Healthcare Improved Through Mobile Technology

It’s no secret that technology is helping increase the quality of the healthcare system in the US. A clear example of this is mobile technology. Mobile healthcare technology has become standard in many hospitals and care facilities as devices and applications help clinicians and patients track and recall data related to individual patient care.

Many hospitals are so large that just navigating their corridors can be a daunting task. To assist with this, internal GPS are already commonly used by staff. Through the GPS and other mobile location devices, healthcare personnel keep tabs on patients at every point of care, avoiding duplicate tests or wrong patients. Monitoring patient flow using mobile-location based technologies will aid in improving the hospital’s efficiency and develop logistics for both staff and patients.

The devices nowadays have become more advance and smaller, making it more convenient for the user. Medical devices also are getting smaller and going wireless, allowing providers to bring care to patients in their home or community, rather than requiring patients to repeatedly go back to clinical offices for tests. These devices can be used by patients at home to check their things like blood pressure and send the information to their care provider in real-time. They need not to go back to the hospital for check-up avoiding stress and saving money. The devices will monitor their status which will directly send information to the hospital.

Permitting patients access to their data through patient portals makes them aware of their health status while away from the hospital, giving the patient more comfort and less trauma. It is improving patient engagement and care, as patients find and fill in gaps in their health records that clinicians may have missed. Upgrading the health care system through introduction of new technology saves more lives and promotes patient awareness of their health care.

Clinical Psychology

The stressful surroundings of clinical psychology preparation is well conventional. The intellectual and emotional demands it places on most trainees cannot be overstated. Nonetheless, there is mounting evidence suggesting that training may be even more challenging for those who are ethnically and/or racially different from the dominant group.

Experiences of exclusion for such trainees are not uncommon, as a result, it has been posited that many courses may still be failing to meet the needs of BME trainees be it in terms of systematic course inclusion of issues of diversity, the management of overt and concealed experiences of racism and the provision of appropriate support to help BME trainees cope with the supplementary emotional demands which may be placed upon them.

This is the first in a series of posts within which needs to be aimed to connect in a process of reflection upon my experience of difference within training. Hoping to provide some illustrations of some of the ways difference may affect personal behaviors, trainees’ experiences and the training environment.

Although some differences are bound to be reflected within training cohorts, those born and raised outside the UK, those who are not British citizens, those who do not speak English as a first language or are otherwise ethnically, culturally and/or racially different; are likely to find themselves in teams of one within their year group.

Individuals are, to a large extent, products of their life-experiences. It is well recorded that as human beings we tend to have a natural affinity towards other individuals with similar backgrounds. The cultural factors together with the potential non-traditional professional and/or educational pathways into training may have an impact relationally, mean standing out as dissimilar, having to contend with hyper visibility and/or holding different worldviews which may be at odd with many in training.

The normative influences and expectations in relation to white middle class norms and values abound. If one is neither, conforming, ‘fitting in’ and being open about one’s views can be extremely challenging. As an example, as any person, who has stood out for all of the above reasons, my personal perspective into discussions has often been defined as critical, labeled as radical and at times as ‘irrelevant’, an isolating and invalidating experience particularly when there has been no intention to challenge. Often, simply speaking about my experience or that other BME groups would be deemed challenging or create palpable discomfort.

Assisted Living Community

There are a lot of assisted living community out there which caters different types of patients like elderly, disabled, chronically ill, and less independent residents. They usually hire a Personal Care Assistant (PCA) or Resident Assistant which assist in activities of daily living (ADLs) which comprise using the toilet, bathing and washing, dressing, cooking and serving food. They also make sure that the recreational and other activities of the patient are also catered.

The fastest growing sector in the health care profession is the health and personal care aides. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the personal care aide jobs will grow by a huge leap of 70.5 percent until 2020. The professional caregivers and personal care aides don’t necessarily require  experience or medical skills. They have flexible part-time and full-time schedules. There will be a comprehensive training that will be provided by the community or company.

 

There are different resident assistants in assisted living facilities. They are classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as home health and personal care aides. In 2012, the average salary for personal care aides was $20,820 per year. The Nursing aides made $25,620, medical assistants have $30,550 and physical therapist assistants earned $52,320. The top paying cities for personal care aides work in metropolitan areas of Taunton, Mass., Binghamton, N.Y., and Haverhill and N. Andover, Mass, Ocean City, N.J. area and Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

The pay is small but the anticipated level of education is low too. The Personal care aides working in assisted living only need high school diploma. Several facilities necessitate post-secondary education in care giving skills. Most may require extra training and offer on-the-job training.

