 National Center for Biotechnology has tools, downloads and educational materials for clinicians. Recently on an information search, this very informative site called the National Center for Biotechnology Information [NCBI] produced some very good clinical articles needed for a patient care issue. That lead to further exploring the NCBI site. At the NCBI site, you have the ability to sign up for a personal account which then can maintain your collection of clinical materials researched. The resources best used in this clinician's practice has been the PubMed at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ , the PubMed Health at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/ and the available clinical guides at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/s/clinical_guides_medrev/a/ . Another area to explore is Bookshelf at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/ . The NCBI site gets a big kudos for its easy-to-use format and its built-in "get started" and "quick start guide" features. One of NCBI's nice change-of-pace features is called Coffee Break at http://preview.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2345/ .... the contents were interesting and it was fun to read. Overall, the NCBI site is an excellent resource to explore, gain clinical knowledge from and a place to look for tools to use in your practice and/or research.
copyright 2013 Kim Kozina Evanoski, MPA, LMSW - Care Manage For All LLC
 Looking for a website that shares free informative educational videos for you to assist your caregivers and staff? Take a look at Health Bleep! Health Bleep is a free public resource that offers important Home Health care and Hospice education for providers and caregivers. The video collection is extensive, helpful and covers many topics. Health Bleep offers caregivers home health information that can be applied to the care they do in an understandable way. The benefit of Health Bleep is it's accessibility; you can go back and review the video information or technique shown any time. Navigating through Health Bleep's resources seems straightforward and has a user-friendly playlist. This can be a worthwhile website to visit and bookmark as a clinical resource or to share information with a caregiver who would like to learn more information about a subject area discussed.copyright 2012 Kim Kozina Evanoski, MPA, LMSW - Care Manage For All LLC
 Finding useful healthcare resource sites as care professionals is time consuming, for sure! Some of us enjoy it and some of us find the task of weeding through clinical and resource materials on many websites pretty overwhelming. One website that has caught my attention and will be bookmarked for future use is called The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality - Effective Health Care Program [http://effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/]. They have consumer guides and clinical guides that seem helpful and informative. I value guides that help clinicians teach patients and help also with professional development resources to share with other clinicians. There are new patient decision guides which could be effective in certain treatment areas, hence assisting the clinicians' work at coaching and navigating our care partners. Four other reasons a clinician may want to connect to this site: 1. the ability to participate in studies, research or comment, 2. just be kept current on clinical information or patient educational tools, 3. the website addresses quality care, effective and best practices, offers white papers, manages tools, supplies summaries and is open to comments, and 4. it's a site that makes you think about your practice. These may be good reasons to take a look!
copyright 2012 Kim Kozina Evanoski, MPA, LMSW - Care Manage For All
 As care providers, it is important to remind our care partners when hospitalized that we can still be available in our care partnership via phone or visit. Providing information prior to a planned or during an unplanned hospital stay will help patients self-direct their care by asking important questions.
Passing on Medline Plus articles like "Medication Safety During Your Hospital Stay" are positive ways we can give education and reminders to our care partners. This particular article informs hospital patients about the process of medication use and safety tips in working with hospital staff to understand one's medications and ask questions that keep a patient safe from medication errors. The link to "Medication Safety During Your Hospital Stay" is http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/patientinstructions/000501.htm .
The use of informative articles help provide preventative teamwork between care providers, patients and families. Care providers who build in continuous patient education create further opportunity to help make a successful hospital stay or a better transition in care in any setting.copyright 2012 Kim Kozina Evanoski, MPA, LMSW - Care Manage For All LLC
 As care providers, aging care partners driving safely in a car is a topic that produces many emotions. It is about independence, safe mobility and the social-to-isolation issues that greatly affect family cohesiveness and the care partner's quality-of-life. Offering compassionate understanding seems to help greatly but giving practical applications to help all care partners find dignity in managing the decision about whether it is time to give up the keys or not is important. Thank you to sharing LinkedIn professionals who suggested the following sites as possible resources for families and friends:
"Beyond Driving With Dignity" at http://www.keepingussafe.org/ is a program examining "driving fitness" and how to keep care partners safely on the road. Purchase of a workbook, hiring of a certified driving professional, and provider training are discussed on the website.
