Right at Home Elder Care Experts Featured: AlzheimersCareToday.com Announces the Addition of a New Alzheimer’s Care Expert Contributor

May 21, 2012 04:29 pm | Valerie VanBooven

(St. Louis, MO, May, 2012) LTC Expert Publications is proud to announce that Tom and Jennifer Bollum, Owners of Right at Home in Roseville, CA are the featured contributors this week for a new website dedicated to Alzheimer’s Disease Care.

AlzheimersCareToday.com contains articles and information specific to the care of family members suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease, including

Tom and Jennifer Bollum Owners

Alzheimer’s Treatments, Dementia Care, and Signs and Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease, tips and articles.  All content is written by experts in the home care and assisted living industries.

“We have dozens of experts nationwide who are happy to share information and advice to families who have a loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease. Many are home care agency owners who speak to family caregivers every single day. They know and understand the challenges of Alzheimer’s Disease and deal with these challenges full time. We are sharing their expertise on this new website,” states Valerie VanBooven RN BSN, Co-Owner of LTC Expert Publications, and author of three books on senior care, elder care, and caregiving.

AlzheimersCareToday.com will highlight and feature a different expert who will share tips and information on Alzheimer’s Disease Care each month.

“We are honored to have Tom and Jennifer Bollum, Owners of Right at Home in Roseville, CA (www.HomeCarePlacerSacramento) as our official

featured experts. Tom and Jennifer’s Right at Home office in Roseville provides home care services for the entire South Placer area.  They just submitted a new Alzheimer’s Care article, “Dementia Care: Ready for a Road Trip?” adds VanBooven.

Contact Tom and Jennifer at  (916) 287-0122

www.HomeCarePlacerSacramento.com

Tom & Jennifer Bollum own and operate the South Placer / Sacramento office serving the  South Placer communities of Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln, Auburn, Meadow Vista, Penryn, Newcastle, Applegate  and Sheridan  along with the Sacramento communties of Carmichael, North Highlands, Antelope and surrounding areas.

By assisting our clients in daily activities such as light housekeeping, medication reminders, nutritious meal preparation, shopping and errands, companionship, and personal care, caregivers provide a service which allows the client to continue living independently. In addition to caring for our clients we keep the family members abreast of the client’s health and document the service provided. Right at Home goes above and beyond to provide excellent care and service for our clients.

Right at Home provides trained, insured and bonded caregivers for a variety of caregiving needs. Whether it’s for extra assistance after a stay in the hospital, an aging parent who needs extra help or companionship to remain in the home, or as a respite for the family member who cares for an ailing loved one. Our home care services are flexible for your needs. We can provide care for as little as a few hours a day up to 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Right at Home now has more than 200 offices that serve thousands of clients across the United States. We also have operations in the United Kingdom and Brazil.

Right at Home In Home Care Services provides the following:

• Bathing, Grooming & Hygiene
• Meal Preparation
• Medication Reminders & Safety Supervision
• Transportation/Errands
• Companionship
• Chore Services & Light Housekeeping
• Family Respite

Their Service Area Includes the Following Locations:

• Carmichael
• Lincoln
• Roseville
• Antelope
• Rocklin
• Sacramento
• Auburn
• Rio Linda
• Elverta
• Newcastle

 

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Home Health Care News: Firstat Nursing Services Supports National Senior Health and Fitness Day. Publishes Tips on How Home Health Nursing Can Help

May 21, 2012 02:54 pm | Valerie VanBooven

Firstat Nursing Services, a home health care agency in San Diego, providing home nursing services has recently published a guide to help families trying to keep seniors healthy and fit.

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Home Care News: Kansas Workman’s Comp Ruling- Failure to follow procedure prevents payment for home health services

May 21, 2012 02:37 pm | Valerie VanBooven

Originally posted at: http://www.riskandinsurance.com/story.jsp?storyId=533347765

In Kansas, nursing services by a member of an injured worker’s family must be approved in advance by the treating physician.

