Tag: Hospitals & Health Networks

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.

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.

Hospital Benefit Plans

Hospitals and health and fitness systems are generally considered as companies that handle the ill and, more progressively, motivate precautionary health and fitness. However, hospitals are also companies and some of the greatest companies at that. In non-urban areas, a hospital is generally the prominent company, and it’s not unusual to find a health and fitness program with thousands of employees. With that comes a large benefit program for employees, which can be very costly and a big part of a hospital’s financial strategies. Consulting company Towers Watson lately finished its “2012 Hospital Industry Benefits Benchmarking Study,” which analyzed the benefits plan conditions of 48 hospitals and health and fitness systems across the country. The average number a survey participant was 5,000 to 10,000 employees, while the average size was 20,000 employees.

Two Towers Watson benefits experts, Joey Dizenhouse, senior health and fitness and group benefits advisor, and Sue DeFelice, senior pension benefits advisor say hospital benefit programs are going through a period of major change right now, just like those in the rest of the industry and in other sectors as well.

Medical centers are interested in guiding their employees to their own suppliers and services. The expenses of health and fitness benefits signify more than one-third of a hospital’s total benefits expenses for employees, higher than most other sectors. As both a company and provider, hospitals have a unique advantage over other types of companies: They can direct their employees to use the system’s “domestic providers” to save on expenses, Mr. Dizenhouse says. This strategy is growing in reputation for two reasons. Medical centers are able to better handle the health and fitness of their employees, and their payments for worker medical care reuse to their own program instead of going to a competitor. “If employees use household suppliers when possible, a medical care facility is able to cure employees as sufferers,” Mr. Dizenhouse says. “That has always been key.”

Group health and fitness programs are being targeted toward hospital employees. Through outreach and education, hospitals have ramped up their initiatives to advertise maintenance in their areas. If people regularly see their doctor, that may lead to less trips in the more costly hospital inpatient setting.

Trends in Hospitals for 2013

Hospitals & Health Networks together with the American Hospital Association released a 2013 environmental check, a comprehensive review of the health care field that recognizes market forces likely to impact the field. The report identified 10 key themes which are generally not new to health care, but jointly indicate the industry’s sweeping changes. They are:

Information technology and e-health, such as ICD-10 execution, mobile health, big data, details exchange, and EHRs

  • Insurance and coverage, such as State Medicaid programs spending and registration growth, consumer-driven health plans, and Medical health insurance costsPolitical issues, such as the decrease of Medical health insurance company rates, the Supreme Court ruling State Medicaid programs expansion unconstitutional, and the decrease of federal support for hospital State Medicaid programs and Medical health insurance programsProvider organizations and doctors, such as the increase of retail treatment centers, the creation of a culture of performance quality and responsibility, and the need for hospitals to operate more leanly
  • Quality and individual safety, such as penalizations for low quality analytics, cost benefits opportunities in supply-sensitive care, care synchronization during hospital-to-home changes, and concern that public reports fairly and perfectly reflect hospital performance
  • Science and technological innovation, such as the capability to build and enhance virtual company networks, the use of mobile phones and tablets, the growth of e-visits, and the facilitation of hospital care through wireless technology
  • Human resources, such as trust between doctors and hospitals, demand for highly trained individual capital, and shortages of primary care physician
  • Consumers and census, along with a development of adult and weight problems in children, an increase in serious conditions, middle-agers working past the age of 65, and families providing the majority of proper care to the elderly
  • Economy and finance, along with a negative outlook for the charitable health care sector, a growth of hospital mergers and products, and $200 billion dollars of annual waste in health care