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The AARP just met with the leadership of the Mayo Clinic, one of the most outstanding medical institutions in the country. They provide excellent care at a cost that is less than most other parts of the healthcare system - and with improved outcomes. We asked them about their secret to success. Mayo has an electronic medical record and all their patients have their information online. The physicians are on salary, so there's no incentive to order unnecessary tests or procedures, and Mayo has an ethic of patient-centered care, with a long history of attracting the best people and rewarding them. If Mayo can do it, why can't everyone else? The AARP believes that the potential is there for most communities to have excellent care - we must emulate the care delivery of institutions like the Mayo Clinic, and put in place payment and information systems that will coordinate care management better. It's a big job and will take some investment, but we have many opportunities to do a better job than we're doing today.

A health care administration degree provides the skills and knowledge that you require to help ensure that your organization has strong  management and administration.  This page gives you more information about what is involved in studying online masters and PhDs in health care administration, where you can study them, and the job and salary prospects after completion.

A collection of resources on health literacy on trailmeme

"Even highly skilled individuals will find it challenging to grasp complex health information when made vulnerable by poor health. As reported by the American Medical Association (AMA), poor health literacy has a significant impact on health care outcomes as poor health literacy is "a stronger predictor of a person's health than age, income, employment status, education level, and race." "

"This series includes three Reviews about intensive care medicine. The papers describe the evolution of the specialty, the demand for and ability to supply appropriate levels of care, and some of the commonly faced ethical dilemmas and challenges. These topics are apt in this period of economic constraint. Intensive care medicine consumes a considerable proportion of health-care resources and these costs will need to be justified. The appropriateness and effectiveness of the care provided will need to be improved to ensure that these resources are directed to patients most in need of them. "

"Patients and clinicians share why it's important to ask questions and offer ways that you can ask questions and get your health care needs met. In these short, compelling videos, patients talk about how simple questions can help you take better care of yourself, feel better, and get the right care at the right time. Doctors and nurses talk about how your questions help them take better care of you and offer advice on how you can be an active member of your health care team and get your most pressing questions answered."

"WHAT TO DO WHEN A PATIENT LACKS CAPACITY - The degree and urgency with which to act on findings of impaired capacity depends on multiple factors, including the expected duration of impairment, the severity of the impairment, and the seriousness of the decision. Unless the urgency of a patient's medical condition requires that a substituted decision be made immediately, efforts should be made to identify and correct any reversible causes of the impairment [26]. This is particularly relevant in hospitalized patients with impaired capacity due to delirium. Treatment of the underlying causes of delirium may restore decision-making capacity. Patients with mild to moderate cognitive impairment that is not expected to fluctuate may benefit from more intensive efforts at education to improve understanding of the relevant facts, followed by reassessment of decision-making abilities. A randomized trial found that a memory and organizational aid given to patients with mild stage Alzheimer disease dementia (n = 80) improved performance on understanding, which in turn increased the likelihood of being judged capable of providing informed consent to enroll in a clinical trial [34]. This enhancement was also effective in a randomized trial with middle-aged and older adults with schizophrenia [35]. For patients whose impairments are severe enough that they are judged to lack the capacity to make a decision, there is a clear ethical obligation to seek out a substitute decision maker. Substitute or surrogate decision makers should ideally have been chosen by the patient in advance. In the absence of a designated surrogate, laws may vary in terms of which people can serve in this proxy role and their hierarchy; in general, the order is the spouse, adult children, parents, siblings, and other relatives. (See "Legal aspects in palliative and end of life care", section on 'Surrogate decision makers'.) When making a substituted decision, the proxy should take into consideration

A health care administration degree provides the skills and knowledge to help your organization have a strong management and administration. Find out more ...

Families are an immense resource in the care, treatment and recovery of individuals with co-occurring mental health and addiction problems. However, they often have limited access to the resources, information and help that they need to be supportive to the ones they love. This six-week online course for health care providers explores the needs of families affected by concurrent disorders as well as the strategies that health care providers can use to empower families and ensure that their experiences are more positive. The recommended pre-requisite for this course is the Concurrent Disorders Core Course.

The Institute for Health Improvement site which includes free on-line courses. You just need to sign up for a free account to view these. "The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is an independent not-for-profit organization helping to lead the improvement of health care throughout the world. Founded in 1991 and based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, IHI works to accelerate improvement by building the will for change, cultivating promising concepts for improving patient care, and helping health care systems put those ideas into action."

This website is designed to serve as a practical guide to health care providers, planners and consumers for determining the inclusion or exclusion, content and frequency of a wide variety of preventive health interventions, using the evidence-based recommendations of the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care (CTFPHC)*.

Are you looking forward to a career in health or medicine? If so, it can help to read blogs and get a feel for what is available. There are a number of health education and medical information blogs out there. These blogs look at medical education, address different possibilities in the health care field and discuss policy issues. You might be surprised at the number of possibilities there are. Here are 50 of the top health and medical education blogs

Homeless persons may be underserved by the end-of-life care system as a result of barriers that they face to accessing end-of-life care services. Changes in the rules and regulations that reflect the health needs and circumstances of homeless persons and measures to improve continuity of care have the potential to increase equity in the end-of-life care system for this underserved population.

Digital games, including virtual realities, computer simulations, and online play, are valuable tools for fostering patient participation in health-related activities. This is why gaming is the latest tool in the arsenal to improve health outcomes: gaming makes health care fun.

Every Woman Every Child" is a global effort bringing together governments, philanthropic institutions and other funders, the United Nations and multilateral organizations, civil society and non-governmental organizations, the business community, health-care workers and professionals, and academic and research institutions around the world that support the "Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health", which was launched during the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Summit. The Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health provides a new opportunity to improve the health of hundreds of millions of women and children around the world, and in so doing, to improve the lives of all people.

"The Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, a first-of-its-kind social media center focused on health care, builds on Mayo Clinic's leadership among health care providers in adopting social media tools, which began with podcasting in 2005. Mayo Clinic has the most popular medical provider channel on YouTube and more than 60,000 "followers" on Twitter, as well as an active Facebook page with well over 20,000 connections. With its News Blog, Podcast Blog and Sharing Mayo Clinic, a blog that enables patients and employees to tell their Mayo Clinic stories, Mayo has been a pioneer in hospital blogging. MayoClinic.com, Mayo's consumer health information site, also hosts a dozen blogs on topics ranging from Alzheimer's to The Mayo Clinic Diet."

he principle aim of the NHS Evidence service is to provide easy access to a comprehensive evidence base for everyone in health and social care who takes decisions about treatments or the use of resources - including clinicians, public health professionals, commissioners and service managers - thus improving health and patient care. It will build on NICE's significant international reputation for developing high quality evidence-based guidance. It provides access to a range of information types, including primary research literature, practical implementation tools, guidelines and policy documents.

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