Quality means making a difference in people's lives every day - for the better - and that's what Kindred Healthcare is all about, according to Dr. Marc Rothman, Chief Medical Officer for Kindred.

Toward that end, Dr. Rothman emphasizes that Kindred must assess care based on measures that are standard and understood by others, and that quality care is the result of the efforts of every single Kindred employee every single day.

"Kindred employees partner with first-class organizations," such as Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, UCLA Health, and Kaiser Permanente every day, Dr. Rothman says. These organizations dug deep to find where they could make changes to go from good to great and Kindred needs to follow this path, standardizing and streamlining care, and emphasizing quality, to be the "best healthcare company it can be," he says.

What do you see within Kindred? This is the question that Ben Breier, President and Chief Executive Officer, asked of the Clinical Impact Symposium audience. Breier sees a leadership team that every single day manages the balance of patients, clinicians and business to move Kindred and all of the lives it touches forward.

"Today," Breier said, "we want to empower you as leaders within your facilities, to make a difference and hold others accountable."

James Poullard, Vice President of Pharmacy and Laboratory Services for Kindred, led a reaction panel on Medication Management and Polypharmacy, following Justin Kullgren's, PharmD, CPE presentation on the subject. In addition to Kullgren, panelists included Sally Brooks, MD, Chief Medical Officer for RehabCare, Kim Ramos, RN, Care Transitions Manager for the Hospital Division and Jill Wesolowski, RPh, PharmD, Clinical Staff Pharmacist for Kindred Hospitals of Cleveland.

Poullard started the panel by defining its purpose, which was "to assemble a panel of professionals who are in the trenches, to help us deal with these challenges of transitioning patients from our short-term acute care referral sources to our LTACs, and then preparing those individuals for discharge to nursing homes or to home care settings, and discussing really what their experiences have been."

102,000 caregivers.

152 nominations

Four finalists. 

One award presented annually to Kindred caregivers who demonstrate an extraordinary level of skill, compassion and empathy while caring for patients and residents. The Paul Diaz Caring Award.

Four outstanding caregivers are awarded a cash prize, a glass Caring Award and certificate, and a special reception in their honor. Additionally, each of the recipients will be honored by having their names engraved on the legacy Paul Diaz Caring Award plaque, which sits in the Kindred Support Center. Their photos and stories will hang on the Caring Awards "Wall of Fame" within the expanded facility. 

Divisional leadership addressed the participants at Kindred's seventh annual Clinical Impact Symposium to kick off the first official day, and one theme was common - each leader challenged the group to take what they will learn over the next three days back to their facilities or locations, and make an impact.  

The theme of this year's symposium is The Impact of Fall Prevention and Medication Management Across the Continuum.

The 2015 Clinical Impact Symposium started off with a bang today with two breakout sessions for the pre-conference. While one room spent the afternoon focusing on balance and fall prevention, the other took a deep dive into the role of pharmacists in Interdisciplinary Teams (IDT). Later in the afternoon, registration opened up for the full conference, which kicks off at 8:00 AM Tuesday, November 10.

Speaker Jennifer Ellis (PT, DPT, MS, GCS, and COS-C) began by detailing core characteristics found in clinical experts across all disciplines. It's worth highlighting that the key component of being a clinical expert is being a non-expert. While being a systematic thinker and having a wealth of content knowledge are crucial, the two most important qualities that all clinical experts possess are self-reflection and an ability to change their behaviors based on what they continue to learn. They find out what they don't know, and they learn it. In other words, a clinical expert doesn't necessarily know everything, but they are aware enough to realize when they need to seek answers, and they succeed in finding them.

Each year, we pause to reflect on the importance of rehabilitation in healthcare and the successes of occupational, physical and speech therapy. So when did we begin setting aside a week devoted to rehabilitation? It turns out that this healthcare holiday is almost 40 years old. Rehab awareness was first celebrated 39 years ago in 1976. At the time, the holiday consisted of a small-scale awareness campaign created by Allied Services Health System, a not-for-profit integrated health system, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Since that time, the awareness campaign has grown into “National Rehabilitation Awareness Week” and is celebrated annually across the United States. This observance, which falls on the third week of every September, promotes the value of rehabilitation, highlights the capabilities of people with disabilities, salutes the professionals who provide services to this community and renews our commitment to meet the needs of people with disabilities.

The National Rehabilitation Awareness Foundation was established in 1996 by Allied Services, who has continued to serve as the sponsor for National Rehabilitation Week as a nationwide celebration to educate people on the benefits of rehabilitation

This October the River City is pleased to host the 2^nd Louisville Innovation Summit (www.lisummit.com), which will bring together an unparalleled group of innovators, entrepreneurs and executives committed to lifelong wellness and aging. Aneesh Chopra, the United States’ first Chief Technology Officer, is giving the keynote address, and Kindred is one of the founding partners along with Humana, Trilogy, ResCare, Signature HealthCARE and Delta Dental of Kentucky. 

The mission of the Louisville Innovation Summit is to provide insight, share expertise and explore new avenues of quality aging care.  Because Louisville is a world leader in lifelong wellness and aging care, with over $48 billion in revenue and the nation’s largest collection of aging care companies, it provides a perfect venue to host this important meeting of the minds. Many of the most creative thinkers of our day will meet at the Summit to share their innovations and re-imagine the quality and economics of long term wellness.  

Use Strong Secure Passwords

When choosing a password, consider making an acronym from sentences and use characters, numbers and mixed capitalization for complexity. Also, never give out your login credentials (over the phone, in person, or in e-mail.) 

In this example, the letters in mixed capitalization are an acronymic representation of the sentence: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. For added complexity, the letter 'O' is represented as a zero, and the sentence is finished in the special character '!' 

Modern Healthcare  recently released to the public their 2015 'Top 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare' list. Leading the pack were U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and President of the United States Barack Obama. This is seen at large as a reflection of the centrality in healthcare based on the Affordable Care Act and the battle over its future.