Thursday, October 25, 2007
Telecommunications specialists needed at Boston's Lemuel Shattuck Hospital
Boston's Lemuel Shattuck Hospital should have a telecommunications specialist on staff to look into telephone communications for Geriatric Surgical Care Rehabilitation Services patients. Routinely, temporary telephone setups are done for professional conferences. Just as routinely, temporary telephone setups should be done for patients unable to get out of bed. The logistics of moving patients to other areas of the building for telephone calls taxes a nursing department that could be attending to the more direct care of the patients.
Each patient counts
Each patient counts at the Geriatric Surgical Care Rehabilitation Services of Boston's Lemuel Shattuck Hospital. Fulfilling that ideal at Shattuck Hospital is problematical. Geriatric Surgical Care Rehabilitation Services patients not able to get out of bed have no telephones. It's 2007 not 1950. Isolating patients is costly. Isolating patients keeps families and friends out of the loop. Recovery is longer. Hospital stays are longer. Nursing department resources are taxed in fielding telephone calls from families and friends trying to keep in touch with patients. Patients' telephones keep patients in touch with families and friends advocating for patients care. Signal interference create battlefield conditions, dropouts, garbling and warbling with cellphones' signals and cordless telephones' signals. Wallwired landline telephones are needed bedside for Geriatric Surgical Care Rehabilitation Services patients at Boston's Lemuel Shattuck Hospital.
For example, an iatrogenic skin infection developed in a patient. The hospital acquired infection had not been attended to early on and family and friends were unable to keep in touch by telephone conveniently. Not having a working bedside telephone keep family and friends at too long an arms reach from advocating for more attentive care for the hospital acquired infection and then having a secondary infection checked out that developed.
A state of learned helplessness develops in the Geriatric Surgical Care Rehabilitation Services patients at Boston's Lemuel Shattuck Hospital. Not only the patients. The learned helplessness is evident among the frontline staff and hospital leadership. Weeks have gone by with the telephone communications difficulties unresolved, the leadership unable to fix communications at LSH. There's no board of trustees. No advisory group of stakeholders has been available to look into hospital communications difficulties.
For example, an iatrogenic skin infection developed in a patient. The hospital acquired infection had not been attended to early on and family and friends were unable to keep in touch by telephone conveniently. Not having a working bedside telephone keep family and friends at too long an arms reach from advocating for more attentive care for the hospital acquired infection and then having a secondary infection checked out that developed.
A state of learned helplessness develops in the Geriatric Surgical Care Rehabilitation Services patients at Boston's Lemuel Shattuck Hospital. Not only the patients. The learned helplessness is evident among the frontline staff and hospital leadership. Weeks have gone by with the telephone communications difficulties unresolved, the leadership unable to fix communications at LSH. There's no board of trustees. No advisory group of stakeholders has been available to look into hospital communications difficulties.
October 22, 2007
Elderly not receiving proper amount of care
http://blog.case.edu/ccrhd/2007/10/22/elderly_care
Health Disparities Blog
First we learned that children were getting less care than adults. Now it seems the elderly are also receiving less than optimal care.
From HealthDay:
http://healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=609256
The study found that vulnerable elderly patients -- those at risk of death or functional decline -- received only 65 percent of tests and other diagnostic evaluations and treatments recommended for a number of illnesses and conditions, including diabetes and heart disease.
"Thirty-five percent of the medical care interventions they should have received were not provided, indicating significant room for improvement. We'd much rather have everything higher -- say, at least 90 percent," lead author Dr. David S. Zingmond, assistant professor of general internal medicine and health services research at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
The original study can be found in the journal Medical Care.
Posted by: dmp26 (David Porter) October 22, 2007 02:58 PM | Category: Health Disparities
http://blog.case.edu/ccrhd/2007/10/22/elderly_care
Health Disparities Blog
Elderly not receiving proper amount of care
http://blog.case.edu/ccrhd/2007/10/22/elderly_care
Health Disparities Blog
First we learned that children were getting less care than adults. Now it seems the elderly are also receiving less than optimal care.
From HealthDay:
http://healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=609256
The study found that vulnerable elderly patients -- those at risk of death or functional decline -- received only 65 percent of tests and other diagnostic evaluations and treatments recommended for a number of illnesses and conditions, including diabetes and heart disease.
"Thirty-five percent of the medical care interventions they should have received were not provided, indicating significant room for improvement. We'd much rather have everything higher -- say, at least 90 percent," lead author Dr. David S. Zingmond, assistant professor of general internal medicine and health services research at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.
The original study can be found in the journal Medical Care.
Posted by: dmp26 (David Porter) October 22, 2007 02:58 PM | Category: Health Disparities
http://blog.case.edu/ccrhd/2007/10/22/elderly_care
Health Disparities Blog
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