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GRAND ISLAND — The thought of the
growing shortage of healthcare workers is highly
alarming to Mindy Marshall, director of nursing
at Golden Living Center Lakeview.
"It scares me to death," Marshall said. "Who's
going to take care of me? Who's going to take
care of my parents? What are we going to do as a
society?"
"There has been a national shortage of
healthcare workers for at least a decade," said
Laura Redoutey, president of the Nebraska
Hospital Association.
Read more.
—
The Grand Island
Independent, June 3, 2008
The National League for Nursing
(NLN) last week called on all nursing schools to prepare graduates to use
information technology in nursing practice. The group
recommended that schools develop competency in informatics and incorporate
it into their curricula, allocate sufficient resources to IT initiatives, and
reach consensus on informatics competencies for faculty and students. Fewer than
six in 10 nurse educators surveyed by NLN in 2006 integrated informatics into
their curriculum or provided clinical experience with information systems.
—
AHA
News Now,
June 2, 2008
Rebuilding communities and their
social support networks can greatly contribute to mental health recovery for
people displaced after a disaster, according to a
study in the June 3 Disaster Medicine
and Public Health Preparedness Journal. The study measured mental health
distress and disability among more than 1,000 households in Louisiana and
Mississippi whose members were greatly affected by Hurricane Katrina or forced
to evacuate. Participants were interviewed six to 12 months and 20 to 23 months
after the 2005 storm. More than half reported significant long-term mental
health distress. “People who did not have strong informal support networks, who
were afraid in their community, or who were more fatalistic were far more likely
to exhibit mental health and disability,” said lead author David Abramson,
director of research at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
—
AHA
News Now,
June 2, 2008
OMAHA —
A five-person team at Children's Hospital has helped 47 families with severely
sick or injured children.
The Hand
in Hand team secured a bed in the hospital so that all family members could
climb in with a dying infant. The program saw to it that an extremely ill
triplet made it home so the baby's mother could photograph all her children
sleeping under one roof.
It made
sure that a boy had a chance to eat ice cream and cake on his first birthday.
And it brought in home health care providers from central Nebraska for training
in pediatric life-support equipment so a boy could go home.
Families
with critically and terminally ill children face decisions that no family should
have to make – whether to put in or remove life-support equipment, whether to
take a baby home or to place him in a long-term care facility. Some of those
families now receive support from the Hand in Hand team.
The
program began as a test project in October 2006 and became a unit of Children's
Hospital last fall. The team has worked with 47 families, 13 of which have since
lost their child.
—
Omaha World-Herald,
May 31, 2008
OMAHA — Graduate students from some
of the world’s most prestigious institutions are in Omaha this week for the
International Student Research Forum at the University of Nebraska Medical
Center (UNMC). This marks the first time the gathering has been held in the
United States. For the past two years, UNMC has sent students to the forum when
it was held in Beijing and Tokyo.
Vice Chancellor for Business and
Finance Don Leuenberger said UNMC is honored to host the forum. “Such forums
provide an opportunity to showcase the world-class education, research and
clinical facilities we have at UNMC,” Leuenberger said. “It is special to have
some of the best and brightest students in the world congregate here in Omaha.”
Read more.
— UNMC,
June 3, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008, marks the 25th anniversary
of the Nebraska Hospice and Palliative Care Partnership (NHPCP). The state
hospice association serves as the organization dedicated to improving the lives
of chronically and terminally ill Nebraskans through the promotion of hospice
and palliative care to professionals and consumers.
Read more.
— NHPCP,
June 3, 2008
On June 16,
2008, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Ranking Member Chuck
Grassley will co-host a bipartisan summit at the Library of Congress to discuss
options for health care reform in 2009. “Prepare
for Launch: Health Reform Summit 2008”
is part of the Finance Committee’s year-long series of hearings, roundtables,
and events to prepare for congressional action on health
reform. The
Summit is currently open only to senators and members of the House of
Representatives and to press with credentials for the event.
Read more.
—
AHA
News Now,
June 3, 2008
The American Hospital Association
(AHA) and four other hospital organizations recently renewed an
ad campaign
urging Congress to stop Medicaid rules that would slash essential funding for
safety-net hospitals, teaching hospitals and outpatient treatment centers.
