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5 ways to incorporate pharmacists onto your inpatient care teams

Lisa Mulcahy Healthcare Administration

As a healthcare professional, you know the important role your organization's pharmacists play in every patient's treatment and recovery. But did you know that your pharmacists can have a much greater impact on improving outcomes beyond their traditional consult role with your physicians? Cutting-edge research has illuminated fresh ways that your pharmacists' knowledge can be used as active members of inpatient teams. Try this proven advice.

US economy adds 130,000 new hires as unemployment rate holds at 3.7%

Seth Sandronsky Business Management, Services & Risk Management

In August, U.S. nonfarm payrolls added 130,000 total new hires versus 164,000 in July as the unemployment rate held at 3.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There were 6 million unemployed workers in August compared with 6.1 million in July. In August, there were scant or no changes to the jobless rates for men, women, blacks, Hispanics, whites, adults and teens from July. The employment-to-population ratio rate edged up to 60.9% versus 60.7% in July, the BLS reported.

How machine learning helps important industries

Joseph Zulick Science & Technology

In 1952, IBM's Arthur Samuel created a program to play checkers. Samuel played with the program so often that it was able to improve with each consecutive game. It was Samuel who first coined the term "machine learning." Today, machine learning has become embedded technology many of us take for granted in our daily lives. There are many industries that currently use machine learning to help improve their daily processes. Through machine learning, businesses can move ahead of descriptive and predictive analytics to prescriptive analytics without a hitch. Keep reading to learn more.

CMS: Hospitals must post rates; hospitals not interested in doing so

Scott E. Rupp Medical & Allied Healthcare

In healthcare, it seems that nothing is easy — technology, regulation, privacy, and security. And now, pricing. Efforts are underway to make prices more transparent; this is a tentpole issue for the Trump administration, which wants hospitals to begin posting "shoppable" prices online in 2020. According to reports, some hospitals are facing some challenges for doing so and are trying to figure out how they'll be able to meet the requirement.

Hyperbaric safety drills: Are you prepared?

Tiffany Hamm and Jeff Mize Healthcare Administration

Knowing emergency procedures and drills are critical to safety in the workplace and for your patients. Performing drills can help in the following ways: 1. You can ensure that alarms/equipment are working properly. 2. Everybody knows their roles and responsibilities and becomes confident with how to respond to an emergency. 3. You can validate that your emergency procedures are effective or identify areas that need improvement. There are many emergency scenarios that hyperbaric staff should be prepared to respond to.

15 studies retracted amid fears of organs’ origin

Chelsea Adams Medical & Allied Healthcare

More than a dozen scientific research papers have been retracted amid suspicions the organs used in the studies came from executed Chinese prisoners. During August, the journals PLOS ONE and Transplantation retracted 15 studies by Chinese authors after questions regarding the source of donated organs were posed. The studies were originally published between 2008 and 2014 and dealt with kidney and liver transplants. Two additional journals have also expressed concern regarding published studies.

Researchers chase new treatments for urinary tract infections

Dorothy L. Tengler Medical & Allied Healthcare

In the United States, urinary tract infections (UTIs) account for more than 8-10 million office visits and 100,000 hospitalizations each year. Women are significantly more likely to experience a UTI than men. According to Professor Mark Schembri from the University of Queensland's School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, the problem of UTIs is magnified by increasing antimicrobial resistance, and antibiotic treatments can sometimes just stop working on some patients, with dire results. A recent study, performed in collaboration with researchers from the University of Utah, followed a long-term recurrent UTI sufferer, using genetic analysis to find out whether the infection came from a single bacterial "reservoir" in the body.

Interior design’s widening impact on healthcare outcomes

Michael J. Berens Interior Design, Furnishings & Fixtures

One of the biggest successes in interior design in recent years has been the recognition that the design of healthcare interiors can have a significant impact on patient experience and, consequently, health outcomes. For more than two decades, research and case studies have documented various ways in which patient-centered improvements to the interior environment can make positive contributions to patients’ physiological and psychological health. Over time, the list has grown as investigators, building on previous research, have explored patients’ responses in a variety of healthcare settings more deeply.

Hurry on over to hospice — don’t wait

Lisa Cole Medical & Allied Healthcare

When given a prognosis of likely less than six months to live, most people — once the shock subsides — seek cure. Some go to the ends of the earth in search of treatment; others spend every available dime to ensure they stay alive. It doesn’t matter how old or ill, we humans are hardwired for survival. Making this decision is each person’s own prerogative. As healthcare providers, though, it’s our duty to make sure we give folks choices. It’s our responsibility to be educated about hospice and palliative care and to become comfortable having this conversation with our clients — early on.

Diversity in dentistry: Women researchers leading the way in dental advances

Tammy Hinojos Oral & Dental Healthcare

Volpe Research Center has been famous for developing materials, tools and technologies used in the field of dentistry for the last 90 years and counting. It's kind of a big deal. More than 200 products used in dental practices all over the world have come out of the Volpe labs. Some of science's brightest minds work there. Today, of the Volpe Research Center’s six principal investigators — those who manage and direct all the projects and research — four are women. That’s some serious girl power.

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