Healthcare Headlines Blog

For the eighth time, Kindred Healthcare has been named by Fortune as one of the World's Most Admired Healthcare Companies. Each year, Fortune partners with Korn Ferry Hay group, a global organizational advisory group.

 

Together they survey top industry minds and leaders, including executives, directors and securities analysts. These industry elites span 680 of the world's highest-revenue companies in 28 countries and across more than 51 industries. Additionally, each company's score must be in the top 50% of the industry survey in order to be listed.

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Hospitals Add Nearly 7,000 Jobs in September

Employment at the nation's hospitals rose by 0.1% in September to a seasonally adjusted 5,110,200 people, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Read More   

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Glenda Mack, Divisional Vice President of Clinical Operations for Kindred Hospital Rehabilitative Services, introduced Christa Dempsey, Chief Nursing Officer of Press Ganey.

Dempsey began by asking the audience to remember why they began working in the medical field. "We didn't get into this business for the money or the hours," said Dempsey. "We need to get back to WHY we all got into this business in the beginning."

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Dr. Ed Covington is the former director of the Cleveland Clinic Chronic Pain Rehabilitation Program and his career has largely centered on understanding and treating pain. He is quick to note that there is no "one right way" to treat pain, but emphasizes that "success comes only from addressing the whole person."

At the beginning of his presentation, he asked one question: "Why talk about pain?" It turns out the simple answer is because it needs to be talked about. We don't know enough and some of what we believe, or have been taught, is simply wrong. 

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The University of Kentucky's College of Health Sciences presented this morning to kick off day two of Kindred's Clinical Impact Symposium. "How do we keep patients progressing at the expected rate, and what gets in the way of that?" asked Art Nitz, PhD, PT, ECS, OCS. How do we keep pain from getting in the way of that?

Pain, and sometimes our very best efforts, have unintended consequences. We have a shared responsibility to develop approaches that are more efficient, more accessible, more effective and do no harm. He began by discussing how the understanding and articulation of pain also has changed over time.

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Presentation by Scott Strassels, PharmD, PhD. A clinical pharmacist with Optum Hospice Pharmacy Services, a partner of Kindred  

Medications, while prescribed to promote healing and symptom relief, often have unintended effects that can hinder care goals. All clinicians must be able to recognize medication-related problems and reach out to pharmacists as necessary.

In Scott's presentation, he sought to help the audience understand the roles of pharmacists in pain and palliative practice and understand how analgesics are chosen based on type and severity of pain.

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For infection control nurses, the little things make a difference - from the microscopic germs seeking to wreak havoc to the incremental steps taken to prevent or contain them.

That's why Anna Lagahit, a nurse and Infection Control Practitioner at Kindred Hospital Santa Ana, goes out of her way to recognize hospital staff for doing the little things to prevent hospital-acquired infections. Staff might receive a "you made a difference today" card from Anna for something as routine as wiping a patient's table or IV machine, keeping catheter lines off the floor or ensuring the cleanliness of everything from the patient to the bed to the area between the bed and bathroom.

"I am a resource to remind nurses and staff that they are protecting not only the patients but themselves and their families when they go home," she said.

 

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Hospice Care Improves Patient Experience

A new study adds to evidence that hospice care during the last six months of life is associated with better overall experiences for patients and a lower likelihood of dying in a hospital. Read More    

Study Finds Benefits When Seniors Call Shots to Help Them

A federally funded project that researchers say has potential to promote aging in place began by asking low-income seniors with disabilities how their lives at home could be better, according to a study released Wednesday. Read More   

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David and his wife, Linducia, were visiting a friend in Las Vegas. When they returned to their hotel she noticed his breathing didn't seem right. This is his story.

"It wasn't long after we got back to our hotel that David began having trouble breathing. I called the front desk and the paramedics arrived very quickly" Linducia said. "He was rushed to the hospital and we later found out it was only a matter of minutes before he would have died from a heart attack. He had emergency heart surgery and had three stents put in. During the surgery he also suffered from three strokes and his doctors had to induce a coma."

After surgery his outlook was very poor. David also began suffering from massive kidney failure and had to have dialysis. "His condition actually worsened" Linducia recalled. "He was on every kind of medication imaginable, completely unconscious and immobile. None of the doctors thought he would survive. Then four weeks into this ordeal I asked his doctors to run an MRI brain scan as he had said that if he was ever brain dead he wouldn't want to 'live' hooked up to a machine."

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With Room Service and More, Hospitals Borrow From Hotels

At the Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital outside Detroit, patients arrive to uniformed valets and professional greeters. Read More  

Remote Heart Monitoring Can Help Detect Emergencies

Instead of having heart monitors with noisy alarms near patients' beds in the hospital, it might be better to have off-site technicians do the heart monitoring remotely, a recent study suggests. Read More   

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