Case name: Lemmons v. Ryder Integrated Logistics, Inc., No. 106,153 (Kan. Ct. App. 03/16/12, unpublished).

Ruling: In an unpublished decision, the Kansas Court of Appeals held that a worker’s wife was not authorized to be his home health care provider.

What it means: In Kansas, nursing services by a member of an injured worker’s family must be approved in advance by the treating physician.

Summary: A worker sustained a spinal cord injury while working that rendered him permanently and totally disabled. The employer offered to provide him with around-the-clock in-home attendant care. The worker declined but agreed to 45 hours of care per week by a caregiver. The worker and his wife found the presence of the caregiver in their home to be intrusive. The worker sought to have his wife substituted as the attendant care provider and to have her compensated for her services. He discharged the caregiver. The Kansas Court of Appeals held that the wife was not authorized as the worker’s home health care provider because he failed to follow the proper procedures.

The law provides that a worker can obtain nursing services himself if the employer neglects or refuses to provide such services. Here, the employer did neither. It offered to provide him with constant nursing care, but he eventually dismissed the service entirely.

Also, if the services of a health care provider are not satisfactory, another provider can be appointed. Here, there was no evidence that the care provided was unsatisfactory.

The court pointed out that the wife had no nursing training. Also, nursing services by a family member must be approved in advance by the treating physician. The treating physicians commented that the wife was “capable” of providing attendant care to the worker, but their comments were not “advance approval.”

The worker also argued that he was entitled to more than 45 hours per week of assistance. The court declined to resolve the issue since it determined that the wife was not entitled to compensation as a home health caregiver. The court said that if he sought compensation for a home health provider in the future, evidence of his current need for home health care would be considered.

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Home Care Marketing: Google’s Latest Changes- What They Want, What They Don’t Want, and How to Keep Them Happy! (Hint: Relevancy is King)

May 18, 2012 09:54 pm | Valerie VanBooven

“Relevancy plus common sense plus content”- we like those words at LTCEP and we  are VERY glad that Google likes them to.

It’s funny how we’ve always had that practice with our clients’ websites, and now it’s paying off in more ways than we imagined.

 

Recently Google implemented the “Penguin Update” and we were very pleased to see even some of our clients’ youngest websites benefit from those changes in Google’s algorithm. 

 

Now we have taken that path a step further and launched authority sites that are not only relevant, but highlight our clients’ expertise in the subjects of caregiving and Alzheimer’s disease care. We have 5 more authority sites launching this year alone. Who benefits? Thousands of overwhelmed, stressed out family caregivers, and people looking for elder care answers….and of course our clients will benefit too.

 

Want to see more? Visit www.LessCaregiverStress.com and www.AlzheimersCareToday.com

 

To back up the value of this practice- here’s some information from the guy who knows all at Google……

This information comes from Search Engine Journal’s Scott Krager:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/relevancy-is-king-says-google-vp-at-smx-london/43687/

 

In his opening keynote at SMX London, Amit Singhal, VP and Google Fellow, who rewrote the original Google algorithm upon his hire in 2000, said today that “Relevancy is King”. He added that Google looks at a combination of three signals (links, social, user actions) and how those signals support each other to build the organic result set.

While declining to “whiteboard the algorithm for you” Singhal did give hints of where Google is going and what they look for with the current algorithm.

Everything came back to “relevancy”. Google wants to always serve the user the most relevant result to the individual. And they will use whatever data sources they can to determine that.

Here are 5 points I found interesting from Sinhal’s talk.

1. Author Rank

Singhal mentioned that the author of a page influencing rankings. This may seem common knowledge, but it’s not something I had heard confirmed.

But keep in mind, Google looks at all signals in combination, not just one signal by itself.

2. Aberrations in Ranking Signals

The algorithm looks closely at aberrations in all signals. So buying that 1000 tweet package for $10 probably isn’t the best bet.

3. Search Plus Your World Redesign Holding Up International Releases

Singhal disclosed that Search Plus Your World was getting a bit of an overhaul in design and that until that was complete it would not be rolling out internationally.

