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Pressure ulcer education is pretty straightforward for nurses who want up-to-date clinical information that will help them select the best interventions to prevent pressure ulcers and the best treatments to help their patients with ulcers, says Terri Edmiston, RN, MSN, clinical manager for Parkview Hospital Home Health and Hospice in Huntington, IN.
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Nurses at Sullivan County Community Hospital Home Health and Hospice in Sullivan, IN, don't spend time looking for a copy of the Braden Scale, documentation checklists, pressure ulcer intervention guidelines, or teaching tools. They just pick up a pre-packaged envelope and go.
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The Indiana Pressure Ulcer Initiative's collaborative effort to share education and tools to improve the risk identification, prevention, and treatment of pressure ulcers included more than 160 home health agencies, hospitals, and nursing homes. With the focus on education and sharing best practices among the providers, members of the 15-month first phase of the initiative posted some impressive results that contributed to a drop in reported pressure ulcers throughout the state.
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An Indiana initiative to reduce pressure ulcers throughout all areas of health care has resulted in a reduction of bedsores at more than 160 organizations participating in the project.
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A hospice nurse in Colorado was arrested in July for using a patient's name to obtain pain medication. The nurse also was charged in November for using a physician's name along with patient names to forge prescriptions for more than 4,000 pain pills.
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While the details of health care reform, and the outcome of debates and votes, were uncertain at press time, a review of the two health care reform bills under debate do point out two areas that home health and hospice agencies can look ahead to implement.
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More than 35% (35.4%) of patients served by hospices in 2008 died or were discharged in seven days or less, reports the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO). This reflects a 4.6% increase from 2007, when 30.8% of patients had what is considered a short hospice experience.
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Chronic pain is experienced by as many as two out of three older adults. Now, a new study finds that pain may be more hazardous than previously thought, contributing to an increased risk of falls in adults over age 70. The findings appear in the Nov. 25 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
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Add guitars and other musical instruments to the tools caregivers can use to help patients in hospice care. That's what University of Alabama (UA) senior Sarah Pitts found when she brought her music therapy skills to patients in Hospice of West Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
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There are two ways that the staff at Agape Hospice have identified cases of medication diversion by employees. One involved patients reporting less medication in the bottle than listed on the label. Another involved a nursing home hospice patient who was receiving pain medication on an as-needed basis but was running out of pills before the nurse's next visit.
