Healthcare Headlines Blog

The Night Doctor is in: Why 'Nocturnalists' Are Replacing Some On-Call Physicians

More hospitals are hiring experienced "nocturnalists" to improve patient safety and prevent calls to tired on-call physicians, according to an article in the Boston Globe. Read More  

Family Caregivers Become More Crucial as Elderly Population Grows

Strain on family caregivers is alarming many lawmakers and social-service providers. Read More   

Antidepressants Carry Much Higher Fall Risk than Anti-psychotics, Study Finds

Nursing home residents with dementia who take antidepressants are at significantly higher risk of falls and fractures than those on anti-psychotics, new research shows. Read More   

Nursing Homes Starting to Offer More Individualized Menus

On a recent Thursday, the staff at Sunny Vista Living Center in Colorado Springs bustled in the kitchen. 

AHRQ Reports Continued Gains in Health Care Quality

Health care quality is improving overall, especially in hospitals, and more people have health care coverage and a usual source of medical care since the Affordable Care Act took effect, according to a new report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Read more.  

AHA Issues Guide for Improving the Patient Experience through the Physical Environment

One way for hospitals to improve patient satisfaction is to focus on their physical environment, according to a new guide by the AHA's Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence initiative and American Society for Healthcare Engineering. Read More   

Hospitals Eye Community Health Workers to Cultivate Patients' Successes

Donnie Missouri, 58, doesn't have medical training. He started his health career in the linens department in Johns Hopkins Hospital. Read More

Number of Seniors Who Need Personal Care Help Increasing, CDC Says

A "significantly" increasing number of adults over age 65 need help with personal care, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read More      

AHA Urges Congress to Remove Legal Barriers to Value-Based Payment Arrangements

Congress should adopt a single broad exception to federal fraud and abuse laws for financial relationships designed to foster collaboration, efficiencies and improvements in health care, AHA told leaders of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees today. Read More   

How a New Payment Stream Could Come to Senior Care

As baby boomers age over the next several decades, the demand for senior care options will increase-and there currently are limited ways for middle-income earners to pay for these services. Read More    

AHA Issue Brief Looks at Bundled Payment Initiatives

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Bundled Payment for Care Improvement and Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement initiatives will be important tests of how well Medicare bundled payment efforts can encourage hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers to coordinate care to lower spending and improve quality and the patient experience, according to an issue brief released today by the AHA. Read More

Every day, patients are brought into emergency rooms or other medical scenarios. Often, depending on their symptoms and situations, they are unable to let the clinicians know certain medical information that may be critical to their care and recovery. As medical providers, Kindred Healthcare and our clinicians are familiar with patients' medical information as it pertains to charts, patient interactions and patient advocates. While our facilities generally don't operate typical emergency room settings, we understand the benefits of having your medical information on hand in case of emergency.

Over the years, many of us have been advised to save our next-of-kin or emergency contacts in our contacts list under the moniker "ICE," short for "In Case of Emergency." The problem with this practice in today's world is that many of us lock our phones, so no emergency medical providers or first responders would ever be able to access a full list of contacts.

Twenty Years in, the Hospitalist Landscape is Shifting-and Prompting New Debates

The drive for efficiency in health care has led to a boom in hospitalists-and growing pains for the profession as hospitals seek to increase efficiency and demonstrate high quality outcomes, reports the New York Times. Read More   

At the Hospital, Better Responses to Those Beeping Alarms

In hospitals, alarms on patient-monitoring devices create a cacophony of noise day and night-beeping, pinging and ringing so often that doctors and nurses ignore them, turn them off or just stop hearing them. Read More