4. Google uses human quality raters extensively in testing algorithm changes

Singhal discussed how Google tests new algorithm improvements, and one part I thought was interesting is that once an engineer writes an improvement, it first goes out for A/B testing to Google human quality raters before coming back to Google to potentially run live, real Google search traffic tests of the change.

5. Google’s new direct answers results in more searches

A webmaster in the audience asked a question “why even give Google our content if you’re just going to provide answers to users without sending them to our websites?” Amit replied that they found an increase in searches by users that get served a Google answer set (ie, what is the capital of Oregon?) and thus actually send out more traffic to websites because users have more time to dig deeper with more advanced queries once their initial basic query answer is found. (ie, why isn’t Portland the capital of Oregon?)

While this direct answer feature hasn’t been widely rolled out yet, it’s coming soon according to a recent WSJ article on the topic. And apparently this feature will actually result in more searches and more traffic to organic result sites. I’ll believe that this will really drive more traffic when I see it in analytics.

Regards,

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN

Owner/ Managing Partner

LTC Expert Publications
Phone: 888-404-1513
Email: valerie@ltcep.com

 

See our client samples: http://MySeniorService.com
Register for our webinars and marketing videos: http://LTCSocialMark.com

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Home Health Care News: Bad Move? Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn wants to cut $11 million in Medicaid spending on home health care

May 17, 2012 10:03 pm | Valerie VanBooven

GOV PAT QUINN Home Health Care Cuts

SPRINGFIELD — According to a new study by Chicago-based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, the move to cut spending on Home Health Care could lead to higher costs in nursing homes and hospitals. Health and Medicine Policy Research Group is a health-care policy nonprofit organization.

Their study found that other states that cut funding for home health care services saw costs go up for nursing home care and hospitalizations. They found that in Michigan, for example, after home health care waivers were cut, spending on nursing homes and emergency hospitalizations increased for seniors.

“Home care stretches dollars,” said Lisa Hardcastle, president of the Illinois HomeCare and Hospice Council, an association of home-care providers, which commissioned the study. “It is a service that can help more people for less money.”

Right now, Gov. Pat Quinn is in the midst of trying to find $2.7 BILLION dollars to stop the bleeding of the State of Illinois Medicaid program. The study done by Health and Medicine Policy Research Group also highlights the fact that right now there are about 2.3 million retired seniors in Illinois- but within 10 years that number is expected to grow to 3 million.

This decision could have some serious unintended consequences for hospital systems in Illinois with regard to Medicare payments, as hospitals and physicians will now be graded in large part on hospital readmission rates. If no one is there to help at home- ….they’ll be back in the E.R. more quickly and more consistently.

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Home Care Conference News: 2nd Annual Home Care Sales and Marketing Society

Apr 15, 2012 10:25 am | admin

Looking for ideas and tactics that are working to get more referrals?

Want to learn more about online marketing and the best practices for online/internet leads?

Where:

Driving Directions

When:

Join us for 2 full days of interactive learning and sharing from industry experts and your peers.

We are excited to announce the dates of the 2012 Annual conference for the Home Care Sales & Marketing Society.

Mark your calendars for October 18-19 2012! 

The 2 days will be packed with education and networking opportunities. 

We are currently putting the final touches on the agenda – if you have topics you would like to learn more about or challenges you would like to round table please email me so we can include them as a session.

Click on the link below to register for the “Early Bird Special” – Get $100 off if you register for the conference by June 1, 2012.

CLICK HERE: Get more information

CLICK HERE: Register Now!

If you have questions please email or call!

We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Sincerely,

Melanie Stover

Home Care Sales & Marketing Society

Melanie@HCSociety.com

505-298-7530

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Home HealthCare News: National Home Healthcare Leaders Applaud Ohio Proposal for Coordinated Care to Reduce Costs, Improve Patient Care

Apr 14, 2012 09:19 pm | admin

As lawmakers look to improve healthcare delivery, Ohio plan encourages the use of clinically advanced and cost-effective home healthcare.

