Donald Berwick on Patient Safety

See a video of Dr. Berwick, President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, sharing his insights with Katie Couric on why health care is difficult to fix and his optimism that systems can be changed to reduce, and even eliminate, medical error.

Improving Health Literacy to Protect Patient Safety.

Low health literacy is a recognized patient safety problem. Prior research has demonstrated that patients with impaired health literacy have difficulty comprehending prescription instructions and warnings. This Joint Commission report, developed by an expert panel, contains specific recommendations for improving provider–patient communication, in order to ameliorate the problem of low health literacy as much as possible. The report recommends that organizations establish communication as a patient safety priority and calls for financial support for patient-centered care initiatives.

To read the report: "What Did the Doctor Say?" Improving Health Literacy to Protect Patient Safety

Updated immunization schedules: 2007

The release of the 2007 children and adolescent immunization schedule can be found at the National Guidelines Clearinghouse (www.guideline.gov).

It can also be found in the January issue of Pediatrics:
American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases. (2007) Recommended immunization schedule for children and adolescents - United States, 2007. Pediatrics 119(1): 207-8, 3p following 208.

Museum of Social Reform

From the Scout Report (retrieved 2/9/07)

In the early decades of the twentieth century, a number of academics, social welfare advocates, and muckrakers became interested in the living conditions of recently arrived immigrants to the United States. One such person was Professor Francis Greenwood Peabody of Harvard University. In 1903, he founded the Social Museum, which was established “to promote investigations of modern social conditions and to direct the amelioration of industrial and social life.” For the next thirty years, Peabody and his colleagues at the museum worked on assembling a large collection of photographs, publications and reports related to the international social reform movement. At this site, visitors can browse through the photograph collection, which includes themes such as “charity”, “housing”, and “education”. Visitors will also want to browse through some of Peabody’s own publications, including his influential work, “The Approach to the Social Question: An Introduction to the Study of Social Ethics”.

YSN Library February 12 - February 16

Here is the schedule for when I will be at YSN for this week.
Questions, comments, concerns? .... please email me
janene.batten@yale.edu

Monday 2/12
See me in the Medical Library for help 737-2964
Class 4:00-5:00: Ovid Medline Basics

Tuesday 2/13
See me in the Medical Library for help 737-2964

Wednesday 2/14
12:30 - 2:30
Class: 11:30 - 12:30 Business Researource for Health Care Professionals
Class: 4:00 - 5:00 Podcasting Basics

Thursday 2/15
See me in the Medical Library for help 737-2964

Friday 2/16
8:30 - 5:00

Complete list of classes

Participate in Global Health Care Survey

From ANA Nursing World ... February 6, 2007 (http://nursingworld.org/inc/globalsurvey.htm)

"The American Nurses Association (ANA) invites all U.S. nurses to participate in the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Global Health Care Survey. Nurses from around the world are being asked about their views on nursing and current and future health care issues. The online survey is being conducted by the market research firm - Consensus Research Group. The questionnaire is available in seven languages – English, Spanish, French, Japanese, German, Turkish, and Chinese. Survey results will be used by ICN and ANA to inform organizational advocacy and policy initiatives. The results of the survey will be made public at ICN’s Council of National Representatives meeting to be held in Yokohama, Japan www.icn.ch/conference2007.htm."

The 2007 HHS Poverty Guidelines

The following has been excepted from the Department of Health and Human Services webpage announcing the 2007 Poverty Guidelines.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services the The poverty guidelines are sometimes loosely referred to as the “federal poverty level” (FPL), but that phrase is ambiguous and should be avoided, especially in situations (e.g., legislative or administrative) where precision is important.

They say that there are two slightly different versions of the federal poverty measure:

• The poverty thresholds, and
• The poverty guidelines.

The poverty thresholds are the original version of the federal poverty measure. They are updated each year by the Census Bureau. The thresholds are used mainly for statistical purposes — for instance, preparing estimates of the number of Americans in poverty each year. (In other words, all official poverty population figures are calculated using the poverty thresholds, not the guidelines.) Poverty thresholds since 1980 and weighted average poverty thresholds since 1959 are available on the Census Bureau’s Web site. For an example of how the Census Bureau applies the thresholds to a family’s income to determine its poverty status, see “How the Census Bureau Measures Poverty” on the Census Bureau’s web site.

The poverty guidelines are the other version of the federal poverty measure. They are issued each year in the Federal Register by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are a simplification of the poverty thresholds for use for administrative purposes — for instance, determining financial eligibility for certain federal programs. (The full text of the Federal Register notice with the 2007 poverty guidelines is available.)

To see the complete coverage: Dept HHS
The Oregon Center for Public Policy has a clearer picture of the Guidelines.

For your interest here is a list of Poverty Research Centers:

• The National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan
• The Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
• The Kentucky Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky
• The West Coast Poverty Research Center at the University of Washington
• The Joint Center for Poverty Research of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago
• The RUPRI Rural Poverty Research Center at the University of Missouri

YSN Library February 5 - February 9

Here is the schedule for when I will be at YSN for this week.
Questions, comments, concerns? .... please email me
janene.batten@yale.edu

Monday 2/5
12:00 - 2:00

Tuesday 2/6
See me in the Medical Library for help 737-2964
Class 3-4: Citation Analysis: Tools of the trade

Wednesday 2/7
See me in the Medical Library for help 737-2964
Class: 7-8pm PowerPoint Basics

Thursday 2/8
12:00 - 5:00

Friday 2/9
8:30 - 5:00

Complete list of classes