The Personal care aide workload is physically challenging. The profession requires the PCA to perform a number of physical tasks, like lifting, and transporting residents. So it needs a physically fit person to be a PCA. The patient must also have a huge patience specially when dealing with older adults that usually have tantrums and mood swings.

The PCA must also help clients with mobility limits to get out of bed, bathe, dress, and groom. Provide basic health services like recording pulse rate, temperature, and respiration rate. They must also conduct the required exercises. Assist with medications administration and provide light housekeeping.

In a survey conducted in 2010 in all Residential Care Facilities spearheaded by Center for Disease Control found that 82% of personal care aides perform housekeeping duties in addition to helping with activities of daily living like dressing and assistance with medications.

 

Hospital Management

Management in a hospital is critical in keeping its services updated and in high quality. Our hospitals are always open for patients no matter what time day and thus doctors and support staff need to be prepared for managing everything. There are various departments in a hospital which offer life-saving care, managing complex equipment, and dealing with business concerns. It requires a top-level management to assist a hospital to run effectively.

 

Hospital Management plays a role in improving the patients overall experience. It is a very essential position in every hospital. It helps medical specialists work more efficiently and thus uplift the healthcare system of the hospital.

If you want to enter hospital management, you must have a bachelor’s degree, like any other professional degree. It is the basic qualification for entry. However, further study for masters is suggested for people who want to see themselves in a high level position. A diploma in hospital management is also required to fully be in a hospital management field.

There is a huge responsibility for hospital management to carry the managing aspects of the hospital. They have a lot of duties that should be managed by the professional. Hospitals are multi-faceted systems, where there are plenty of operations happening at the same time. Hospital Management professionals have a lot of roles and responsibilities. They also play an essential role in ensuring the quality of care to the patient.

You must have a higher emotional quotient to work in the highly emotional environment of a hospital. To be an effective professional in the healthcare sector, it is needed that you have a service-focused mindset and must be ready to work for extended hours.

There is indeed a rising need of high professionalism and reliability in the healthcare field. This is needed to improve the value of hospital management courses globally. Along with the government, numerous private hospitals are today competing with each other to offer high quality health care services to the public.

Healthcare System Needs

There are a lot of outstanding leaders in American healthcare, but, on average, we still get unremarkable results. The answer is simple, management needs to be less about charisma and style, and more about creating managerial systems that standardize brilliance. The ventures couldn’t be higher. We must produce higher-quality, better-integrated care at a lower cost.

In health care practice, our structures are normally too constricted and focused on today’s urgent problem. We respond with checklists, principles, action plans and strategy to improve performance on, say, a significant safety issue. Even when we use lean or Kaizen practices, it’s done in a limited way. Staff members treating patients end up dealing with a pile of disconnected proposals on top of their core responsibilities.

There is something else that needs concentration, but nothing is done to pick up the whole environment. Without a more global organizational viewpoint, we risk cutting costs reactively rather than thoughtfully. And, as we consolidate and build new affiliations, we introduce more cultural variation into the mix, making our institutions more confused and disordered, and generate more crises.

The better way to run healthcare delivery systems is to apply lean philosophy broadly to what and how we do everything. Organizational operating systems that regulate every facet of our work must be created. It means mounting common meeting agendas, uniform daily workflows, cascading communication and reliable use of relevant data across the enterprise.

Part of the task are the problem solving and modernization. The focus must be on the  well-defined and clearly articulated objectives, we can create organizations that are well-organized, successful and philosophical of their highest ambitions.

Leading wellbeing systems already use lean ideology to create more economical and focused workplaces and work cultures. The ThedaCare system in Wisconsin is a trailblazer in creating lean management systems. In the foreword to “Beyond Heroes,” the book about ThedaCare’s journey, John Toussaint, M.D., CEO of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, writes, “When lean thinking goes only skin deep and management does not change, improvements cannot be sustained, and savings never quite hit the bottom line.”

New systems must be created to deeply reshape our associations so that we can get the healthcare results that our population deserve. We need a great system to reach our goals for a better healthcare services.

Senior Care: Truth About Menopause

There is still a misunderstandings about the change of way of life and women’s changing systems are numerous and can take a huge cost on women. Fifty percent of women say their anxiety around the change of way of life is due to not knowing enough about this way of life level and nearly 50 % of women experience less assured once they start suffering from the change of life symptoms. For women going through this modifying level of way of life, debunking misunderstandings and finding alternatives to help them stand up to symptoms and symptoms of the change of way of life can motivate and help them lead more happy, more healthy lives.

