needed to make health reform a reality,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “Without health information that makes sense to them, people can’t access cost effective, safe, and high quality health services. But, HHS can’t do it alone,” she added. “We need payers and providers of health care services to communicate clearly and make the necessary changes to improve their communication with consumers, patients, and beneficiaries. Today’s plan is only the beginning of a long-term process with our many partners in all sectors that we hope will result in a society that encourages people to live longer, healthier lives.”

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

--

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StumbleUpon,
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******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Helping Patients Understand Their Medical Treatment - Kaiser Health News

An elderly woman sent home from the hospital develops a life-threatening infection because she doesn't understand the warning signs listed in the discharge instructions. A man flummoxed by an intake form in a doctor's office reflexively writes "no" to every question because he doesn't understand what is being asked. A young mother pours a drug that is supposed to be taken by mouth into her baby's ear, perforating the eardrum. And a man in his 70s preparing for his first colonoscopy uses a suppository as directed, but without first removing it from the foil packet.

Each of these examples provided by health-care workers or patient advocates illustrates one of the most pervasive and under-recognized problems in medicine: Americans' alarmingly low levels of health literacy — the ability to obtain, understand and use health information.

Translating Medical Jargon

Some technical terms and what they mean in plain English:

  • "myocardial infarction" (heart attack)
  • "hyperlipidemia" (high cholesterol)
  • "febrile" (feverish)

A 2006 study by the U.S. Department of Education found that 36 percent of adults have only basic or below-basic skills for dealing with health material. This means that 90 million Americans can understand discharge instructions written only at a fifth-grade level or lower. About 52 percent had intermediate skills: They could figure out what time a medication should be taken if the label says "take two hours after eating," while the remaining 12 percent were deemed proficient because they could search a complex document and find the information necessary to define a medical term.

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

--

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Nursing Entrepreneurs, Nurses In Business
http://nursingentrepreneurs.ning.com/

StumbleUpon,
http://www.nursefriendly.com/stumbleupon
******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Patients find plenty of health information on line, but not all of it is reliable

The Internet has no equal as an information storehouse. The trick is to know how to get right to a source of useful information and not waste time on Web sites that are biased, trying to sell you something or just plain wrong.

Marvin M. Lipman, Consumers Union's chief medical adviser, recalls having a patient who made a Google search and somehow settled on an abdominal aortic aneurysm (a worrisome bulge in the body's main blood vessel) as the logical explanation for his midback pain. No reassuring on Lipman's part eased the patient's apprehension. It took a sonogram to convince him he wasn't at death's door.

Lipman had another patient who was referred to him after her primary-care physician told her she had Graves' disease (an overactive thyroid). She arrived for her appointment armed with computer printouts of useful, accurate information and fully prepared to discuss the pros and cons of treatment options for her problem.

Click on the "via" link to read the rest of the article.

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Monday, February 14, 2011

Patient Stories May Improve Health, NYTimes.com

The only reservation that he mentioned was the same one all the other patients had — he feared that death would come before the perfect organ.

But during one visit just before he finally got the transplant, he confessed that he had been grappling with another concern, one so overwhelming he had even considered withdrawing from the waiting list. He worried that he would not be strong enough mentally and physically to survive a transplant.

In desperation, he told me, he had contacted several patients who had already undergone a transplant. “That’s what made me believe I’d be O.K.,” he said. “You doctors have answered all of my questions, but what I really needed was to hear the stories about transplant from people like me.”

Patients and doctors have long understood the power of telling and listening to personal narratives. Whether among patients in peer support groups or between doctors and patients in the exam room or even between doctors during consultations, stories are an essential part of how we communicate, interpret experiences and incorporate new information into our lives.

Despite the ubiquitousness of storytelling in medicine, research on its effects in the clinical setting has remained relatively thin. While important, a vast majority of studies have been anecdotal , offering up neither data nor statistics but rather — you guessed it — stories to back up the authors’ claims.

Now The Annals of Internal Medicine has published the results of a provocative new trial examining the effects of storytelling on patients with high blood pressure. And it appears that at least for one group of patients, listening to personal narratives helped control high blood pressure as effectively as the addition of more medications.

