Healthcare | Distance Learning Systems (DLSI)

Nursing Home Quality

Many reports have published information on the quality of care administered by nursing homes. This includes data on resident and family satisfaction and care outcomes. Information regarding a nursing home must be reviewed if you know that a family member needs nursing home care. Of course, we need to be sure that the facility is secure and the services they offer are above standard. You can also visit nursing homes yourself to check it or ask friends and family for their thoughts and experiences.

There are agencies that monitor and check nursing homes regularly. The Office of Facilities Regulation examines nursing homes to guarantee that they follow state and federal standards. You can contact them to learn more about a facility’s inspection results and recommendations.

The Healthcare Quality Reporting Program issues reports comparing the quality of care provided by different nursing homes in the state. Use the reports to learn about the outcomes that resident at different nursing homes experience and how often they get health conditions that good care may prevent.

Learn what residents and families say about their experiences with nursing homes by viewing satisfaction survey results. You may have heard horror stories about the quality of nursing home care. However, there are good nursing homes as well as bad ones. The nursing home should be hygienic and well maintained. A bad smell may indicate the staff is too busy to help residents to the bathroom or to change clothes. Rooms and public areas should be comfortable. The dining room and kitchen should be clean, and the food should be hot and appetizing or else their patients will lose weight due to lack of appetite.

Another thing, find out how the nursing home complies with the state and federal government regulations such as patient/staff ratio and training. Notice how staff members treat residents. Your choice will be a big factor to the health of your family member. Make sure you make the right decision and to continually monitor their program.

Patient Care Quality

Many view quality health care as the overarching umbrella under which patient safety resides. Quality patient care, dedication to patient satisfaction and rigorous attention to patient safety are the best services a healthcare institution can offer. Because we believe that people can make better decisions about their healthcare if they have accurate information, there is an organization that made a commitment to report publicly how hospitals rank on a range of quality standards and benchmarks.

Maintaining and improving the quality of the Nation’s health care system is an important part of keeping patients safe. The aim of every healthcare institution must be to improve patient safety and health care quality in many areas of health care, reduce health care-associated infections and the adverse drug events

Patient or consumer centered care is health care that is respectful of, and responsive to, the preferences, needs and values of patients and consumers. Different definitions and terminology have been used to describe the concepts in this area, but key principles of patient centered approaches. Treating patients, consumers, care providers and families with dignity and respect is a must in a quality care.

The participation of the patient and family is encouraged in the decision making in every decision about healthcare. Communicating and sharing information with patients, consumers, and families is also a must.

The collaboration with patients, consumers, carers, families and health professionals in program and policy development and in health service design, delivery and evaluation is highly needed to upgrade the services of the institution.

Patient or consumer centered care is increasingly being recognized as a dimension of high quality health care in its own right and there is strong evidence that a patient centered focus can lead to improvements in health care quality and outcomes by increasing safety, cost effectiveness and patient, family and staff satisfaction.

Internationally, healthcare services use a range of strategies to promote patient centered care and partnerships with patients and their families. A range of organizations provide frameworks and tools to help implement these strategies.

Fundamentals of Nursing Course

Nurses play a big role in the Healthcare industry. In fact, they are the most dominant in terms of their numbers. They are advocates of wellness, decision maker and an aid to the patients’ recovery. The nursing learning process will help students apply principles of biological, physical, as well as social sciences. Basic elements of health, nutrition, pharmacology and disease will be presented among students. Basic concepts of nursing are introduced and basic nursing skills are taught and practiced in the nursing lab.

The Fundamentals of Nursing course will provide lessons to students to give them ideas and perspective about the nursing history, current issues and updates of nursing as well as its history. Basic skills and values will also be taught to students such as therapeutic communication, nursing diagnosis, infection control, ethics and legal issues, basic physical assessment and competent care. There are laboratory exposures which trains the students in taking vitals, using gadgets and apparatuses, even teaching you how to put-up an NG tube.

Dealing with pressure and stress will also be part of the course. The nursing profession will require enough patience and sufficient skills to deal with different clinical conditions and settings. Stress will always be a part of the job and learning to deal with it will be important for the nurse to endure the job. Different schools offer different approaches in teaching their students the fundamentals of nursing. This may also depend on how their professors or nursing educators build the teaching program. These instructors must be highly qualified and trained to pass on the learning and skills to the students. Choosing a program or school that matches the needs of the student is vital in building his future as a nurse or nursing educator. It will also all depend on the student on how he applies his learning to his profession.

LPN Training

The LPN or the Licensed Practical Nurse works under the supervision of a physician and/or a registered nurse. They take care of the sick, injured, recovering and disabled in a variety of health care settings. The LPN’s job includes measuring and recording of the patient’s weight, blood pressure, height, pulse, rate of respiration, and temperature as they enter the hospital. These data is needed by the physician to have an accurate diagnosis of the patient’s diseases or illness and to know the right medication for them.

There are states that allow LPNs to prescribe medication, operate devices and conduct basic laboratory tests. The direct care provided by LPNs is supervised by doctors, registered nurses and advanced practice nurses. The student can either take the LPN preparation program in a hospital, community college or vocational-technical school. When the students fully satisfy the required training, they are then eligible to take the license examination as an LPN. They are immediately allowed to apply and work in a hospital.

It’s quite easy to get the LPN certification, but it requires much effort when it comes to the work requirement. Most of them are required to work a 40-hour week, but in graveyard shifts or sometimes in weekends and holidays. They sometimes need to work standing and moving, to assist fully the patients who need care and monitoring. This job requires physical fitness for the LPN in order to fulfill the job requirements.