“Just like all girls go through adolescence, all women go through the change of way of life. It’s a natural level of way of life that has unfortunately been stigmatized as an sickness,” says Dr. Vivian Diller, a psychological specialist and writer of FACE IT: What Women Really Feel As Their Looks Change. “Fortunately opinions of the change of way of life are changing and ladies are more wanting to motivate themselves with everything that can help them talk more completely about and live more with confidence through this way of life level. And Poise.com is one source that is available to help women individual the the change of way of life misunderstandings from everything.”

Many factors, such as one’s overall way of life and wellness and wellness and fitness, can effect changes in a woman’s body. As they age, women may experience extra weight, perspective and listening to reduction or create facial lines surprisingly – all of which cannot be connected to the change of way of life.

From drugs to non-medicinal products, there are many options available to help women. The Poise item offers a line of award-winning stylish wellness and wellness and fitness products that help address life’s changes. The Poise item has products for daily quality, hot display comfort, and nearness. Visit www.Poise.com to learn more.

Forgetfulness is a sign of the change of way of life, but it’s not one that results storage space in the long-term. While there is some proof that different excess estrogen may affect the part of the mind that effects sleep, feelings and storage space, it’s more likely that the change of way of life results a woman’s ability to focus, process and remember information.

During the change of way of life, a loss of levels of excess estrogen may damage the pelvic floor muscles that support bladder control problems, resulting in LBL (light renal leakage). Though not all women experience LBL, it is a common condition that one-in-three women will eventually face.

Many women review suffering from sex every bit as much as and sometimes more than their younger alternatives. But vaginal dry epidermis can be one not so fantastic problem of this lifestage that can negatively affect women’s loving activities. Fortunately oiling can provide some relief; and since libido and wellness and fitness is essential at any age, women who experience significant vaginal dry epidermis or loss of libido during the change of way of life should talk about that change with their physicians.

 

CLEP Tests Removed in Towson

The Registrar’s Office of the Towson University has announced that they will no longer be a testing site for the College-Level Examination Program tests, a program that provide students chances to gain course credits without finishing the class.

The Towson declared they would no more be offering students with the CLEP test. “Towson would like to provide the test for students, but we’re just not able to do it right now,” she said. Hyman said that Towson will still be recognizing test ratings that the school has accepted from other examining websites.

For many decades, the CLEP test has been an aid for students to help them fulfill their graduating work deadlines. It also allows students, who have encounter outside of an excellent through other employments, to convert that experience into course attributes.

The College Board that controls the CLEP test, SAT, ACT and other tests, declared last drop that they have restructured the test to an “internet-based testing” structure.  The test is now being organized and obtained on the internet. The reorganization would need Towson to offer extra employees, coaching for the employees and extra managers for the examining middle to be able to maintain an examining website.

According to the College Board’s web page, to use the new examining application would also need the school to eliminate the examining computer’s PC fire walls and change their system fire walls.  Hyman said that Workplace of Technological innovation Solutions would not allow any changes to the system firewall system. Hyman said that she has approached Higher education Panel in an make an effort to settle the examining specifications, but has not obtained a reaction from the company.

According to the Registrar’s office, the school has given 313 tests over the last three decades and has accepted 35 test ratings from other websites. Jean Foley, the system control professional for the Registrars Workplace, said many of the students that take the CLEP test are bookkeeping degrees. “Accounting students take the tests so that they can fulfill the 150 credit score need to take the Qualified Community Financial advisor Examination,” she said.

Junior college student and Chief executive of the Towson University Group of Student Accounting Marta Niguse said that she has been conscious of the stopping for a while and has instructed students to other examining websites.

Niguse said that the travel would be an difficulty for students but provided that the attributes are transferable it wouldn’t be a problem.

A record of available websites can be discovered on the College Panel web page.  Hyman said the University will still be offering Retail Examination and Assessments, tests just like the CLEP but with less course choices, to students. The College Panel’s Emails division recognized, through e-mail, that the examining process has been modified but did not opinion on the University’s scenario.

Hospital Credit Rating

Hospitals private or public have been relying on many different sources of income to continue operation. Many hospitals rely on bond funding for their development and the procure of new apparatus.  Revenue that is created by the hospital is then used to pay back the bondholders.  The risk to bondholders is that they are generally paid after the hospital pays its operational expenses.  Therefore, if the hospital is less profitable than expected (or not profitable at all), bondholders assume the financial risk.