Monitoring the blood pressure of nearly 300 African-American patients who lived in urban areas and had known hypertension, the researchers at three-month intervals gave half the patients videos of similar patients telling stories about their own experiences. The rest of the patients received videos of more generic and impersonal health announcements on topics like dealing with stress. While all the patients who received the storytelling DVD had better blood pressure control on average, those who started out with uncontrolled hypertension were able to achieve and maintain a drop as significant as it had been for patients in previous trials testing drug regimens.

“Telling and listening to stories is the way we make sense of our lives,” said Dr. Thomas K. Houston, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester and the Veterans Affairs medical center in Bedford, Mass. “That natural tendency may have the potential to alter behavior and improve health.”

Experts in this emerging field of narrative communication say that storytelling effectively counteracts the initial denial that can arise when a patient learns of a new diagnosis or is asked to change deeply ingrained behaviors. Patients may react to this news by thinking, “This is not directly related to me,” or “My experience is different.” Stories help break down that denial by engaging the listener, often through some degree of identification with the storyteller or one of the characters.

“The magic of stories lies in the relatedness they foster,” Dr. Houston said. “Marketers have known this for a long time, which is why you see so many stories in advertisements.”

In health care, storytelling may have its greatest impact on patients who distrust the medical system or who have difficulty understanding or acting on health information because they may find personal narratives easier to digest. Stories may also help those patients who struggle with more “silent” chronic diseases, like diabetes or high blood pressure. In these cases, stories can help patients realize the importance of addressing a disease that has few obvious or immediate symptoms. “These types of patients and diseases may be a particular ‘sweet spot’ for storytelling,” Dr. Houston noted.

This particular benefit from stories comes as welcome news not only for patients but also for doctors, who are increasingly reimbursed based on patient outcomes. “There’s only so much the doctor can do, so providers are looking for innovative ways to help their patients,” Dr. Houston said. While more research still needs to be done, the possibilities for integrating storytelling into clinical practice are numerous. In one possible situation, which is not all that dissimilar from popular dating sites, doctors and patients would be able to access Web sites that would match patients to videos of similar patients recounting their own experiences with the same disease.

Dr. Houston is currently involved in several more studies that will examine the broader use of storytelling in patient care and delineate ways in which it can best be integrated. Nonetheless, he remains certain of one thing: Sharing narratives can be a powerful tool for doctors and patients.

“Storytelling is human,” Dr. Houston said. “We learn through stories, and we use them to make sense of our lives. It’s a natural extension to think that we could use stories to improve our health.”

Join the discussion on the Well blog, Healing Through Storytelling.”

Click on the link to read the full story.

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Thursday, February 3, 2011

CMS Initiative Will Link Incentives With Reduced Infections, Readmissions - California Healthline

CMS is planning a "major multi-year financial commitment" involving Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers that aims to curb hospital-acquired infections and readmissions, according to a confidential draft of a CMS document, Inside Health Reform reports.

The so-called National Patient Safety Initiative -- which is being developed by CMS' innovation center -- would link $70 billion in Medicare funds across 10 years to hospitals' ability to achieve new standardized performance metrics. Under the plan, 6% of hospitals' Medicare payments will be contingent on reporting errors and meeting safety measures, with the proportion of payments increasing to 9% by 2015.

By hiring state contractors, CMS will develop measures and monitor progress, and then use results to determine payments.
Medicaid and private insurance plans that chose to participate in initiative also will link a larger portion of payments to patient safety goals, affordability and patient-centered care.

The innovation center also will fund studies that aim to determine how to disseminate best practices data, and support states and health systems that develop networked learning projects, Inside Health Reform reports (Inside Health Reform, 1/26).

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Nurses to Help Thousands of Smokers Butt Out During National Non-Smoking Week - Nursing Link

When nurses intervene, smokers quit. That’s the message the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) wants to spread when National Non-Smoking Week (January 16 – 22, 2011) gets underway next week.

