Jan Erickson was a volunteer caregiver. Answering her church’s call to be of service to the elderly and infirm, she worked with a number of women, one of whom broke her heart before inspiring her to dream, literally. That dream became a specialty clothing company with which home health care and hospice nurses and therapists need to be acquainted. (more…)
by Trisha Tulloch, RN, BSN, MSN, HCS-D
TRISH TULLOCH
In the summer of 2008, we at RBC Limited were privileged to work with two home health demonstration agencies participating with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Abt Associates to field test the revised OASIS-C. Since that time we have supported dozens of agencies in their transition planning to OASIS-C through leadership, staff education and competencies. To help you plan and refine your agency’s transition processes to ensure success in 2010, this column shares some “Lessons Learned” from those experiences. (more…)
by Trisha Tulloch, RN, BSN, MSN, HCS-D
TRISH TULLOCH
With less than three months until OASIS changes again, home health providers are proactively organizing and finalizing OASIS-C training initiatives to provide up-to-date information on critical new and revised assessment items based on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Guidance. Additionally, agency leadership is assessing the impact of these changes to OASIS and revising agency processes to accommodate those requirements.
This article explains the leadership considerations that can have the biggest impact on home health providers and the decisions that need to be finalized to assure that OASIS-C staff training will enhance clinical practice consistency. (more…)
In the ever-changing home care environment, there is constant pressure to integrate best practices and processes into all areas of home care operations, especially clinical practice. As Trish Tulloch explains in another article in this issue, with OASIS-C upon us, using best practices affects everything.
Nevertheless, searching the literature and the web for those best practices can be both confusing and time consuming. (more…)
HEADLINES Worth A Clinician’s Look – October, 2009
- Two new guides on Premixed Insulin Analogues available from AHRQ
- Healthcare industry still posting job growth – especially in home care
- Have you decided about CAHPS?
- Surgical masks proven as effective as N95 respirators in safeguarding healthcare workers – implications for home health clinicians and organizations
- 2010 OIG Work Plan shows major focus on Medicare & Medicaid home health; hospice issues also included (more…)
Congratulations to Ann McCaughan –
First Nurse to Win Frost & Sullivan Lifetime Achievement Award for
North American Remote Patient Monitoring
by Carolyn J. Humphrey, Editor
Ann McCaughan, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer of Noninvasive Medical Technologies, Inc. (NMT) is the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Lifetime Achievement Award winner in the category “North American Remote Patient Monitoring.” (more…)
We confront home care and hospice’s toughest problems through five topical newsletters.
Home Health News hopes you will find our newsletters informative, sometimes even inspiring. Please know that your feedback is encouraged to all of our articles but especially our occasional opinion pieces. This will be a place where the home health care and hospice community can learn from each other.
Using Home Health News is easy. Most people select the title or titles at the right that interest them and subscribe to that newsletter. You can also sign up for our RSS feed so that you are notified when breaking news happens.
Some of our newsletters have their own web page, so you might want to bookmark this page before clicking on your favorite newsletter to make it easy to find your way back here.
Other newsletters are written right here in this blog format. Commenting on an article is easy. Simply click on the article’s headline, read to the bottom, and click on “comment.”
When one of our newsletters with its own site, such as “Tim Rowan’s Home Care Technology Report” and “RAC Assistance for Hospice,” runs an especially important or controversial article, we will reproduce it here so that you can comment on it more easily.
Click the ‘contact’ button to let us know what you think of this new service, or if you discover a problem with the site.
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009
1:00 pm ET
During an influenza pandemic, home health care workers can expect to be called on to provide care for hospital patients who are well enough to be discharged but who still need care, as well as patients who need home health care services. On any given day, there are approximately 500,000 patients in home care—three times the number of patients in hospitals. In a pandemic influenza outbreak, the existing home health care population combined with new patients from hospitals is likely to exceed the industry’s current capacity to respond. (more…)
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will host a telephone conference on Thursday, August 20 to provide information for healthcare providers about the H1N1 Virus
Title: Information Exchange with HHS on H1N1 Healthcare System Preparedness and Response
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2009
Time: 1:30 -3:00 pm, EDT
Call-in Number: 800-837-1935
Conference ID: H1N1
Agenda
I. Opening Remarks
Chair: Dr. Nicole Lurie, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response
Co-Chairs: Capt. Clare Helminiak, Dr. Sally Phillips, and R.Adm. Ann Knebel
Moderator: Susie Butler, CMS Office of External Affairs
II. Discussion
The purpose of the dialogue is to engage the provider community in a discussion of H1N1 preparedness and response issues. High priority will be put on a discussion of the value and contribution of the primary care
provider networks. We will discuss strategies for:
* reducing the burden on emergency departments
* early identification and intervention with high risk patients
* work force protection
In addition we will discuss emerging issues on the healthcare system surge capacity, critical care planning and home health care preparedness and planning issues as of interest to the participants.
III. Open Q&A
Submit questions and innovative solutions in advance at: H1N1.listening@hhs.gov.
Note: CMS emphasizes that submitting questions prior to the call will allow them to address as many questions
as possible. If you choose, you may wait to speak your question during the call.
The CMS Office of External Affairs would like to hear from you:
* What are your plans to protect high risk patients from H1N1 infection in your clinics/professional settings?
* Have you initiated any early intervention strategies with high risk patients (e.g. home antivirals)?
* What strategies are you planning to prevent unnecessary trips to the Emergency Department?
* How are you addressing an anticipated increased patient volume?
* Could telehealth play a role in surge?
* Could call centers support hospital decompression?
* What can PCP do to help the hospitals and vice versa?
Mark your calendar! A follow-up call on the same topic is scheduled for Monday, September 14, 2009.
Welcome to the industry’s newest news source and community dialog covering issues important to home care and hospice clinicians.
As this site develops over the summer of ‘09, you will find here a wealth of information about the things that concern you most as a clinician. Longtime editor of the magazine Home Health Nurse, Carolyn Humphrey, RN, will research and report on OASIS, coding, regulatory issues and patient care.
From time to time, we will introduce other writers, either as a guest or regular columnist, to explore chart documentation questions, ICD-10 news, physical therapy procedures and a growing list of important clinical issues.
Your input will be a major part of this service. Commenting on articles is as easy as registering on the site and clicking on the “comment” tag at the end of every article. We hope that the resulting dialog will be helpful for everyone.
If you are a writer with something to say beyond the scope of a comment, we always welcome article submissions and will try to publish as many as we can. Send them to the editor, Tim Rowan, at editor@homecaretechreport.com.
