Advanced Placement Courses Empowerment

The College Board, a not-for-profit account company dedicated to quality and value in education with a goal to link students to college achievements and opportunity, lately granted 21 Sauk Prairie High School students for showing college-level accomplishment through advanced placement courses and examinations. Sixteen members from the class of 2013 and five members from the class of 2014 qualified for these distinctions.

Recipients of the AP Scholar award, granted to students who get grades of 3 or greater on three or more advanced placement examinations, are Casandra Bradley, Emma Kreitzmann, Abigail Liverseed and Andrew Stangl for the class of 2013, and Rachel Leege for the class of 2014. Recipients of the AP Scholar with Honor award, granted to students who get an average ranking of at least 3.25 on all advanced placement examinations taken and grades of 3 or higher on four or more of these examinations, are Michaela Pfeiffer-Mundt and Brendan Sullivan for the class of 2013, and Sue Albers, Bailey Breunig and Lianna Mack for the class of 2014.

Recipients of the AP Scholar with Distinction award, provided to students who get an average ranking of at least 3.5 on all advanced placement examinations taken and ratings of 3 or greater on five or more of these examinations, include Dallas Breunig, Kassandra Hodges, Chloe Johnson, Tara Loether, Elizabeth Molitor, Angus Mossman, Anthony Renger and Zoey Shultz for the class of 2013, and Tyler Ballweg for the class of 2014.

The receiver of the National AP Scholar award, provided to students in the United States who get an average ranking of at least 4 on all examinations taken and ratings of 4 or greater on eight or more of the advanced placement examinations, is Anthony Renger for the class of 2013. Advanced Placement courses encourage students to get a feel for the rigors of college-level studies, while they are still reinforced in the Sauk Prairie High School environment. When students take AP programs, they illustrate university entrance authorities that they have sought out an academic experience that will prepare them for achievements while attending college and beyond.

Patient Care and ICU Visitors

What do you do if your mother, sister, husband or father lands in an ICU? Do you stay or do you go? There are more than 5 million sufferers admitted to an ICU a year. The ICU is a special unit where sufferers who have severe and deadly illnesses are given patient care by specialized doctors and nursing employees. These sufferers require constant monitoring and support with unique devices and medications to maintain normal bodily processes. The majority of U.S. healthcare centers have restrictions on visitation rights. Close relatives need open visitation rights because it decreases patient anxiety and improves their comfort.

Most adult intensive care units have some type of limited viewing hours that limit the number of family members who can visit and the time they can stay at the room. Across ICUs there is no standardization in viewing guidelines. Moreover, there may even be different visitation rights guidelines in various ICUs in the same hospital! Close relatives can be limited to 10 minutes of visitation rights every hour or be allowed to visit any time they want. Also, how healthcare center employees implement and understand the same visitation rights guidelines can be dissimilar. This variability is a cause of pressure for nursing employees, families and sufferers. Hospitals are attempting for excellence and are now focused on family-centered patient care. Close relatives play an essential part in the ICU individual’s recovery, so an essential part of family center care is open visitation rights. Patients place a high value on having family members at their room, offering them a sense of security in a highly technological innovation driven atmosphere.

The ICU is a stressful place full of sounds, unknown people and devices. Having a familiar face at the room can decrease individual pressure and duration of stay and help respond to questions in the ICU. Also, it improves individual quality, safety and satisfaction. To see relatives, it improves communication with healthcare employees, allows family members to be involved with patient care and contributes to better understanding of the healthcare world. In addition, families cannot affect the functioning of the ICU. Infection disease precautions may be needed that can restrict visitation rights. If an ICU patient is in a shared room and this can happen, guests may be asked to leave temporarily if immediate lifesaving measures are required or sensitive conversations need to occur with another patient.

