Medicaid

Introduction: One in four Americans ages 18 and older experiences a behavioral health illness or substance abuse disorder each year and the majority of those individuals have a comorbid physical health condition. Many of these individuals enter care without having their underlying behavioral health disorder addressed. These patients typically have poor medical outcomes and higher rates of utilization compared to the general population without a comorbid behavioral health diagnosis. With a…

of errors or adverse events that should never happen to a patient while in the care of a hospital or physician. Some examples are wrong site surgery, mismatched blood transfusion, or hospital acquired pressure ulcers. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) defines Never Events as “serious, preventable and costly medical errors”. Never Events and “Serious Reportable Events” share the same meaning and can be used interchangeably in the medical environment to describe incidents that…

Kamehameha Nursing Center is part of ITO Healthcare Group. Other ITO Healthcare Group facilities are Honolulu Care facility, Waipahu Nursing Home, and Pearl City Nursing Home. Kamehameha Nursing Home is Medicaid and Medicare Certified and state licensed for 132 residents. The facility also accepts most health care plans including Long-term care insurance. Majority of the residents are Native Hawaiian and Asians ages 65 and older. The facility has more than…

Identifying the Problem After working in both Nursing Home and the Acute Care Settings, I personally have noticed the big difference in the care of the Alzheimer’s disease patients and the elderly without AD. Caring for Alzheimer`s disease patients is more challenging for both the caregivers and health care providers. It is as stressful for both the patients and caregivers as they try to maintain their cognitive intact and as caregivers strive to make the patients feel as normal as…

Rising health care costs, a desire for increase access, and improvement in quality care, has the United States shifting focus to reform the health care delivery and payment systems. First there was pay for performance, then with the implementation of Affordable care act in 2010 began the payment reforms with concentration on care that was both quality based and cost effective. Emphasis was on decreasing thirty day readmissions for core measure diagnosis (Congestive Heart Failure, MI, and…

can help contribute to overall care. When policies are set, a monitoring and feedback system is essential. When projects and issues need attention for improvement, a structural approach to solving these problems is vital (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,…

Isn’t it scary to think that one of your elder family members that is in long term care can be suffering from abuse and neglect? These members of your family can be suffering and you may never even know it. Research in previous years has shown that thousands of elder Americans suffer from abuse and neglect every year. Whether people want to think about this or not, it is a serious issue and a growing concern as the number of individuals that will require some type of long term care is growing.…

Introduction The purpose of this review is to synthesis the literature pertaining to safe transition of care for older adults with dementia. As the number of adults age 65 and older continues to increase, the prevalence of dementia is expected to rise worldwide. In the United States alone, more than 5 million adults over 65 years old and more than 14% of those over age 70 have dementia (Alzheimer’s Association, 2015). Although dementia is considered a terminal illness (Mitchell, Teno, Kiely,…

Ramona Adult Day Health Care Center mission statement is to promote and encourage the highest level of self-care and independence through an organized day program consisting of social, health and therapeutic activities. Ramona Adult Day Health Care Center serves individuals within the city of Baldwin Park and nearby cities. The client population in this center are mostly Filipino and Hispanics. There are few Caucasian, Chinese, and Blacks. Clients age range from mid-thirties to late-nineties.…

Writing about powerlessness and seeing it in the clinical setting are two completely different scenarios. During our clinical experience, I have cared for clients that show the cardinal signs and symptoms of powerlessness and even verbalize that they have “lost all hope,” “feel lost” and “powerless” with their lives. A poem that was written in 2013 summarizes what my patient feels in her last weeks of life. The following poem was written for the National Suicide Prevention and Awareness…