The LPNs can either continue with their studies or remain in the same position. The work requires patience to deal with a stressful workplace just like any other healthcare job. If you want to be an LPN, make sure you have the passion for patient care for you to last long with the job.

Patient Care Technician

There are many exciting opportunities right now in the healthcare field. More and more healthcare professionals are needed every year due to an increasing aged population that need care, the number of retirees from the healthcare profession, and the upgrade of the healthcare industry which requires more professionals with specific training. One of the most exciting professions is the patient care technician, which is in high demand right now. It is a well-respected profession and can lead you to a great career path.

There are specific responsibilities a PCT plays, and help patients in so many different ways. One of their main roles is to aid patients in performing activities that they are not able to do on their own. These regular activities will include tasks such as bathing, dressing, motion exercises, etc. It is indeed very stressful to visit a hospital, both on the patient and their family. It is the job of the Patient Care Technician to ease the stress by assisting them the best they can.

The training for PCTs includes many different activities that occur in medical services. This includes checking the vital signs of the patients and collecting specimens. The PCTs are also well oriented with the use of diagnostic equipment. Like nurses, they will be managing the patient’s medical records and charts. During the physical exam, the patient care technician will be assisting the physician.

It takes a lot of determination, of course to be a PCT, like any other healthcare profession. To be able to get a job in this field, you need to find patient care technician schools to complete your required course. You will learn about the duties of a health care technician in a more detailed manner. You will be more oriented in how to deal with your patient and how to have great patience. Proper communication will be learned during the course, which will be very helpful in the future.

Senior Care Home Monitoring Technology

Our population has growing needs for healthcare, specially our aging family members. Fortunately, technology continues to advance as well and play an ever growing role in meeting those needs. Technology has the power to help our older adults to be healthier, safer, and age in place independently for as long as possible.

There are many healthcare devices that regularly come out in the market. Some are upgrades of the old ones and some are new and more advanced. Most of these devices are designed for home monitoring. These products are tested well before they offer it to the market and checked well for quality.

Being able to manage the seniors’ health at home will keep them healthier and independent longer. It also helps to keep their healthcare costs down and perhaps even prevent traumatic events while traveling to the hospital.

Different companies are working to make home monitoring easier for senior care. They integrate the new mobile devices and gadgets with the medical devices to make it more usable. Devices such as smart phones, tablets, and computers can be linked with the medical devices. These devices will examine the patient’s health status and will further link the information and data that is obtained with both family caregivers and the healthcare providers who provide senior care.

Several companies provide personal emergency response monitors that can call an alert response center as needed. When the patient is at risk, the device sends an alert to emergency personnel and first responders. Other medical devices might be provided by an in-home care company can connect a patient directly with nurses, and include vital signs monitoring, blood pressure, weight, blood oxygen saturation, pulse, and blood sugar monitoring. These devices don’t just help monitor the patient’s health status, it allows them to stay at home longer.

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.

Healthcare Spending Growth Rate is Slowing Down in the US

Though expenditure previously increased at a high yearly rate, the growth in healthcare spending has slowed down to a great extent in the past decade. This is a new report revealed by The Lancet. More than any country in the world, the US expends more on healthcare per capita. This report may come as surprising news since a great deal of reforms have been put into place recently to stretch healthcare coverage across the nation which led to the reduction of the number of people with no medical insurance. In a comparison made by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) about the spending and policies of the US along with five other high-spending countries, they found out that America’s spending growth rate dropped to 1% in the last 10 years which is almost the same as the average growth rate in other countries.

According to Luca Lorenzoni, author of the study, the disparity in healthcare spending between the US and the other countries with the same level of income could be due to health sector prices for hospital care and prescription medicines, among others, that are comparatively higher in the US. The gains made in the reduction of healthcare spending can be caused by the price movement, for example, the increased utilization of affordable drugs and the cutback on growth in physician reimbursement rates, the authors concluded.

The OECD is an international group whose aim is to “promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.” According to them, further economic recovery could bring unfavorable effect on the slowing down of health care spending. The progress found in the study is no reason to be confident in this area. They suggest measures including price controls on Medicare and Medicaid should be considered to avoid potential increases in costs caused by an improving economy.

Medicare Hospital Issues

The House Ways & Means health subcommittee held a hearing last May 20 on hot-button Medicare hospital issues, specifically focusing on CMS’ two-midnights inpatient admissions policy, brief in-patient stays, out-patient observation stays, auditing and appeals, subcommittee Chair Kevin Brady (R-TX) said. Inside Health Policy said that the hearing was in the works. The hearing also will look at appeals trapped at the third level of the system, Brady says in a hearing statement.

In introducing the hearing, Brady says, “There are a number of problems associated with brief hospital stays and the way medical centers are audited. The Ways and Means Board battled hard to ensure that sufferers are getting the proper care they need and that Insurance coverage is properly paying medical centers for the care they offer. While we were able to offer some relief last March, it was only a short-term fix. We must work on a lasting solution. We don’t want suppliers needlessly looking over their shoulder area for auditors. We want medical centers to be perfectly refunded so that they can focus all of their time on providing the right type of care to sufferers.”

Brady is making reference to Congress’ decision, as part of the short-term doctor payment patch passed in March, to put on hold until March 31, 2015 Restoration Audit Contractor audits on most brief hospital stays related to medical requirement during an elongated transition to the two-midnights plan. A representative for the American Coalition for Healthcare Claims Integrity, which symbolizes RACs, says that the coalition facilitates continuous developments to the RAC system. “We hope this hearing will light up the impressive volume of waste in Medicare and the value of the RAC system to recipients, tax payers and the Medicare Trust Fund,” the representative says. Recent quarterly reviews from CMS show that the RACs’ recoveries have dropped since the two-midnights plan and other changes to the system were applied.