Low-rated hospitals before have used strategies such as merging with higher-rated hospitals, diversifying payer mix, recruiting doctors, and opening new service lines in order to boost their credit ratings.  But these tactics may not always work in a system that rewards value rather than volume. Therefore a stable source of financial capital must be develop in order to increase the quality of healthcare services.

The CMS quality measures being tied more and more to hospital reimbursement CRAs are looking at ways to apply quality metrics to their hospital investment grade ratings.  These savvy agencies recognize the basic tenet that hospitals which give a higher level of quality care tend to be more profitable.  In the move from fee-for-service to value-based payment models in health care, it’s not surprising that CRAs are looking at different quality metrics when assessing investment risk.

The factors they are looking into include Medicare reimbursement rates publicly available quality scores, HCAPS scores, and commitment to establishing a culture of safety.  Some CRAs are also planning to highlight IT investments such as EHRs and data analytics platforms.They also looking at meaningful use and ICD-10 readiness.

The ultimate ability to change quality of care lies in the hands of the front-line health care providers. Tying these quality factors to hospital credit ratings and subsequent bond funding available should help to bring quality even more front and center in c-suite and hospital board meetings.  With the bottom-line becoming increasingly tied to quality and patient safety, hospital administrators need to work closer than ever with physicians and other constituents of the health care team to help them with the resources they need for institutional conversion.

Hospitals needs to be focusing on improving their eminence of care in advance of these changes. Those institutions that wait for the CRAs to act first may find themselves in an increasingly difficult place to receive bond financial support.  With the recognized inverse relationship between health care quality and expenditure, it would make sense to assume that those hospitals who might need bond funding the most may be the ones in worse shape to begin with.

National League for Nursing Academy Class of 2014

The National League for Nurses has chosen twenty nurse educators as the eight class of fellows. They were all endorsed for induction into the prestigious Academy of Nursing Education. There were also two nurse educators who were named as honorary fellows, this is the category for nurses who have dedicated their life in educating nurses, those who retired from service, and those who have made a significant contributions and honor to nursing education. The induction ceremony will be held during the 2014 Education Summit on September 14 Friday evening at the NLN Banquet. This will be witnessed by the 187 nurse leaders in nursing education, health care professionals and other guests from other institutions.

The review panel of the Academy of Nursing Education has to consider a vast number of things, like background, records, affiliations, etc of the prospected nurse fellow. One of their criteria will be the applicants’ contributions and efforts towards innovative teaching/learning strategies; nursing education research; faculty training and development activities; leadership in the academe; being active in promoting the improvement of health care system or being able to collaborate with institutions and other partners towards the advancement of the nursing education.

The Academy of Nursing Education was established in 2007 by the NLN in the year 2007 with the hopes of creating excellence in nursing education by focusing on the wisdom and skills of the nursing educators. The Chief Executive Officer of the NLN Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN, explained that the fellows will support the mission and the core values of the NLN and will assist in the work required to prepare graduates from the different types of nursing programs. The fellows will be the mentors of the next generation of nurse educators and for those in the clinical practice who wants to be a part of a nursing faculty.

 

Distance Education Challenges in India

The world’s largest university was the Indira Gandhi National University founded in the year 1985. There are more than 40 thousand students enrolled in the distance education in more than 40 educational institutions. This shows that a huge number of people are embracing the system in the wake of multifarious economic and social changes.

But the system which offers an easy access to higher education had been inconsistent in ensuring the quality of education through inefficiencies and dilapidated regulation. The program is headed the other way and most of the Indian society were not able to understand the purpose it was created. There should have a been a constant policy or a strong management body that will administer properly the system.

In response to this problem, a management body was created for the distance education in 1991. They call it the DEC or the Distance Education Council which is under the aegis of the IGNOU. The job of the council is to regulate, control and monitor the different Distance Education institutions in India. It was later named Distance Education Bureau in the year 2013.

There were still issues and problem arisen even with the creation of the bureau. Many critics have questioned the process, the authority and the system of the bureau. Even there were confusions over legal matters which reached the Supreme Court.

The creation of the Distance Education system has created an overabundance of difficulty and confusion over the years. There hasn’t been a concrete resolution created to properly address the issues involved. The Government was not yet able to keep pace with the fast flowing changes over time. If ever they will be able to try a different approach or strategy to make the system work flawlessly it would be a very ideal program and will be a pattern for other countries to follow.

This is a good example to follow for schools in the U.S. who are planning to put up distance education programs.