Hospital Executives and the Affordable Care Act

Of hospital executives surveyed, 65% indicated that by 2020, they believe the wellness care program as a whole will be somewhat or significantly better than it is today. And when they were asked about their own organizations, the positive outlook was even more impressive. Fully 93% expected that the quality of care provided by their own wellness program would improve. This is probably related to initiatives to reduce hospital obtained conditions, medicine mistakes and needless re-admissions, as motivated by financial penalties in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

On price control, there was similar optimism: 91% expected developments on analysis of price within their own wellness program by 2020. A large proportion, 85%, expected their company to have decreased it’s per individual working expenses by the end of the decade. Overall, the common working reduction expected was 11.7%, with a range from 0% to 30%. Most professionals believe they could save an even higher amount if Congress introduced regulation to speed up the move away from fee-for-service payment toward models like included payments. In such a case, the hospital executives estimated regular yearly benefits of 16.0%, which, if used across the wellness care program, would amount to benefits of nearly $100 billion dollars per year.

How can such benefits be achieved? Hospital executives anticipate three strategies rising to the top: decreasing the number of hospitalizations (54%), decreasing the number of re-admissions (49%) and decreasing the number of E.R. trips (39%). Other likely resources included decreasing expenses for medical devices (36%) and medicine (27%), along with enhancing back-office performance (23%). These leaders believe that benefits can be found through a mixture of better management performance, price discount rates and decreased dependency on hospital services.

Health Psychology Course

The results of the latest studies have demonstrated that most human diseases are caused by patients’ unhealthy lifestyle. For this reason, health psychology is especially popular among postgraduates nowadays. Deciding to continue their studies after getting an undergrad degree in Psychology, students expand their information of the scientist-practitioner approach to healthcare. Researching various issues of health and disease psychology, students may apply their education in practice, creating more effective care plans for their sufferers and impacting their inspiration for getting the medical care services.

Taking a Health Psychology course, postgraduates are allowed to participate in the professionals’ reviews as well as to conduct studies of their own. Deepening their information of innovative research methods, techniques of behavior-change treatments and efficient communication exchange with sufferers, postgraduates enhance their expert abilities and improve the degree of medical care services provided. The forward-thinking viewpoint of the course, putting emphasis on the psychological aspect of medical care, is beneficial for both practitioners and their sufferers.

Career opportunities after finishing a Health Psychology course

  • Health Psychology programs provide postgraduates with substantial theoretical information and develop their practical abilities which could be applied within their profession activity. This is why the degree is an important stage in a person’s professional growth and following profession marketing.
  • The first profession option is a position of a Chartered Health Psychologist, working at management and managing degrees of medical care institutions.
  • Another opportunity is marketing in the area of research. Performing reviews in health-related perspective aimed at preventing diseases or adjusting sufferers to their serious diseases, an individual can contribute to the existing medical information.
  • Completing the course, a person can even fill a place in the government, creating efficient health advertising strategies and playing policy making.

Care Lapses in Nursing Homes

Eight Connecticut nursing homes have been penalized by the state Department of Public Health for lapses in proper care. On Nov. 7, Beacon Brook Health Center in Naugatuck was penalized $2,180 in relation to a citizen who passed away May 23 of cardiopulmonary arrest and a bowel impediment, DPH records show. DPH discovered that the house’s healthcare record did not indicate that an abdominal evaluation was done on May 23 after the citizen reported of feeling sick and a stomachache on May 22. Also, healthcare records did not indicate that a doctor had seen the citizen after May 21 and the home did not have a policy about stomach tests. On May 23, the citizen was discovered without a pulse and CPR was started. The citizen passed away after paramedics came and took over the CPR.

In a similar case, a Beacon Brook citizen with congestive heart failure incorrectly was not given drugs for fluid retention and no excess weight factors were mentioned in the resident’s history that would have activated a doctor’s notice. The citizen gained nine pounds between July 10 and July 21 and was put in the medical center for difficulty breathing and liquid excess. DPH discovered that the drug was mentioned in a doctor’s purchase but not in the drugs history, so the elderly care facility ceased providing it to the citizen on July 9. The citizen spent five days in the medical center.

Beacon Brook’s manager, Betty Garcia, said that the occurrences happened before she took over, so she could not comment. On Nov. 6, Manchester Manor Health Care Center was penalized $2,250 in connection with two occurrences, including one on May 29, when a nurse’s assistance had left a citizen in a bathroom, heard a thump and then discovered the citizen on his or her legs with a deep cut on the temple. The cut required five stitches to close and personnel discovered that the assistance had breached a safety rule at the nursing home by leaving the citizen alone.