“Smoking is one of the most important public health threats of our time. We know that 37,000 deaths a year in Canada are linked to tobacco use. Research shows that reaching out to people is one of the most important steps in determining a smoker’s willingness to quit,” explains Irmajean Bajnok, an RN and Director of RNAO’s Best Practice Guidelines (BPG) program in Toronto.

“Nurses who spend as little as three minutes having conversations with smokers about quitting can make a difference,” says Bajnok adding arming nurses with the best available evidence from the RNAO’s Smoking Cessation BPG is the key to reducing smoking rates.

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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

I'll Never Ration. Not Me. Not I. - NYTimes.com

Opposition to health-care rationing is a little like opposition to growing up. It sounds great. It’s just not very practical.

A society’s resources are always limited. So we have to make choices about what we can afford and what we can’t. Not everyone can afford to own a vacation home — which means vacation homes are rationed. Not everyone can afford to live in towns with excellent public schools — which means that good public education is rationed.

Similarly, we can’t afford to try every feasible medical treatment on every patient. Instead, we make choices. The most obvious form of rationing is the millions of Americans who lack health insurance today. Most of them get less medical care than they need and, in the process, keep down the nation’s total medical bill.

But even those with health insurance experience rationing. How? In many ways.

This country has not spent the money to install computerized medical records, and we suffer more medical errors than many other countries. We underpay primary care doctors, relative to specialists, and we’re left stewing in waiting rooms while our primary-care doctors try to see as many patients as possible. Specialists are usually not paid for time they spend collaborating with doctors in other specialties, and many hard-to-diagnose conditions go untreated. Nurses are usually not paid to counsel people on how to improve their diets or remember to take their pills, and manageable cases of diabetes and heart disease become fatal.

At some point we'll need to accept the fact that we cannot all have every test, every operation, every treatment, every new medicine or see every specialist.

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Nurse Leadership Helps Treatment of Patients With Multiple Conditions | All Sites Nursing News

Team care led by a nurse appears to improve patient outcomes in cases of multiple chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and depression.

Middle-aged patients with multiple conditions who experienced a team treatment approach using evidence-based guidelines improved in blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol control and depression, according to a study in the Dec. 30 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

“Depressed patients with multiple uncontrolled chronic diseases are at high risk of heart attack, stroke and other complications,” said lead study author Wayne J. Katon, MD, vice chairman of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. “We are excited about finding a new way to help patients control these chronic diseases, including depression.”

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Monday, November 22, 2010

Nurse-Family Partnership Celebrates 10 Years - WGHP

Nearly 500 first-time mothers can thank a Guilford County program for getting them on their feet.

The Nurse-Family Partnership program celebrated its 10th anniversary Wednesday. The program partners a low-income, first-time mother with a nurse. The nurses visit the mothers, educating them on how to improve their child's well-being, as well as how to become more economically self-sufficient.

"I was just uneasy about being a single mom. I wanted to be perfect, but there is no such thing as a perfect parent. This program has helped me work toward perfection with my son and myself," new mom Jameya Turner said.

The partnership lends support from pregnancy all the way until the child's second birthday.

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Myths Fuel Dangerous Decisions to Not Vaccinate Children | Vaccination Decline | Bacterial Meningitis & Vaccine Myths | LiveScience

Over the course of one summer vacation, Tyler Ludlum went from being a healthy 10-year-old, looking forward to the pool, to an emotionally and physically traumatized preteen who'd traded both of his feet, and half the fingers on his right hand, for his life.

It could have been prevented if he – or those around him – had been vaccinated.

Tyler had contracted meningococcal meningitis, a swelling of membranes around the brain and spinal cord that's caused by bacteria passed by nasal or oral droplets. Tyler was likely in the vicinity of a perhaps asymptomatic carrier of the disease, when this person coughed or sneezed.

But his story is more than a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time: A vaccine that's at least 85 percent effective at preventing meningococcal meningitis is widely available and strongly recommended by health officials. Too young to have received the vaccination as part of a routine visit, Tyler was dependent on those around him to be immunized.

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