“Enabling seniors to remain at home allows for better chronic condition management, improved outcomes, and lower costs.  This plan is right for Ohio patients and Ohio taxpayers.”

WASHINGTON, April 12, 2012  – The Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare – a national coalition representing more than 1,500 community- and hospital-based home health agencies nationwide – today praised the Integrated Care Delivery System (ICDS) proposal submitted by Ohio’s Office of Health Transformation to better coordinate care for the state’s sickest and most costly Medicare and Medicaid patients.  As part of its proposal, Ohio will enable more seniors to receive high-quality, cost-effective medical care in their own homes.

Ohio’s ICDS plan would change the way healthcare is delivered and coordinated for the state’s Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.  The plan aims to more effectively coordinate the Medicare and Medicaid benefits received by dually-eligible Ohioans to ensure the delivery of the most clinically appropriate and cost-effective care.  Tellingly, one of the cornerstones – and measures for success – of the pilot program is its ability to increase use of home healthcare by Ohio’s 182,000 Medicare and Medicaid patients.

“We applaud Ohio’s leaders for advancing innovative pro-senior healthcare delivery reforms,” said Eric Berger, CEO of the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare.  “Enabling seniors to remain at home allows for better chronic condition management, improved outcomes, and lower costs.  This plan is right for Ohio patients and Ohio taxpayers.”

The Partnership has also praised Ohio Governor John Kasich (R-OH) and the Ohio PASSPORT program, which provides comprehensive support so that seniors can receive care in their home instead of costly institutional settings.  Governor Kasich has stated, “I can’t think of anything more important to a senior than to be able to stay in their home with assistance rather than being put in a facility that they’re not comfortable with.”

“Ohio’s programs are models for improving healthcare delivery and reducing costs, and we encourage lawmakers inWashington – and in all states – to consider how they can leverage similar reforms to strengthen our healthcare system nationwide,” added Berger.

Analysis of Medicare spending illustrates the significant impact that home healthcare can have on healthcare spending.  A 2011 report by Avalere Health, LLC determined that home healthcare use by patients with chronic illnesses resulted in a $2.81 billion reduction in post-hospitalization Medicare Part A spending and an estimated 20,426 fewer hospital readmissions between October 2006 and September 2009.

Skilled home healthcare is clinically advanced, cost-effective and patient preferred. Research shows that 89 percent of American seniors prefer to age in place, stay home and remain independent. Nationwide, approximately 3.4 million Medicare beneficiaries receive skilled home healthcare services to treat illnesses related to acute, chronic or rehabilitative needs.

The Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare was established in 2010 to assist government officials in ensuring access to quality home health services for all Americans. Representing more than 1,500 community- and hospital-based home health agencies nationwide, the Partnership is dedicated to developing innovative reforms to improve the program integrity, quality, and efficiency of home healthcare for our nation’s seniors.  To learn more, visit www.homehealth4america.org.

SOURCE Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare

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Home Healthcare News: Global Home Healthcare Market Worth $296 Billion by 2016

Apr 14, 2012 08:46 pm | admin

April 5, 2012  – The “Home Healthcare Market (Equipment, Service & Telehealth/Telemedicine) Current Trends, Opportunities & Global Forecasts to 2016″ analyzes and studies the major market drivers, restraints, and opportunities in Americas, Europe, Asia, and Rest of the World.

Browse market data tables and in-depth TOC of “Home Healthcare Market (Equipment, Service & Telehealth /Telemedicine) Current Trends, Opportunities & Global Forecasts to 2016″. http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/home-healthcare-equipment-market-696.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on reports.

This report studies the global home healthcare market over the forecast period 2011-2016.

The global home healthcare market is segmented into equipment, services, and home telehealth market. The equipment and services are further categorized according to their applications, technologies and mode of delivery. The equipment market for home healthcare is segmented into monitoring, therapeutic, and mobility assist devices. The service market for home healthcare categorized into rehabilitation service providers, unskilled home healthcare, infusion therapy service providers, and respiratory therapy service providers. The home telehealth market comprises monitoring devices, services and managed equipment services.

