Challenging Hospitals to Improve

Nursing Roles and Duties

Nurses play an important part in any hospital. You can’t imagine a hospital or a hospice care without them. They have so many roles that any hospital would find it hard to deal with their patients without them.

They don’t just roam around a hospital and assist those in need of help. Nurses have specific roles to do for their patients. Their duties may have evolved over time, but nurses are no longer mere assistants to doctors and medical specialists. A hospital care is not complete without a nurse.

Care Provider
First of all, nurses provide care to their patients. And that includes attending to their personal needs at times.

Comforter
Nurses are great comforters, too. Their patients need that more than giving a precise medical diagnosis. When a nurse provides comfort to a patient; that will make his patient feel better.

Communicator
Nurses should be able to communicate to their patients as well. If they can talk to them, establish lines of communication, their patients’ time inside a hospital would be worthwhile.

Coach
They can be a teacher, if need be. This happens when explaining difficult terms used with medicine. If a nurse provides coaching to his patient, things inside the hospital would be a whole lot better.

Client Advocate
Nurses should be able to treat their patients as the most important person in the hospital. It is not the hospital who is paying them but their patients. So, providing care and comfort to them should be their main duty.

This is a short list of the many roles nurses do inside a hospital. They may use a combination of these roles, depending on the need of the patient, but nurses are there to give special medical attention to those who are in need of one.

Hospital Jobs

A hospital is a place for patients and doctors. But jobs in a hospital are not limited to just health care. According to forbes.com, hospitals employ more than 5 million people and they are all hardly doctors. America’s general medical and surgical hospitals have one-third jobs that are non-medical.

In a hospital, there are clinical and non-clinical jobs in all levels and types. Clinical hospital jobs are those which provide direct patient care, such as nurse, doctors, or allied personnel. Meanwhile, non-clinical hospital jobs are administrative or management types of roles, from the janitors to the executives.

Some of the clinical hospital jobs include physicians (ER doctors, surgeons, hospitalists), nurses (CRNA, RN, LPN/LVN, CNS, techs (Radiology Tech, Ultrasound Tech, Surgical Tech), therapists (Physical Therapist, Radiation Therapist), medical assistants, pharmacists, medical lab technologists, and dietician.

The examples of non-clinical hospital jobs include case managers (social workers), accountants, human resources and recruiting, executives (CEO, CFO, CIO), information technologists, and administrative assistants.

Working in a hospital might be attractive to you if you enjoy working with people and being around a lot of other people. And if you like a bit of a challenge in the work place every day, you are bound to experience that as an average hospital has hundreds of employees and patients coming in on a daily basis. Also, hospital jobs are relatively secure. If you are looking for a work place where there is more hiring than firing, then you might want to consider working in a hospital.

Of course, there are also downsides to working in a hospital. It is probably not the most progressive place to work as hospital environments do not change much over the years. Other than medical technology, not much changes in the hospital environment. Aside from that, hospital politics is also an issue. And more importantly, you need to keep in mind that many sick people, including those with infectious disease s, come through the door.

The Importance of Hospitals

Taking care of our health is one of our responsibilities. Healthy lifestyle is not just the recommendation of the physician, but is something we should aim for in general. We should avoid the things that can ruin our health. However, no matter how much we take care of our bodies, we cannot avoid illnesses. Because of the weather and other uncontrollable circumstances, there are times when we feel under the weather and realize that we are sick. Sometimes, it only takes over the counter medicine, and everything turns out well. But, there are major illnesses that require a diagnosis from a physician.

Hospitals are the only place that we can go to help us cure our sickness. They have complete facilities for different kinds of illnesses. There are doctors and nurses who will assist us to make our stay comfortable and convenient. These hospitals are responsible for the treatment and recovery of patients with both mild and extreme medical cases. Medical treatments allow us to extend our lives. Without these medical establishments time with our love ones and friends may come to a sudden halt. There is no question that hospitals are significant in our lives. There lots of hospitals that offer low cost healthcare, while being able to provide high-quality service.

We should take some times to appreciate the existing hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities in our area. Living without them will cause so much inconvenience to say the least. Visit your physician even when you feel you are only suffering from something mild. It may lead to a serious condition that the doctors should be able to control. In today’s world where health problems become more and more complicated, let us be more open to regular check-ups, and always be thankful to have a place that can ensure we are in our prime health conditions.

