Medicare and CMS sponsor the Nursing Home Compare website where consumers can theoretically find statistical information about how well a nursing home meets quality measures.  Facilities can be located by name or by zip code, and then compared on a series of comparison factors determined by the government.  The service provides an ...

Senator Herb Kohl of Wisconsin wants the rules changed for nursing homes so that nurses can more easily dispense pain killers without prescriptions. His view, as expressed in the media, is that every day nursing home residents continue to suffer from agonizing pain.''  He views new DEA rules as the solution. While the senator is to ...

I know that sometimes I must sound like a broken record, but an incident in a Vermont nursing facility underscores why it is so important for nursing personnel to actively manage patient interactions. In Bennington, Vermont an 84-year-old woman suffering from dementia walked into the room of a 58-year-old man. The man was heard yelling, and ...

In a few weeks Advance for Respiratory Care Practitioners, the magazine that I started off with in 1988, will be celebrating its 20th year. This made me think back to the times in my life when I was a caregiver and the many different places I worked, including:   Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital, Hastings, NE Kirksville ...

Over the summer I made a major purchase at a home improvement retailer. To make a long story short, the vendor: lost my order data due to a computer power failure, delayed product delivery, ordered the wrong size product, forgot to collect payment from me while I was in the store (which meant I had to make an extra trip to the store), allowed the ...

Many years ago, when I was starting out as a respiratory therapist, I was working a 3-11 shift in the ICU.  One of my favorite surgeons, Dr. Jomain, who never minced words with staff, came to the bedside of my patient and began taking the pulse of the patient.  I smiled and, when he completed the process, said “you could find the pulse ...