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In this section, feature-length articles bring you up close to common and rare clinical areas. With a focus on disease states, workers' compensation, disease management, long-term care and more, these resources will broaden your clinical base and enhance your delivery of care. Begin with the topical articles below, or start by exploring the five clinical categories to the left.
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Long-Term Care
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Written by Robin Gordon Taft, RN, BS, MS, and Stefani Daniels, RN, MSNA, ACM, CMAC
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Monday, 07 June 2010 17:21 |
 Could These Three Words Change the Way We Provide End of Life Care?
As most case managers on the frontline already know, hospitals have become environments where medical intervention is meted out to debilitated patients approaching the end of life. The indignities of noxious and often painful treatments, such as feeding tubes, catheters, and testing with no therapeutic goal, make comfort impossible for these patients. In addition to their high cost, these common life-prolonging interventions can result in greater debilitation and a host of costly complications including hospital-acquired infections, decubitus ulcers, mental deterioration, serious drug reactions and persistent pain and discomfort. The current hospital-based, medical model functions within a system that appears to devalue those precious final days while utilizing life-sustaining interventions that often deny dignify and peace. There must be a better way to pass through this final stage of life.
The Patient Self Determination Act of 1990 mandated that hospitals provide every patient with written information on the right to be involved with treatment decisions. The advanced directive has become the primary tool to express end-of-life preferences and case managers or social workers are often called upon to help patients and families through the process of determining end-of-life decisions. Ideally, each patient who enters the health care system would have an advanced directive that outlines the parameters of care desired and their own definition of a “good death.”
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Workers' Compensation
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Written by Dan Blasini, RN, BSN, BC-CM
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Monday, 07 June 2010 17:14 |
 Holistic Strategies to Return a Patient to Work
Motivating, educating and facilitating bomb-blast injured service members to return back to combat or to work is a constant challenge in light of their new mental, physical and spiritual state. As members of a multidisciplinary team, we are challenged to help every one of these service members return to combat, cross train them into another military occupational specialty, or return to their own personal vocation utilizing their new prosthetic devices (ranging from fingers, arms, legs and feet).
Outside of the military camaraderie, it is sometimes even more challenging to encourage and assist persons who have sustained a crush injury or amputation—while on the job—to return back to gainful employment. As a nurse case manager for the military for four years and for Hanger Prosthetics for more than two years, I have had the privilege of working closely with workers’ compensation case managers, insurance adjusters and medical directors from around the United States in successfully assisting these injured persons in returning back to passionate and rewarding employment.
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Behavioral Health
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Written by Richard Scott
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Monday, 07 June 2010 17:09 |
 Model Whitney Thompson Redefines a Healthy Body Image
When Whitney Thompson is out for a walk—in one of the many cities where the supermodel travels—it is not unusual for a stranger to approach her and blurt out her name like they were old friends. And it is no less strange for the two of them, after moving past what could have been an off-putting introduction, to fall into conversation.
Thompson is a 22-year-old internationally recognized star, but she has a familiar way with people. And while her modeling career has brought her early fame and a handlaid path to a successful living that few have the chance to realize, it is her ability to forge connections and kinship with the people she encounters that she finds most rewarding. “Girls will just walk up to me and talk to me,” she says.
The ease with which she connects with people makes Thompson a powerful ambassador in one of the driving causes in her life—the fight against eating disorders and the shift in perceptions surrounding body image. Earlier this year, Thompson became an official spokesperson for the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), a nonprofit educational and advocacy organization that has been around since 2001. Unlike many other such relationships, however, the nonprofit did not approach Thompson to act as a delegate. It was the other way around. Without stipulation, Thompson approached them.
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