"Drivers Yoga" at http://driversyoga.com/ is a program promoting alert awareness by "applying the progressions of recognition taught in Drivers Yoga, [and where you] can help return a driver's diverted attention back to the present moment." Drivers Yoga seems to have available classes in a regional area they serve as well as learning materials available, both via the website.
 Put on the sneakers and Go! Go4Life is a positive wellness site with many resources from the National Institute on Aging focusing on helping older adults enjoy getting their exercise in a safe, motivational and beneficial way.
Go4Life website has tip sheets, materials to share and other helpful information for professionals interested in encouraging their care partners to put-in-place or maintain healthy choices like exercise and overall positive well-being in their daily living.Enjoy adding a few tips in your own wellness plan!
 Dancing! Art! Lifelong Learning! Creative Living! Put on your dancing shoes and click your way to these great online resource pages by the National Center on Creative Aging ! Learn about some exciting programs like Timeslips, creative engagement and arts interventions. The National Center on Creative Aging has all kinds of research, reports, webinars and toolkits for professionals to share with care-giving families. Enjoy exploring this site as it can can offer ideas and keep our creativity flowing no matter what age one happens to be! copyright 2012 Kim Kozina Evanoski, MPA, LMSW - Care Manage For All
Ever listen to Radiolab? Check out this interesting Radiolab called Gut Feelings as it "...helps us understand what the bugs in our gut have to say about the feelings in our heads." Here is the link to the actual study called "Ingestion of Lactobacillus strain regulates emotional behavior and central GABA receptor expression in a mouse via the vagus nerve" Could this research help us provide better care in the future?
 There has been some valuable discussions happening regarding telemedicine and telehealth's future success. I have been reading many articles and discussions about professional viewpoints dealing with cost, human touch, and technology advancement needed to counterbalance the decline in actual health care providers. I suggest one reading the current article titled, "Telemedicine Dilemma: Savings Or Healing Hands More Important?" by Paul Cerrato, Editor of InformationWeek Healthcare who says how "Telemedicine has two sides, cutting costs and giving some patients access......., but depriving others of the hands-on human contact they need." Another interesting article to read is "Connected Health: Technology First or People?" by Joseph Kvedar, MD where he interestingly says "I think the right healthcare slogan should be......, “technology when you want it, people when you don’t.” But our charge as connected health entrepreneurs is to create solutions that offer our patients such a compelling experience that they choose technology over people, whenever it makes sense." I encourage also reading discussions on your professional sites such as LinkedIn.
After some exploration on this topic though, I now seem only to have more questions! Where is the whole healthcare team in the discussion of telehealth? What are our changing roles going to be to help telehealth become a productive tool for our patients and our communities? How will we truly know the answers to important "patient-driven care need" questions if we don't explore further with whom we are to assist? Shouldn't we ask the patient what works for them? Are we exposing patients to different products that could match their needs? Can everyone - that is, all healthcare professionals - help their patients move to a plan of care that provides independence with self-care using technology as another valuable tool? And can't we blend in the "human factor" when services are needed to maintain optimum care?
Does technology really need to be an all or nothing healthcare tool? It is a "tool", right?
What are your thoughts? What are your questions?copyright 2012 Kim Kozina Evanoski, MPA, LMSW - Care Manage For All
 Kim Evanoski, MPA, LMSW
Sharing information is important, actual vital, to geriatric care management.
As a private care manager in Upstate New York, I find myself not feeling isolated but instead "technologically embraced" by a whole neighborhood of virtual professionals in many varied fields - healthcare, aging, services to families, social workers, geriatric care managers, healthcare and aging media professionals, technology professionals, etc. All these professionals help me everyday do a better job for those I care for professionally.
This is why I am creating a Care-Professional-Exchange blog.
This Care-Professional-Exchange blog is one way I can give back to the "professions". That is, share what others so generously pass on to me.
I invite all who provide care to freely "exchange" ideas, tips and information so it helps us care-partner better. You are welcome to use the comment area below to share your knowledge or feel free to contact me at caremanageforall@gmail.com so I can post information sent in to share with others.
My personal thank you to the many professionals who share so willingly as we move within such a technologically fast-paced changing health and aging continuum of care.
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