Did you know that a pharmacist invented Coca Cola? This was just one interesting fact divulged by Kindred Hospital Division Vice President of Pharmacy James Poullard, who presented this afternoon at Kindred’s Fifth Annual Clinical Impact Symposium.

For Coke lovers, this fact makes pharmacists critical. But more importantly, pharmacists play a crucial role in effective care transitions.

Pharmacy – the science and technique of preparing and dispensing drugs and medicines – has undergone a transformation over the years, according to Poullard.

“We’ve gone from pouring sodas and mixing elixirs to now being the medication expert in retail outlets, and in the inpatient arena,” he said. “There are now post-graduate residency programs and we’ve become an integral part of the patient care team.”

And pharmacists have their work cut out for them.

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As we learn more about the pathophysiology of diabetes mellitus, we find that there is more yet to be discovered. Diabetes mellitus is a syndrome with disordered metabolism and inappropriate hyperglycemia due to either a deficiency of insulin secretion or to a combination of insulin resistance and inadequate insulin secretion to compensate. Type 1 diabetes is due to pancreatic islet B cell destruction predominantly by an autoimmune process, and these persons are prone to ketoacidosis. While type 2 diabetes is the more prevalent form and results from insulin resistance with a defect in compensatory insulin secretion. Diabetes can lead to serious complications, resulting in multiple diseases or disorders that affect multiple systems that may result in premature death.

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The Elder Justice Act is designed to provide federal resources to prevent, detect, treat, understand, intervene in and, where appropriate, prosecute elder abuse, neglect and exploitation. The Elder Justice Act is a comprehensive elder abuse prevention law which was enacted as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010. Before The Elder Justice Act was enacted, federal funding for programs and justice regulations was not available. Now, education, awareness programs, training and other services are available to millions of seniors across the U.S.

 

Elder abuse refers to the actions or lack of actions that harm an older adult or place them at risk of harm or within harm’s way. The harm may be physical, mental, emotional and/or financial. True prevalence is unknown primarily due to lack of consensus regarding definition. Clinicians caring for older adults are integral and crucial to the prevention, intervention and treatment of elder abuse.

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Ever wonder what Kindred is doing to take a lead in confronting issues that affect hospitals all over the country, such as alarm fatigue, which happens when too many beeps and buzzes become like background noise to caregivers? The Hospital Division’s Respiratory Care Council is addressing this healthcare challenge as well as others like it. Meeting every other month, the Council’s 21 members – representing each of the regions in which Kindred delivers care, as well as the Support Center in Louisville – strive to identify and share best practices and standardize systems and procedures across the division. They are also working with colleagues from Kindred’s other divisions to achieve enterprise-wide standardization when appropriate.

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October 20-26 is Infection Prevention Week. The goal of the event is to raise awareness of the role infection prevention plays to improve patient safety. Kindred's Hospital Division has numerous Infection Prevention Initiatives in place to prevent the spread of infection and protect the health of patients.

The best way to prevent the spread of germs is for healthcare workers to wash their hands frequently, to properly disinfect hospital surfaces and to take other precautions, such as wearing gowns and gloves when working with people infected with resistant bacteria. Patients, family members and visitors also play a role in infection prevention and can help by properly washing their hands and wearing protective coverings as needed.

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I once heard a quote from Confucius, and it has stuck with me throughout my career as a case manager at Kindred: “The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential…these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” I tweaked it a little, as people sometimes do, so it really applied to my own life; that desire to succeed is not only for me personally, but also on behalf of the patients I work with each day.

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When someone suffers a traumatic brain trauma — whether it’s from an automobile accident, severe stroke or other injury — he or she is initially admitted to an Intensive Care Unit. After patients are medically stable, it may be necessary to transfer them to a long-term acute care or transitional care facility before an acute rehabilitation or subacute rehabilitation facility.

According to Terry Eberly, a speech pathologist at Kindred Hospital Denver, two assessment methods are used to determine the extent of the injury and issues that need to be addressed:

Based on the results of the evaluation, a plan is customized to the needs of the individual, encompassing and integrating therapies to treat respiratory, speech, motor, visual, orthopedic and other identified issues.

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Kindred’s Transitional Care Hospitals play a vital role in the recovery process for the sickest and most medically complex patients who require aggressive medical care and rehabilitation over a longer period of time. For patients who have complex ventilator needs, multi-organ system failure or complicated medical problems that are very difficult to treat, transitional care hospitals may represent the first important step necessary to make recovery and return home possible.

These hospitals are licensed as general acute hospitals, often featuring such familiar elements as Intensive Care Units (ICUs), operating rooms and on-site laboratory and radiology services, but they also are distinguished by an additional Medicare certification that recognizes the need for extended recovery periods.

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Watch Kelly's inspirational story of hope, healing and recovery. Kelly, a 37 year old wife, teacher and mother of two gradually lost feeling in her legs and then woke up one day paralyzed from her neck down. Kelly's doctor sent her to Kindred Transitional Care and Rehabilitation – Greenbriar to see if rehabilitation therapy could help her condition improve. With Kelly's positive attitude and the dedicated staff at Greenbriar, she was able to walk again. This story, with video of Kelly during her therapy takes place from December of 2012 through March of 2013.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JIvgARQ7n4

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and keeping patients on the road to recovery at the highest level of function possible. As such, Kindred works with chronic-acute patients before they’re discharged to anticipate concerns they might have after they leave and to educate them about medicine management, wound care, follow-up care, caregiver issues and other aspects of their disease process.

“If patients don’t understand what’s happening to them, they panic and bounce back to the hospital,” says Beth Hock, Chief Clinical Officer, Kindred Hospital Dayton and 2013 President’s Award Winner. “Kindred nurses constantly talk about what they’re doing as another way of training patients about their condition.”

Kindred Hospital Dayton also recently took patient education to a whole new level with a 48-year-old woman who suffered a spinal injury that left her a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic.

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