“America cannot afford to shred the health care safety net for the uninsured and
jeopardize care for millions of newborns and children, older Americans and
people with disabilities,” state the ads, which will run through June in Capitol
Hill publications. In addition to AHA, sponsors include the National Association
of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, Association of American Medical
Colleges, Federation of American Hospitals, and National Association of
Children’s Hospitals. Without congressional action, a moratorium on the Medicaid
rules will expire Aug. 1. AHA-backed language in the Iraq spending bill, passed
by the Senate last month, would postpone the rules until April 2009 and ban
self-referral to new physician-owned hospitals. The House could take up the
measure this week.
—
AHA
News Now,
June 3, 2008
The AHA recently commended House
and Senate conferees for rejecting the administration’s proposed Medicare and
Medicaid cuts to hospitals in their fiscal year 2009 budget conference report.
“By rejecting proposed Medicare and Medicaid cuts for hospitals, the Budget
Conference Committee recognizes the serious challenges hospitals face,” AHA said
in a
letter to House Budget Committee Chairman
John Spratt (D-SC). “At a time when the number of uninsured individuals is
rising, Medicare and Medicaid currently reimburse hospitals for less than the
cost of providing health care services. At the same time, hospitals need to make
significant investments to continue their mission, including improving
information technology systems to address patient safety and quality of care,
and preparing to respond to emergencies ranging from natural disasters to
pandemic diseases or to the threat of terrorism.”
—
AHA
News Now,
June 3, 2008
A bill aimed at pushing the health care industry toward
conversion to electronic records seemed to gain new life three weeks ago, after
a compromise between key senators, but now the legislation is knotted up again
over the same issue that has weighed it down for years: privacy. The bill (S
1693) would provide grants and loans to hospitals and other health providers to
help them purchase what is known as health information technology, or health IT.
The legislation would also require the federal government to settle on software
and hardware standards for its own health functions, like Medicare, in hopes
that such standard-setting would help bring the private sector along.
Read more.
— Nebraska
Chamber Update, June 3,
2008
The Food and Drug Administration would no longer be able to
protect pharmaceutical trade secrets from the scrutiny of Congress under
legislation scheduled for House consideration Tuesday. In a bill (HR 5683)
dealing mainly with pay raises for employees of the Government Accountability
Office (GAO), a provision would order the Department of Health and Human
Services to turn over any requested information about drug pricing that now is
kept confidential as proprietary information. Democrats in Congress have been
at odds with drug companies and the FDA over the negotiated price of drugs
bought by Medicare patients. Democrats want to be able to scrutinize those
contracts. Under the bill, sponsored by Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., the FDA would
be ordered to give the GAO whatever information it requests, including
information considered a trade secret.
— Nebraska
Chamber Update, June 3,
2008
LINCOLN — Nebraska officials estimate that the state's unemployment rate
increased slightly in April, to 3.1 percent. That's a tenth of a point higher
than the adjusted March figure of 3 percent. The original estimate for March was
2.9 percent. The February figure was 2.8 percent.
The report from
the Nebraska Department of Labor shows the April figure is three-tenths of a
percentage point higher than the 2.8 percent in April last year.
Read
more.
—
Omaha
World Herald, June 3, 2008
FAMC
Diabetes Self-Management Training program
June 10-12, 2008 - Fremont, NE
NHA-HFMA 2008
Golf Tournament
June 11, 2008- Kearney
NHA 2008
Mid-Year Meeting
June 12-13, 2008 - Kearney
Register now!
Nebraska Hospice and Palliative
Care Partnership training workshops
June 10, 2008 - Lincoln
June 13, 2008 - Omaha
June 20, 2008 - Ogallala
Alegent Health Girls' Day Out
June 14, 2008 - Village Point, Omaha
Click here
for a list
of upcoming NHA audioconferences and Webinars.
Visit the
Events page on the NHA Web site for more information on any of the events.
If you have an event you would like listed in Newslink or on the NHA Web site,
submit it to Heather Bullock, marketing and events coordinator, at
hbullock@nhanet.org.
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