The global home healthcare market is in its growth phase but can be considered significantly established in the developed regions of the world which account for the majority share of 80%. The developing regions such as Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World account for the rest 20%, but show a strong growth potential mainly due to the large untapped patient base.

The global aging population is set to increase from 550 million in 2000 to 973 million by 2030. Japan and South Korea are considered to be the world’s fastest aging countries. The median age of the world population is increasing due to a decline in fertility and a 20-year increase in the average life span during the second half of the 20th century. Another factor contributing to the growth of the home healthcare market is that an increasing number of countries are experiencing the shift termed “epidemiological transition”. Chronic diseases with long-term treatment have begun replacing infections as the primary cause of death in the aging societies and this shift is not confined to the developed world. Home healthcare is required for diseases and disorders which need close and regular monitoring such as diabetes and respiratory disorders. The demand for home healthcare is increasing because of the high incidence and prevalence of the chronic disease conditions.

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Home Care News: Graying America Gets Wired to Cut Healthcare Costs

Apr 14, 2012 08:14 am | admin

By 2030 when all the boomers have turned 65, he wants to see elders using sensors like the MIT biosuit and smart phones to perform their own health checks. He wants to cut visits to hospitals and clinics by 50 percent and relegate nursing homes to the history books.

“Certainly 10 years out, we’d better be in that situation, or we will be in an economic crisis in the United States,” said Dishman.

(Reuters) – Baby boomers wired to their iPads and smart phones are giving U.S. health experts some new ideas about ways to cut the soaring costs of medical care in graying America.

Some of the ideas might sound like “Robo-Granny”. An astronautical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made a skin-tight undersuit equipped with sensors that can constantly monitor the vital signs of its elderly wearer and feed the data into a computer that fires off health alerts. It was first designed for a landing on Mars.

There’s also Paro, the robotic seal that has fur, big eyes and responds to voice commands, a low-cost companion that the AgeLab at MIT is testing to help calm elderly people with dementia. Then there is the magic carpet with a built-in sensor that monitors gait to check for risk of falling.

Other ideas are simpler and already are being tested by governments and private health insurers. Marilyn Yeats, 79, is suffering from congestive heart failure and uses a personal healthcare computer, called the Guide, provided by the health insurer Humana Corp. She calls it My Little Nurse for helping her keep track of her blood pressure, weight, temperature and whether she is taking her medicines on time.

“It rings me up every morning at 10 am, and there I am, on my machine measuring myself, and if I have gained weight, it asks me additional questions. I say it is like having your own nurse come into your house every day,” said the Naples, Florida, resident.

If these programs succeed, home technologies could help slash billions of dollars from the nation’s $2.6 trillion healthcare bill by keeping the elderly in their homes longer and out of expensive hospitals and nursing homes.

The United States spends far more on healthcare than any other country at 17.9 percent of GDP compared with the OECD average for advanced countries of 9.5 percent. And yet dollar for dollar it gets results that are consistently in the bottom third of developed countries along with Mexico or Hungary, as measured by average health outcomes.

Cutting healthcare costs is essential if the United States is to tame its $15 trillion government debt load. Medicare, the healthcare program for the elderly, consumes 15 percent of U.S. budget spending. It is the biggest single expense after defense and the pension program Social Security.

Medicare costs are growing rapidly as the 79 million baby boomers – roughly equivalent to the entire population of Germany – retire over the next 20 years, threatening to push the U.S. debt load to $25 trillion in a decade.

Left unchanged, the Medicare hospital fund is forecast to go bankrupt by 2024. The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which already has downgraded the U.S. credit standing, has warned of further action within three years if the United States and other advanced G20 countries fail to get to grips with the costs of aging. It singled out healthcare as the biggest factor.

