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. 

 Provider Magazine recently held a Twitter Chat with healthcare professionals. Using  #providerchats as a conversation tag and labeling different topic codes (ex T1) to organize the flow of commentary, Provider Magazine was able to organize an hour of forward-thinking and thought provoking conversation.   The topics included in this session ranged from the attributes of ‘dying well’ to living wills and preparing for death.

The first topic of conversation put into question whether or not people can actually die well, and if so what those attributes would look like. Provider Magazine noted that a large influence of end-of-life (EOL) decisions is culture. Joe Rotella, AAHPM Chief Medical Officer noted that the attributes of dying well are often times the same as how we live well, "in accordance with what matters most and gives us purpose and meaning."

A retired Green Beret, Norman Johnson, was once a hospice patient in our Mineral Wells, Texas location. He served in the United States Army from age 17 in 1955 until 1975 when he retired at 37. Norman 'Norm' passed away in August of 2013 from cancer. His physician deemed that Norm's diseases were caused by the chemicals, specifically Agent Orange, he was exposed to while in Vietnam.

After his death, his wife Ann began the journey of trying to have Norm's name added to the 'In Memory'* program. In order for veterans to receive this honor, they must first meet certain criteria. For instance, they may not meet the Department of Defense's criteria to be 'on the wall' but their death must have occurred as an indirect result of the Vietnam War. While Norman didn't die in Vietnam, his passing years later was a direct result of his time served there. Norman didn't lose his life in Vietnam, but his death was ultimately caused by his time and service there.