Sunday, April 12, 2015

Is care management part of the solution?

I've been pondering for nearly 40 years if a person or a system manager a positively effect a person's care. I started working on this question at one of my very first positions at a cancer rehabilitation research project. One of the primary objectives was to reduce the use of the emergency room by person's with receiving cancer therapies. We were successful in identifying more social determinants and the unanticipated consequences of interjecting a 'care manager' between the patient and their clinician.  The conversation has been added to substantively by a recent brief "Finding a Match: How Successful Complex Care Programs Identify Patients"

check out page 10 for Seven Take-Aways from Successful CCM Programs.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

It's personal



When asked to present on fall prevention, inevitably a member of the audience shares a story. Which I've come to refer to as the 'grandmother story'. And so that is where I start. Whether presenting to community decision-makers, clinicians, or older adults I have one or two people relate their 'grandmother story'.
You see falls are personal. We all know the statistics but what isn't getting through with current messaging is that falls are not a normal part of aging. And an older adult needs to pay personal attention to remaining risk free or risk reduced.  So on April 9th, 2015 I'll be testing out an expanded version of this idea. I'm supported in this by my colleague Dr. Yakura and two very able public health nursing interns, Nate and Nicole.