A health professional was observed on Oct. 30 providing a citizen with Alzheimer’s disease coffee without a lid in breach of a doctor’s order that the citizen be given a lid on all hot drinks. State records show the citizen had been burnt off on the hip and legs Aug. 2 and on the stomach on Oct. 2, after dropping hot coffee that was provided without a lid. Administrator Jane Ellen Gaudette said the staff has been retrained since the occurrences and the property is in full conformity with state guidelines. These lapses in care, although minor can have very relevant effects in nursing homes.

Nursing Education Grants

In its pursuit to back up extensive, high-quality studies that promote the growth of the technology of nursing education and learning, the National League for Nursing has put out its yearly call for suggestions. The NLN’s Research in Nursing Education Grants Program, which started more than several years ago with $12,000 to spread among worthy health professional faculty-scholars, today awards more than $80,000 yearly, with financing from the NLN and the NLN Foundation for Nursing Education.

In addition to three named research grants, the Nancy Langston/Ruth Corcoran, Joyce Griffin-Sobel and Dorothy Otto Research Awards, two prizes are made specifically to doctoral/DNP candidates: the Jane Angel Rizzolo NLN Dissertation/DNP Project Award and the Midwest Nursing Research Society/NLN Dissertation/DNP Project Award. All grantees must be NLN members or a member of the school at an NLN-affiliated school or college.

To be qualified for assistance, grant suggestions must meet at least one of the NLN’s research priorities for 2012-15, defined in a document accepted by the NLN Board of Governors. With a particular focus on changing nursing education and learning for the modern nursing care environment, these main concerns fall within three wide categories: 1) Leading Change in Nursing Education; 2) Improving the Science of Nursing Education; and 3) Creating National and Worldwide Management in Nursing Education. Awards will benefit multi-site, multi-method tasks that include relationships between practice and educational learning surroundings. The due date to publish programs is Feb 20, 2014.

Dedicated to quality in nursing, the National League for Nursing is the top company for health professional staff and leaders in nursing education and learning. The NLN offers professional growth, social media opportunities, examining services, scientific research grants and public policy tasks to its 39,000 individuals and 1,200 institutional members. NLN associates represent nursing teaching programs across the number of college and nursing care companies and organizations.

The Focus on Credit by Examination

Too many students are targeted on the classes they need to take. English, Psychology, Chemistry, Accounting etc. It’s simple to see why. Choose a college course book and you will see that degree programs are set out as series of classes to take. Successfully pass them all and you graduate with the degree you desired. Yet, this is actually a superficial way to look at higher education. As it turns out, credits are the real foundations of degrees, not classes.

Take a closer look at your college’s course book. What you will see is that you actually need a certain variety of credits to graduate, usually 60 for an associate degree and 120 for a bachelor’s. This is a key understanding, because once you move your focus from classes to credit, you can begin researching methods to buy them for less. The costly classes your university provides are just one way of getting those credits, even though most learners thoughtlessly believe it’s the only way.

In reality, there are three methods to generate higher education credit:

  • Classes at four year public colleges/private universities
  • Classes at community colleges
  • Credit by examination

Most students are acquainted with the first two choices. But hardly anyone knows about credit by examination and even less understand its full potential. Credit by examination represents college-level subject assessments like CLEP and DSST. With this strategy, you take a large test covering an entire subject (say, English) rather than a semester-long course. Successfully pass the examination and you get credit just as if you had taken the class. What this implies is that you can possibly cut lots of money off the price of graduating by replacing as many of these examinations for classes as your college will allow. Unfortunately, many colleges and universities have tight “residency requirements” restricting how many attributes you can get this way.

Taking The DANTES – Credit by Examination

DANTES, CLEP and Excelsior examinations are Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support (DANTES) Financed for active duty, Nationwide Guard members and Reserves which means they are generally free. The DANTES credit by examination is a nationally-recognized credit-by-examination program that most universities agree to for credit towards a degree plan. One tremendous benefit is to soldiers who may be separated from army bases such as recruiters who can still take these examinations for free at private analyze facilities. Any army college student with an accepted degree plan should be able to use these examinations towards their degree. There are 38 DANTES credit by examinations and these can be taken at a base education center or at an approved off base computer examining center.

