Educate your agency and your patients
Educate your agency and your patients
New resources for HH administrators
Sifting through the wealth of information available to home health providers is a time-consuming endeavor. Hospital Home Health has compiled a useful list of the latest education resources for staff, patients, and families.
Education programs, books, and Web sites
• Patient safety and pain management are the subjects of two education programs from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Joint Commission Resources (JCR) conducts each program at the client’s facility, and the material is customized to meet the needs of each home care agency’s unique education requirements.
Agencies may opt for either a one- or two-day seminar in each area. The pain management course, for example, can be tailored to physicians or clinical staff and emphasizes the essentials of a successful pain management program. Covered in the seminar are such topics as developing policies, patient assessment tools, staff training programs, and competencies.
The patient safety course concentrates on what steps health care workers can take to prevent patient injury and then looks at what to do in the event such an incident occurs. For more information on the programs and other educational offerings, please contact JCR at (630) 268-7400.
• A new book on home telehealth is now available in print and on CD-ROM. Published by Information for Tomorrow in Kensington, MD, Home Telehealth in the 21st Century, a Resource Book about Improved Care Services that Work, addresses telecommunications-ready tools and services that can be used effectively in the home care environment. According to its author, Audrey Kinsella, telehealth could be just what the doctor ordered now that the prospective payment system is a reality, and self-care is a viable option for controlling medical costs.
Among the topics covered in the book are how to build a telehealth program that’s right for your agency, the costs and effectiveness of home telehealth, home care extender tools, and new home health programs geared toward diabetics that extend beyond the home. The book is available for $195 (plus shipping and handling). To order, or for more information, contact: Information for Tomorrow at (301) 581-0090. Web site: www.informationfortomorrow.com.
• A new Web site, carescout.com, gives family care providers access to unbiased information on the best, and worst, eldercare facilities nationwide. The site provides users with comprehensive and comparative data on more than 53,000 senior facilities, including nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and home health care providers.
Among the information categories available are: facility performance based on county and state benchmarks, current state ratings, bed availability, population characteristics, and first-hand reviews from the site’s unique force of FieldScouts, volunteer health care professionals who submit evaluations. Eldercare professionals as well as discharge planners and long-term care insurance providers can then search and sort viable patient options based on their patient’s individual needs. Visit carescout.com for more information.
• Concept Media has released a three-video series instructing nurses on how to delegate care responsibilities to unlicensed assistive personnel working under their direction. The series, consisting of three half-hour segments, covers the following topics: professional accountability and legal liability, principles of delegation, and strategies for successful delegation.
Also out from Concept Media is a two-part video series: Nursing Process and Critical Thinking. The initial video, The Nursing Process, shows how a student nurse and her professional colleagues help improve the quality of care and life of a chronically ill patient.
The second program, Critical Thinking in the Nursing Process, revives the care scenario of the first video but this time with a twist — the second installment points out how critical thinking was used at each stage of the care process. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.conceptmedia.com.
Resources for rural-based professionals
• The National Rural Health Association (NRHA) has published five new resources for health care professionals operating in rural areas of the country. Getting Things Done: A Survey of Administrative Practices in Rural Community Health Centers offers readers a complete survey of the administrative and governing behavior of rural community and migrant health centers and identifies which administrative practices have proven effective.
The report also provides benchmarks for each technique, as well as reviews of financial and information systems, a section on obtaining funding, and methods to deal with employees. Price is $10.
Managed Care in Rural America: A Preliminary Survey ($10) examines the role of managed care in rural areas and the barriers and concerns faced by those who choose rural health care as a profession. Managed Care in Perspective is a reference guide targeted at health care professionals and consumers. It is available at no charge and is designed to give readers a better understanding of managed care. Network Development Guidebook: A Primer for Community Health Center Board of Directors gives pointers on making decisions concerning the delivery of health care services and is available for $10 for NRHA members and $15 for nonmembers.
Community Voices Calling Us to Action: Proceed-ings of the 5th Annual Rural Minority Health Conference includes conference proceedings on migrant health, environmental health, maternal child health, and cancer and substance abuse. It is available to members for $10 and nonmembers for $20.
For more information, contact the group at www.nrharural.org or write to NRHA, Publi-cations Dept., One West Armour Blvd., Suite 203, Kansas City, MO 64111.
Looking for a tool your organization can use to help prepare for the final Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) regulations? Try The HIPAA Handbook, which is available from the Healthcare Intelli-gence Network.
The HIPAA Handbook provides a detailed analysis of the proposed federal regulation on health information security. The book, developed in conjunction with the law firm McKenna & Cuneo, LLP, addresses the legislative history and background of HIPAA’s administrative simplification provisions and the proposed security regulation in a concise and easy-to-use resource.
The HIPAA Handbook provides a complete explanation of the proposed security requirements as well as an overview of practices organizations should follow when handling personal health information.
Specific issues analyzed in the book include: the historical background of HIPAA; how health care organizations should interpret each proposed security provision; how health care organizations can begin a HIPAA compliance program; and identification of the underlying core documents every health care organization must have. The HIPAA Handbook is available from the Healthcare Intelligence Network for $99. For more information or to order, call (888) 446-3530, or visit www.hin.com.
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