New technologies hold out promise for lowering costs. But they run into a basic problem – the fee-for-service payment model, which pays U.S. healthcare professionals for delivering treatments, diagnostic service or surgical procedures, rather than for keeping someone healthy and out of the hospital.

“We have to rethink entirely how we are paying our doctors, and the longer we fail to look at the results they deliver for the healthcare they provide the more we will fail,” said Prof. Amitabh Chandra, a health economist at Harvard University.

LOW-TECH SAVINGS

Initial studies on home health computers are sufficiently encouraging that Humana, the largest healthcare insurance company in the United States, is testing 1,000 patients in 34 states. They conduct daily self-monitoring and weekly video check-ins with a nurse. Its aim is to see whether it reduces emergency medical visits.

The Center for Disease Control in a study last year estimated that fewer emergency hospital stays could save $7 billion annually. One night in an intensive care unit can cost $10,000, in a nursing home over $200, while staying at home with a health monitor could cost as little as $10.

A Stanford University study last year found that two clinics using a similar product called Health Buddy saved between 7.7 percent and 13 percent per elderly person per quarter. UnitedHealthcare, which insures one out of every five Americans on Medicare, is also running a program.

The Obama administration, in its 2010 healthcare reform legislation now before the U.S. Supreme Court, is seeking to encourage this type of experimentation in healthcare delivery to cut costs. One initiative would pay healthcare providers a set price for each medical condition rather than reimbursing for each service. Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office. Elmendorf said the idea is to create incentives for doctors to treat patients more effectively by allowing them to pocket the difference if they save money.

“It is a period of great ferment, and how successful that will be is a big question,” he said.

HOME AS CLINIC

A telehealth project conducted by the National Health Service in Britain has excited health information technology advocates here in the United States.

Britain collected 12 months of data on 6,191 patients in using home health monitoring, half of whom had chronic conditions such as heart failure and diabetes. It found that emergency hospital admissions fell by 20 percent, patient stays were cut by a quarter and re-admissions by 14 percent. The results, released last December, were sufficiently impressive that the British government plans to roll out telehealth monitors to three million homes over the next five years.

“It shows you can really do simple things with simple technology. It’s about getting the right information into the right hands at the right time,” said Louis Burns, chief executive of Care Innovations, a joint project of GE and Intel Corp. which developed the Guide.

Dr. Jeff Kaye, a gerontologist at the Oregon Center for Aging and Technology, is out to prove the case for wide rollout of telehealth devices in the United States. The center has wired 400 homes of the elderly with sensors and computers that feed medical and behavioral data into a computer bank. He wants to expand the project to 10,000 homes nationwide, a large enough sample to produce compelling scientific evidence of its value.

Software programs sift through all the data to check for developing trends or changes in personal habits such as whether someone is getting up more frequently at night, or communicating less with friends, or walking differently. These could signal the onset of dementia, Parkinson’s or a stroke. A nurse can call or arrange a doctor’s visit.

Without the data, Kaye said he might miss important signals in a short monthly visit.

“If you think that the average appointment is 15.7 minutes long, half of that time I am talking and half of that the patient is talking, that leaves only about five minutes to actually reach the diagnosis and prescribe the treatment. It is crazy,” he said.

Collecting reams of highly personal health information sounds intrusive, and adult children often protest. But if it keeps Dad in his home longer and if he controls who sees the information, most people welcome it, Kaye said.

The gerontologist is a huge advocate for these technologies. But he is no starry eyed evangelist. While it might be relatively cheap to turn the home into a health check-up center, comparable to the cost of a home burglary alarm, someone has to read all the print-outs and spotting diseases early can increase the medical bill further, Kaye and other experts say.

Under the fee-for-service payment model, where every time a doctor reads a chart, orders a test or consults with a patient a bill is generated, home monitoring devices would be scarcely affordable. And even if the technologies do help keep someone healthier, a longer lifespan pushes up the total healthcare bill. A 90-year-old is far more likely to have multiple chronic conditions from heart failure, diabetes and cancer to dementia.

