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The art of compassion
Nadine A. Kassity-Krich Medical & Allied HealthcareStarting out in the neonatal intensive care unit, the excitement for me was the adrenaline rush that came from caring for very sick patients, and figuring out what to do as quickly as possible to help "cure" the child. That still held true for my entire ICU career, but as time moved on, and I witnessed many sick patients and grieving families, it became clear to me that compassion was a consistent and integral part of my day.
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FDA approves balloon weight-loss device
Katina Hernandez Medical & Allied HealthcarePeople who have struggled to lose weight through traditional means may now have new hope: The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new balloon device for weight loss. The device is implanted endoscopically through the mouth without requiring surgery during a 30-minute procedure while the patient is sedated. It works to take up space in the stomach in order to simulate a feeling of fullness. The balloon device intends to fill a gap in weight-loss options for patients opposed to or unable to undergo weight-loss surgery.
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Are online symptom checkers accurate?
Lynn Hetzler Medical & Allied HealthcareMore than a third of all adults in the United States use the Internet to self-diagnose everything from hangnails to heart attacks. Most start out by typing symptoms into an Internet search engine, which often leads to a "symptom checker" website or app. A recent study by Harvard Medical School found that these symptom-checker sites and apps often provided inaccurate information for both triage and diagnosis.
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The impact of health IT on workflow
Scott E. Rupp Healthcare AdministrationA new report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality examines the enhanced understanding of the causal relationship between health information technology implementation and various ambulatory care workflow aspects. The report was conducted across six ambulatory care practices from across the United States, and reviewed health systems that had implemented different health IT products or systems.
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The key to building cohesive nursing teams
Keith Carlson Healthcare AdministrationNursing teams have the potential to be dynamic and powerful entities, and creating and maintaining them is a process worthy of considerable attention. When we think of teams, our minds may quickly consider the notion of an athletic team as a prime example. A sports team trains together, travels together and competes as a coordinated unit whose mission is to act as a collective entity.
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Sitting may be killing us, but standing all day is just as bad
Cait Harrison Business Management, Services & Risk ManagementWe know sitting all day in an office chair is killing us, and there's no shortage of stories in the news telling us so. And while you should limit sitting, standing for long periods isn't that much better, according to a new study. The research, published in Human Factors, the Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, found that workers who stood all day experienced significant muscle fatigue, regardless of age and gender.
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For better infection control, providers must look in the mirror
Joan Spitrey Healthcare AdministrationDuring their education, healthcare providers are taught about disease transmission and infection control. The six links in the chain of infection — infectious agent, reservoir, portal of exit, mode of transmission, portal of entry and susceptible host — are a mainstay in infection prevention and well known by healthcare providers.
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Healthcare providers preparing for dialysis pay-for-performance change
Christina Thielst Healthcare AdministrationBeginning Jan. 1, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will pay outpatient dialysis facilities for performance. The End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Quality Incentive Program (QIP) will promote high-quality services by linking a portion of payment directly to the dialysis facility's performance on quality-of-care measures.
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Massive growth continues in mHealth market
Scott E. Rupp Healthcare AdministrationThe mHealth market continues to see sizable gains, with its current valuation at more than $10.5 billion, according to a new report by Allied Market Research. The sector is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 33.5 percent from this year through 2020. According to the recent report, blood pressure monitors have the largest share of the global mHealth device market, followed by blood glucose monitors and cardiac monitors.
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The graying of the US healthcare workforce
Christina Thielst Healthcare AdministrationThe baby boomer generation started reaching retirement age in 2011. As millions of baby boomers are starting to need the additional healthcare services that come with aging, the healthcare industry is considering their labor options. At the same time more workers will be needed, a wave of older healthcare workers will also be retiring. So where will the labor needed come from when there just aren't enough younger workers to fill the gaps?
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