There are steps to taking and passing a DANTES credit by examination:

Step 1. Find and Schedule – Once a testing center is located, they must be approached to confirm testing procedures and scheduling for army learners. DANTES credit by examinations are developed to analyze proficiency in various college-level course materials. The evaluation is similar to the final evaluation given in lower degree college programs.

Step 2. Get a Fact Sheet – There a few strategies to successfully passing a DANTES that utilize the actual test development to ensure a passing grade. The examinations are developed based on and summary from subject experts and the questions are examined for stability based on a subject’s knowledge of that particular topic. Basically each fact sheet has a content summary that describes the content and the exact percentages of that content on the evaluation.

Step 3. Get Books – The next phase in using the fact sheet is to test the area known as sources for study material, because this is where the guides used to design the test question originate from. Generally, an evaluation details several books for an evaluation however there is usually a seminal written text. The best way to purchase lessons is to search Amazon.com for the book. In most cases, the most recent version need not be bought, as the explanations and concepts in the guide do not change that considerably over time.

Assisted Living Centers and Families

Many families do not learn about the costs of long-term care until the crisis hits and many get the sort of rude awakening that people who underwent this experience felt, said Jon Howell, president and CEO of the Georgia Health Care Association, an industry group that represents assisted living centers, nursing homes and companies that coordinate home care across the state. Seventy percent of individuals now turning 65 will need long-term care at some point during their lives. Only a fraction of those who will need proper care have long-term care insurance, which can pay for services at home or in an elderly care facility or assisted living centers.

Such plans grew in popularity during the 90’s, but sales have dropped recently as some insurance providers exited the market and many of the remaining insurance providers have hit policyholders with steep premium increases. When speaking to civic groups, Howell said, he shares lots of key facts that catch individuals off guard, including: Medicare covers elderly care facility care after a hospitalization, but at day 21, a co-pay requirement kicks in that could cost up to $12,000 over the next 80 days of care. To qualify for State Medicaid programs, residents must effectively impoverish themselves, spending all but $2,000 of their non-exempt resources and also using all but $50 of their monthly Social Security checks to pay for their care.

Medicaid pays an average of $158 a day in Georgia for elderly care facility care; private pay prices are higher. Medicaid doesn’t cover assisted living, only nursing home care. After a resident’s death, State Medicaid programs can take the resident’s house equity and other resources in an estate to cover the price of care paid by the government, although there are protections for surviving spouses. The requirements represent a harsh reality for many once solidly middle-class individuals, individuals who have spent a lifetime working toward financial security, who find they have no option other than switching to State Medicaid programs to cover nursing home bills.

Respiratory Therapist 101

If you have complications in breathing or are affected by suffocation, heart stroke, heart- and lung-related illnesses, it is better for you to search for therapy and immediate care from respiratory practitioners. They would know what to do as they are the best in cardiology and pulmonology. And one more thing is that, this kind of job is on the trend.

As this is a job that needs abilities and knowledge, the wage is usually good and much like other medical center employees. The figures on respiratory therapist wage range from $40,000 to more than $70,000 and those rely on many aspects such as credentials, experience, states. Respiratory practitioners with more than 5 years of experience live in a suitable state such New York or Washington could actually generate more than $70,000, while people who have credentials as Licensed Respiratory Therapist and stay in colleges and universities could generate around $60,000. On the other hand, the common wage for respiratory in nursing care facilities and workplaces of other health practitioners’ is around $58,000, while the common medical centers pay about $55,880. The variations between states also matter. If a respiratory therapist lives in New York, he could generate around $70,000 while in Northern Dakota, the number is just $57,000. As described above, the requirements of experience is also taken into consideration: the more you have, the higher your wage is.

As mentioned above, a respiratory therapist provides care and therapy to sufferers who have complications breathing or cardiopulmonary problems. It makes no difference who you are, how old you are, if you have lung-related or respiratory illnesses, they would be the ones who treat you. In many medical centers, with regards to immediate cases such as a heart stroke, drowning or shock, respiratory practitioners would be called for immediate care. This job is not only engaged in many types of sufferers but also available in many places. A respiratory therapist could work in various environments: from working in nursing care facilities, medical centers to teaching in universities, colleges and vocational schools. They might choose to work in a private office with frequent hours or medical centers, treatment centers with opportunities to work at evenings, Saturdays and Sundays in case of emergency.