Care Delivery
Carolinas HealthCare System’s Levine Cancer Institute last month launched the first-ever mobile unit with a CT scanner as part of the health system’s effort to address lung cancer diagnoses, treatment and education for rural residents across the Carolinas.
The mobile lung…
For many years, credentialed experts have acted as gatekeepers for specialized knowledge and service. Attorneys have been gatekeepers for the legal system, universities for higher education, publishers for information and scholars for research findings. These experts have shaped available…
Trustee talking points
An estimated 43.4 million U.S. adults had a behavioral health issue in 2014.
People with chronic medical conditions have an increased risk of depression and vice versa.
Worldwide, the lifespan of patients with severe mental disorders is 10 to 25 year…
Cancer Death Rates Drop
Overall cancer death rates continue to decrease in men, women and children for all major racial and ethnic groups, according to a joint report from a number of organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
1.8%
The amount cancer death rates…
Honors
AHA announces annual membership awards
American Hospital Association President Emeritus Rich Umbdenstock will receive the association’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, at the AHA Annual Membership Meeting from May 7 to 10 in Washington, D.C. Kris…
Alzheimer's Long Reach
Alzheimer's disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's.
More than 15 million
The number of Americans who provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer's or other dementias.…
Karen Gardner was a classy person. I don’t use that term lightly. You can be smart. You can be talented. You can be highly accomplished in your career. But it takes a truly classy person to be all those things and face the world with Karen’s conspicuous sense of humor and…
Hospice care has been shown to improve patients’ quality of life while reducing costs near death, but hospice services are chronically underused.
OhioHealth, however, has used a quality improvement approach to address that conundrum — and with good success. Within less than a year…
Trustee talking points
A growing number of small and rural hospitals, unable to recruit or afford physician hospitalists, are staffing their hospital medicine programs with nurse practitioners.
Hospitals that use this approach must comply with state and federal regulations regarding scope of…
When the independent primary care group that served Rusk County Memorial Hospital started referring patients to a competing facility in another community, the critical access hospital in Ladysmith, Wis., faced a crisis. The hospital’s market share fell from 43 percent to 21 percent from 2011…