“The simple connection from better health information technology to cost savings is very aspirational,” said Harvard economist Chandra.

In fact, longevity increases the bill. The MacArthur Research Network on an Aging Society estimated in a December 2009 study that by 2050, Americans will live between three and eight years longer on average than the government projects, adding $3.2 trillion to the Medicare and pension program.

PAYING FOR RESULTS

The job of Dr. Richard Baron, group director at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is to cut through this knot. His task is to improve the quality of care for America’s oldest and poorest, while lowering costs. His agency is distributing $900 million in grants this year to test various projects, including those including home technologies.

A specialist in geriatric and internal medicine, Baron was early to adopt email contact with patients, switch to electronic medical records and use some basic home health monitoring under a state-funded project at his Philadelphia practice in 2004.

“Patients loved it. Email was hugely popular,” he said.

The business challenge was how to make technology cost effective. Rather than charge for each email a doctor sent or electronic chart read, Baron focused health results – what does the patient want and how can we use technology to achieve that?

“If people are rewarded for the rates at which they use the technology, they will find ways for the technology to reward them. If they are rewarded for the way in which they solve the health problem, they will find ways to make that happen,” Baron said.

Studies by the OECD, McKinsey Global Institute and by Thomson Reuters have shown that 30 percent of U.S. health care spending is unnecessary. Experts point to the fee-for-service payment model as a major reason where doctors, surgeons, hospitals and other specialists have no incentive to coordinate care. This is a particular problem for elders who frequently have a number of chronic diseases.

Rand Corp. forecast that converting from paper to electronic medical records could save $162 billion a year by allowing doctors to coordinate treatment and reduce unnecessary procedures. But in a sign of how complex it is to change the dynamics of the healthcare system, a study in the Health Affairs journal last month found that access to computerized image results was associated with a 40-70 percent increase in doctors ordering extra tests, possibly because they were just a mouse click away.

For Baron, the study says less about electronic records than it does about the need to change incentives. Used differently, electronic records can make it easier to track whether people are having the regular tests they need.

This is the vision shared by Eric Dishman, director of health innovation at Intel, who carries a black rotary telephone around to speaking engagements to symbolize a U.S. healthcare system badly in need of a refresh.

By 2030 when all the boomers have turned 65, he wants to see elders using sensors like the MIT biosuit and smart phones to perform their own health checks. He wants to cut visits to hospitals and clinics by 50 percent and relegate nursing homes to the history books.

“Certainly 10 years out, we’d better be in that situation, or we will be in an economic crisis in the United States,” said Dishman.

(The story was corrected to fix name of product to “Guide” from “Connect” in paragraphs 4, 20)

(Reporting By Stella Dawson)

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Home Care News Tip: Occupational Therapy Permits Seniors to Live Life to It’s Fullest

Apr 14, 2012 07:34 am | admin

April is National Occupational Therapy Month

Occupational therapy makes it possible for folks of all ages to enjoy life by supporting them to promote health, prevent—or live better with—injury, illness, or disability. It is a practice that revolves around science and is evidence-based, meaning that the plan designed for each individual is supported by data, experience, and “best practices” that have been developed and proven over time.

If a senior in your life is receiving home care services, you might also consider asking their physician about Occupational Therapy services that are often covered by Medicare.

Occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants focus on “doing” whatever occupations or activities are meaningful to the individual. It is occupational therapy’s goal to get over challenges to the treatments that guarantee living life to its fullest. These treatments may be adaptations for how to do a task, changes to the surroundings, or helping people to modify their own behaviors.

When working with an occupational therapy practitioner, strategies and modifications are individualized for each particular person to resolve complications, boost function, and help everyday living actions. The aim is to maximize potential. Through these therapeutic approaches, occupational therapy helps folks pattern their lives, develop needed skills, adjust their environments (e,g., home, school, or work) and build health-promoting habits and regimes that will make it easy for them to prosper.

