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Hospice nurses, aides, and therapists do a wonderful job caring for their patients, so it is natural that the patients and families want to thank them with gifts. Unfortunately, the size and type of gift can put the employee and agency into the uncomfortable position of being accused of theft if strict guidelines are not developed and followed.
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When treatment options dwindle or are exhausted, terminally ill patients often opt for pain management and comfort over life-extending therapies. However, researchers report that a lack of thorough understanding about the laws governing end-of-life care might leave providers with an ethical dilemma and cause some terminally ill patients considerable, unnecessary pain.
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Intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) allows patients to control their own pain medication, but a new study published in the December 2008 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety shows that errors related to this practice are four times more likely to result in patient harm than errors that occur with other medications.
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The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO) have created the advanced certified hospice and palliative social worker credential (ACHP-SW).
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The annual number of patients discharged from U.S. community hospitals to home health care rose 53% between 1997 and 2006, while the number discharged to long-term care and other facilities rose 30%, according to a new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a notice to update the Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) for calendar year 2009.
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Patients enrolled in the swiss hiv cohort study, initiating their first cART regimen between 1996 and early 2007, who had baseline and follow up CD4+ count and HIV RNA data available, were included in the analysis.
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Most of us microbiologists were rudely awakened to the insufficiency of our susceptibility testing methods last year when the College of American Pathologists (CAP) sent out a carbapenemase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae as an unknown proficiency testing sample. My laboratory, like most others in the United States, incorrectly reported the isolate as susceptible to imipenem and meropenem.
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An outbreak of 140 human cases of West Nile Virus in Kern County, California (better known for its increased risk of coccidioidomycosis), during the summer of 2007, prompted Reisen et al to look for possible causes.
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