Financing Hospital Care in the United States

Since the 60’s, Medical costs have risen dramatically in the U.S. The greatest increase comes from hospital care. Most hospitals have been granted large wage increase and installed expensive modern equipments. To meet these large expenditures, hospitals raised charges to their services by about 600 percent.

There are three main methods of financing hospital care in the country: (1) private insurance, (2) government funding, and (3) customer payments.

Private Insurance. Approximately 80% of Americans have health insurance of some kind. The employee, employer, and the government pays a certain amount for medical benefits. Private health insurance are offered either by insurance companies, medical service plans, employers, or organizations.

Medical service plans provide service benefits. This service is a direct payment to the physician or hospital for medical care. On the other hand, Health Maintenance Organizations (HMO’s) provide nearly complete health care services for a monthly or annual fee. Despite the complete services provided, patient’s options are limited or are bonded by the HMO’s restrictions. There are also employers who pay for the health care cost for their employees rather than buying insurance.

Government Funding. About 40 percent of all health care cost is paid by the government. Of course, the Federal government pays for the larger portion. Hospitals that receive such funding are those managed by the Public Health Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Medicare is the biggest government funded health care program in the U.S. IT helps senior citizens pay for out patient, nursing and hospital care.

Customer Payments. Most insurance do no pay for cost of medicine, medical appliances, dental , and eyeglasses. Some only cover a portion of the outpatient care. Patients will need to cover part of the cost themselves. Nearly 25% of health care cost is paid by patients.

Hospital Associated Pneumonia Prevention

Hospital associated pneumonia has become a great concern nowadays. According to WHO, pneumonia acquired from hospitals’ morbidity and mortality rates are staggering high. For those who are not aware, pneumonia that starts in the hospital tends to be more serious than other lung infections.

This growing concern is due to several factors. Usually, the infection spreads when patients use respirators – machine for breathing. During hospital stay, patients are more vulnerable to germs or viruses since they are not well enough to fit the off. Patients who are more prone to this disease in the hospital are those who had surgeries, chemo therapy (cancer treatment with low immunity), have chronic lung disease, elderly, and alcoholic.

Germs are also passed from one health care staff to another through hand contact or clothing. This is why they are required to wear gloves and masks when on duty. There are also other ways to avoid the dreadful disease.

The best way to stop the spread of germs is through frequent hand washing, stay at home when sick, and boost immunity. People who need to visit their loved ones in the hospital must make sure that they have taken steps in preventing the spread of germs: bring hand sanitizer, wear masks and gloves, and never bring an infant or child. If you have contact with a person in the hospital, never place your hand from your face. When someone coughs or sneezes, cover your nose and mouth with clean tissue or hanky. Do the same when you sneeze or cough as well.

In-patients who are very young and old or very ill at greater risk of such infections. To prevent the spread of germs, get up-to-date vaccination. Ask your doctor about flu and anti-viral vaccinations available. With good preventive measures, you can ensure to have a disease-free life.

Improving Healthcare Services

From healthcare discoveries to the most recent treatment options, America’s healthcare educational institutions and teaching hospitals, as well as their doctors and experts, possess a legacy of developing treatments and establishing the standard for the best patient health care. By way of a multi-year initiative to enhance the standard and security of health care, it is vital to work together to generate guidelines for better quality health care.

Through guidelines for much better Healthcare, it is necessary to integrate verified methods to guarantee more secure surgeries, decrease infections, and reduce hospital re-admissions. We must built an even tougher tradition of quality and protection in medicine by passing these guidelines to each new doctor educated and make sure high quality and safety is part of medical training from day one. Through good research and evaluation, best practices will be improved, learn new ones, and discuss our knowledge with others to enhance health care.

It is, of course, the responsibility of a hospital to secure their patients by giving quality standards, updating procedures, regular maintenance and developing technology. The health care education facilities must be able to educate the next era of doctors with quality and patient security. Through continued research and study, patients must be more secure with safer surgeries. Hospitals must as well develop or enhance a program that will reduce the hospital re-admissions especially for high-risk patients. This will reduce the hospital cost and the stress of staying long in hospital wards away from home.

Lastly, there must be a continued investigation, research and examination of new and efficient health care practices as well as the use of efficient technologies to establish a better future of the health care industry.