By utilizing the full picture into account—a person’s psychological, physical, emotional, and social makeup as well as their environment—occupational therapy assists clients to do the following:

•       Achieve goals
•       Perform at the best level
•       Emphasis on what matters most to them
•       Preserve or rebuild their self-sufficiency
•       Take part in daily endeavors that they need or want to do.

Founded in 1917, the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) represents the interests and concerns of more than 140,000 occupational therapists, assistants and students nationwide. The Association educates the public and advances the profession of occupational therapy by providing resources, setting standards including accreditations and serving as an advocate to improve health care. Based in Bethesda, Md., AOTA’s major programs and activities are

In-Home Care: Should the childcare rebate be extended to cover in-home care such as nannies?

Apr 02, 2012 11:43 pm | Valerie

Tony Abbott’s announcement that he will ask the Productivity Commission to report on ways to finance extending the childcare rebate to in-home care for children is recognition of the need for parents in the paid workforce to have choice in the way their children are cared for.

Not only does this policy offer choice but it also makes economic sense.

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Much of the cost of child-care fees includes the cost of land and bricks and mortar, that is land and buildings that have to be acquired to provide a dedicated child-care facility. Whereas in your own home, care means you are utilising premises that are already in existence and the care takes place where the parents choose to have their children cared for.

The issue is not dissimilar from issues of aged care being delivered one’s own home instead of in a residential aged care facility.

This policy allows older Australians in need of care services to receive them in their own home, where they prefer to be, rather than in a facility requiring land requisition and purpose built bricks and mortar.

Again the important issue of choice is at the heart of this policy.

Women who have constantly to deal with the question of child care are cheering Tony Abbott’s new policy announcement, offering choice and common sense.

Think about the family that has a 12-month old and a four-year-old. Allowing the rebate for in home care would mean that the service being paid for can be delivered to the family in the way that they need it.

Not by having to send the children to two different child care providers but remaining together in their own home.
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Regards,

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN

Owner/ Managing Partner

LTC Expert Publications
Phone: 888-404-1513
Email: valerie@ltcep.com

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Home Care Lead Case Study

Mar 29, 2012 11:24 am | Valerie

Home Care Lead Case Study

Regards,

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Home Care Assist Older Drivers by Supplying Transportation

Mar 29, 2012 12:15 am | Valerie

Latest studies have demonstrated that older drivers are more likely than any other drivers to be in accidents.

Some states are now making driving tests for older people or for men and women who have been in three or more collisions in one year, required. This is because elderly drivers are more inclined to either being injured or killed. Statistically, senior citizens are more regularly in dangerous or fatal wrecks than any other ages. The best way to properly ensure that the unsafe drivers are off the roads is for them to be required to take a test to see who should and who shouldn’t be driving. Some see this as discrimination, while other folks see it as a peace of mind and a way to know for sure that their loved one will be safe while on the road. Most of the people, especially those with senior family members, are already mindful of the probable hazards.

A wonderful option for keeping your elderly parent or loved one safe is to use a home care agency that furnishes transportation. Home care agencies not only supply transportation but more to the point they supply the possibility for individuals to keep their independence. This also prevents isolation and aids them to continue to get around to their own doctor appointments as well as run their own errands.

You will discover a variety of totally different ways to find out how to get help in your community. Speak with your local Area Agency on Aging. If they do not offer transportation, they can help you learn more about your options in order to find someone who does. There are also door-to-door services in most areas and driver volunteers. The door-to-door service do require you to call and give them notice on what your plans are but this may offer the most range of flexibility.

However, if you are interested in paying a fee for each designated stop you should ask about a fixed route. The fees charged are discounted at senior citizen rates and in some cases are actually free. The option available with driver volunteers usually is a great option for people who need to be taken to a specific place at certain times such as doctor appointments or senior centers. For more information you can call the National Transit Hotline Toll Free at 1-800-527-8279, they can provide you with a list of local home care agencies that can help you find the right alternative to fit your specific needs.

Regards,

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN

Owner/ Managing Partner

LTC Expert Publications
Phone: 888-404-1513
Email: valerie@ltcep.com

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