Friday, September 2, 2011

Health Informatics News

Health Informatics News

Managing Your Own Care…

Posted: 21 Jul 2011 08:27 PM PDT

I had previously written about my mother being diagnosed with cancer.  Well, we just had the surgery for the tumor removal.  Surgery went well.  Recovery was a different story.   

Let me start by saying the team of doctors is, has been and continue to be wonderful.  I truly have only praise for them regarding the success of the surgery and the way they were able to manage the post-surgery complications and avoid having to undergo another operation. 

That being said…  I am truly shocked by the care my mom received from the nursing staff during recovery.  We were at a very prestigious, high-ranking, world-renowned (blah, blah, blah) hospital…  one of the “you need to go HERE” kind of hospitals.  I had high expectations that my mom would be receiving the “best of the best” in care.  Let me just give you a run-down of what the “best of the best” entailed: 

1.  A faulty catheter.  Can you imagine that for the first three days of the recovery, my mom had to ask a nurse to come in almost every time she had to pee?  And that after three days, we had to get pretty vocal to get the catheter changed out so my mom could lay on her back, immobile, in peace without having to feel like her bladder was going to explode. And have to wait 20 minutes for a nurse to respond to the “call” button.  Seriously?  No one could figure out it wasn’t working? 

2.  She had a lumbar drain in.  They were draining 30 cc’s every four hours.  Pretty important to monitor that, right?  My dad had to call the nurse back in after he/she had left and FORGOTTEN THEY WERE DRAINING HER.  Wow. 

3.  Nurse walks in with eyedrops.  My mother (in her semi-conscious, medicated state) acts confused…  we’d been there four days and she hadn’t been given eyedrops before.  So (now that I’ve witnessed the competency level of the staff and no longer assume they know what they are doing) ask the nurse to double check and let me know why we need eye drops. 

Oops!  They aren’t eye drops!  They’re antibiotics for the nose. The nurse was actually going to put nose drop antibiotics in my mom’s eyes.  AWESOME. 

4.  And the winner is… I don’t even know how to say this.  Since my mom has to be flat on her back, immobile, for five days…  the initial bowel movement had to be in a bed pan.  Nurse comes in to remove the bed pan, takes a towel to clean my mom up, and LEAVES THE TOWEL ON THE SINK.  For lack of a better word…  a POOPY towel.  On the sink.  In our room.  Now I know why infections run rampant in hospitals.  At this point I was thinking the safest thing we could do for my mom was to get her OUT of the hospital. 

I could keep going, but I’ll spare the rest of the gory details.  I’ve learned a valuable lesson and would like to pass it along…   

Manage your own care.  Listen to the doctors, ask questions, stay informed.  Take care of yourself, or your family member.  No one else cares the way you do. 

And just a side note:  This is not meant to bash nurses.  I had two c-sections and my nurses were PHENOMENAL.  Loved every single one of them.  In my mom’s case it was the nursing staff that dropped the ball (repetitively) but it could just as easily be the doctors.  My husband’s grandfather died as a result of being prescribed Amiodarone for too long and it ultimately did too much damage to his lungs.  So I’ll say it again…  stay informed and manage your own care!!

Survey: Privacy compliance has declined

Posted: 14 May 2006 08:56 AM PDT

Three years after federal rules governing the privacy of patients' medical records went into effect, compliance seems to have declined for 6 percent, according to an annual survey conducted by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA). Read more about this at here.

E-book: Making E-Health Work

Posted: 14 May 2006 08:53 AM PDT

E-Health has become an integral part of present-day healthcare delivery. With healthcare consumers, increasingly the focus of most health systems, the widespread implementation of health information and communications technologies offers cost-effective opportunities to meet their increasingly sophisticated healthcare needs.Bankix Systems Ltd has released its latest e-book. It is a 200-page in-depth analysis of the issues involved in "Making E-Health Work," the e-book's title. Read more about this e-book at here.

Consumer tools: UCompareHealthCare Offers Free Reports on Hospitals, Nursing Homes and Physicians

Posted: 11 Mar 2006 09:01 AM PST

"UCompareHealthCare has just unveiled its Web site, ucomparehealthcare.com, which features free reports on the nation's nursing homes, hospitals and physicians to help consumers make informed healthcare decisions. I checked the web site and found it very informative for health consumers to help them make informed decision about their choices of doctors, hospitals and others." Read more about this at UCompareHealthCare

Articles: Direct to Consumer: Women are a powerful, but untapped, audience

Posted: 03 Feb 2006 08:04 AM PST

"Women influence many family decisions—from choosing what's for dinner to selecting the medications their children take. In fact, nearly two-thirds of women are responsible for family healthcare decisions, according to a 2004 national survey conducted by Plan for Your Health. Many women also assume the care-giving role outside their nuclear families. Today's middle-aged woman may also look after her parents and in-laws too, often determining how long they can live on their own and how to best care for them. In addition, she often influences the important health decisions of grandchildren, co-workers, and friends." Read more at PharmExec.

Consumer tools: Really Personal PHRs

Posted: 27 Jan 2006 09:05 AM PST

"If we're committed to fostering the adoption of personal health records, we should take a page out of the consumer marketing textbooks — not the primers of health IT marketers. This was my conclusion after attending a recent meeting in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Markle Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Agency for Healthcare Quality Research and Quality. " Read more about this at iHealthBeat .

Consumer trends: Manhattan Predicts Online Health Trends

Posted: 27 Jan 2006 08:06 AM PST

"US healthcare specialist Manhattan Research has published a summary of the major trends for health and pharmaceutical marketers to consider in 2006. The trends chart the increased use of the web and other new technologies as a health information and communication tool for both patients and physicians." Read more at Daily Research News Online.

News: Wall Street Journal Looks at Tools That Identify Low-Cost Care Options

Posted: 26 Jan 2006 09:07 AM PST

"The Wall Street Journal on Thursday looked at efforts by insurers to provide patients with tools - including a cell phone Web browsing service - to help them find low-cost treatment options. Lumenos, a unit of WellPoint, in February will launch the cell phone service, which lets patients type drug names into their cell phones' Web browsers and get lists of lower-cost alternatives. The program is designed so that patients can ask their physicians about cost-effective alternatives while they still are at their appointments." Read more at iHealthBeat.

Consumer tools: Consumer Health Complete Now Available from EBSCO Publishing

Posted: 25 Jan 2006 08:09 AM PST

"In continuing with the company's goal of providing the most comprehensive collection of online health and wellness resources, EBSCO Publishing has announced the release of Consumer Health Complete (CHC). This full text database is designed to support consumer and patients' information needs as well as foster an overall
understanding of health-related topics." Read more at Managing Information News.
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