Posts Tagged ‘Healthcare’
Are Kids Safe At Camp
January 8, 2010
This summer over 10 million kids will be off toSummer Youth Camps. But before they go, health experts are issuing strong new advice to both parents and camp directors, and recommending new precautions to protect campers’ health.
For instance, the experts say, parents should make sure to ask camp officials now what kinds of health services, including emergency response, their child’s camp has in place. Campers should provide, and camps should require, a full health exam and list of any medications that campers use — and let children have immediate access to emergency drugs for asthma and allergies. And parents shouldn’t see camp as a time to give kids a “holiday” from drugs for behavior issues or mental health issues.
Even homesickness, a common psychological malady for campers, can be prevented with a little effort by parents and doctors in the weeks before camp.
Ina recent journal of Pediatrics, new standards were proposed for Summer Camps. Edward Walton, M.D. helped author a paper, outlining an official policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics and was produced in conjunction with the A.C.A. (American Camp Association).
Walton, a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics and emergency medicine in the U-M Medical School who has studied camp health for 18 years, says “Summer camp, whether it’s day camp or sleep-away, can be a great experience for children — but it’s crucial that parents, camp officials and medical professionals work together to make it as safe.”
Walton writes in the journal of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine showing that nearly 45% of camp have health care workers without significant training to meet the medical needs, including diabetes, asthma, attention deficit disorder and epilepsy. For most camps ambulance services are more than 10 minutes from camp and nearly 75%t said the hospital was smaller and less equipped than a city hospital.
In light of these statistics, Walton advises parents and camp officials to communicate openly, early and often about any health problems a child has or might face at camp, how the camp would respond, and how parents can be reached in an emergency.
The bottom line here is to look into the camps safety record and be sure to ask the camp owners and directors how safe their camp is. Are they prepared for your child? To learn more on how to pick a summer camp go to Summer Camp Advice. A FREE directory about Summer Camps
Swift Nature Camp is a Summer Youth Camp for boys and girls ages 6-15. Our focus is to blend traditional summer camp activities with that of a Science Summer Camp.
Ways to Improve the Physician to Patient Ratio
December 20, 2009
Since the 1970′s, the physician and patient ratio has been steadily increasing across the country. The result of the increase is much less time spent with patients. This can result in errors in diagnosis, a loss in developing a personal trust with the patient, and patients not receiving proper medical care. However, there are a number of ways to improve physician to patient ratio which will result in more time spent with the patient, more time on preventive care, improving medical care, and developing better relationships between the doctor and patient.
Ways to improve the physician to patient ratio:
1. Arrange for physician schedules to be more consistent. For instance, schedule physicians to work 3 or 4 days consecutively instead of varying ‘off and on’ days. There can often be much time and expense wasted during doctor transitions. As well, a doctor on a set schedule will spend more time with a particular patient.
2. Improve physician communication with staff and other physicians when they are scheduled for their days off. This includes making use of modern technology such as email and websites to update the staff about patients.
3. Talk to physicians about the benefits of maintaining a consistent schedule as it applies to patient care. Engage the physician to come up with a positive and effective agreement to implement a more effective schedule that benefits patient care.
4. Hire more Physician Assistants. These assistants are able to perform many of the tasks normally performed by doctors. This can include diagnosing and prescribing medical treatments, arranging for diagnostic tests, preventive care counseling, writing medical prescriptions, performing physical exams, and much more.
5. Hire more Nurse Practitioners: A Nurse Practitioner is a registered nurse that acquired additional education and training to carry out some of the tasks normally performed by a doctor. This can include: treating illnesses and injuries such as bandaging, performing physical exams and screening, and diagnostic work.
6. Update hospitals with modern technology to help reduce non patient duties. This can include creating electronic patient files and other important electronic documents and files. Computer orientated patient management can drastically cut down on time away from the patient. Physicians will have more time to focus on their patients.
7. Streamline business operations, particular reducing time dealing with health insurance companies. Physicians can spend many hours each day on the phone with their patients’ health insurance providers. Create a website that allows doctors to enter in a patient’s health plan and identification number which will pull up the patients file containing what treatments and procedures are covered by their insurance provider.
Patients do not always understand why they see a doctor for 5 minutes or why they see several doctors in a family practice setting or during a brief stay in the hospital. Doctors have a lot of added burdens outside the care of their patients. As well, less time with patients can result in poor quality patient care, a higher chance of making a medical error, and even making an error when writing prescriptions. It is important to find and implement measures to increase the physician and patient ratio as it will benefit the medical care industry as well as the doctors and their patients.
SLP school staffing provides highly qualified, full- or part-time healthcare professionals for travel nursing, speech pathologist and occupational therapy jobs.