Nurses Working at Hospitals

Hospital career employment keeps growing, as demands for healthcare professional services expand over time. Whenever you think about hospital careers, you will most likely think of doctors and nurses that happen to be two examples of fantastic hospital professions. Nevertheless, you will find more kinds of hospital professions. If you do not want to be a physician or a nurse, there are numerous hospital profession alternatives for you for almost any education level or niche.

Several hospitals are huge, some are small, just like some other employer, every single hospital features its own customs and work environment, some are much better than others. When choosing an employer, you will need to locate a hospital that most closely fits your personality and work ethic, but of course you need to pass their qualifications.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), more than 2.5 million nurses constitute the biggest labor force within the medical industry. Nursing professions offer a wide selection of roles and a wide scope of accountability. There are lots of various kinds of nurses, and lots of new ways to acquire nursing professions.

Nurses always work with doctors as an essential portion of the patient health care workforce. The physician makes some key judgments concerning the medical diagnosis, treatment method, and medicine, and it is the nurse’s role to provide that care on an ongoing basis to be sure of the effective recovery of the patient. Given that they might actually spend more face-to-face time with a patient than physicians, nurses have to be specifically skilled at reaching out to patients, placing them in a comfortable place, and aiding them in their recovery, and general well-being.

Exercise Benefits for COPD Patients

According to recent studies, staying active can help keep chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients out of the hospital for a longer period of time. COPD is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. which makes it a very dangerous disease. This is why many health care programs are currently focused on providing interventions at hospital discharge to reduce re-admissions.

The study captures information regarding patients’ typical physical exercise before the first hospitalization and offers evidence that supports the promotion of exercise across the COPD care scale.

Researchers discovered that people who exercised for at least 150 minutes a week were 34 percent less inclined to be readmitted to the hospital within the next 30 days, compared with individuals who were inactive. This gives more reason for people with COPD to go out and exercise. Even at home, COPD patients can do simple exercise to improve their system. The more they become active, the more they activate their cells and promote a healthy lifestyle.

Even those individuals who relatively or vigorously exercised less than 150 minutes a week had a 33 percent lower readmission risk, in comparison with people that were inactive. A simple exercise is already good enough to keep you away from the hospital.

Exercise is connected with lower hazards of hospitalization for COPD patients. Particularly, individuals who either maintained a low physical exercise level over several years — as well as people who decreased their exercise levels during this period — had a higher hospitalization rate compared to those who maintained high physical exercise levels.

Exercise is a good and healthy habit to reduce hospitalization for COPD patients. It costs you nothing to exercise and will give you more benefits than you expect. It will reduce your hospital fees and exposure to medicines. So start stretching and keep yourself away from the hospital.

Challenging medical centers to take charge of the changing healthcare techniques in its communities, the Healthier Hospitals Initiative has added six Massachusetts medical centers to its initiative in the past month, expanding upon its goal to enhance patient care in a hospital. The program, which involves 800 medical centers nationwide, began two years ago. Forty-three institutions in Massachusetts are currently participating in the initiative, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital–Plymouth, Boston Medical Center and Lawrence General Hospital. Nine of these 43 are located in Boston.

“The Healthier Hospitals Initiative is a national campaign to lead change in the health care sector,” the initiative’s sales brochure said. “Twelve significant U.S. health systems have signed up with to provide a free way for medical centers to incorporate eco-friendly practices into daily functions.” The Healthier Hospitals Initiative asks medical centers to commit to any number of difficulties in their six focus areas: healthier meals, leaner energy, less waste, safer chemicals, wiser purchasing and engaged leadership. “As a group leader offering health care services, we felt it was our obligation to be part of the solution to what is becoming a national epidemic,” said Vanessa Kortze, manager of marketing and communications at LGH. “We strive to ensure healthy outcomes every day for our sufferers and our group, so it’s a natural fit for us to promote a healthier environment by offering healthier options.”

Lawrence General signed up with the initiative in late February, hoping to enhance patient care by participating in two of the initiative’s healthier meals difficulties, the Sugar Sweet Beverage Initiative, which changes high sugar drinks with healthier options such as water and seltzers and the Balanced Menu Challenge, which removes high calorie menu options with healthier options, Kortze said. “These healthier options are now more accessible to our patients through the room service and menu options and in our cafeterias so that whether you are a patient, visitor or employee, you can make better choices,” she said.