Retooling for an Aging America

Retooling for an Aging America
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2008-08-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309131952

As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.

Patient Safety and Quality

Patient Safety and Quality
Author: Ronda Hughes
Publisher: Department of Health and Human Services
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2008
Genre: Medical
ISBN:

"Nurses play a vital role in improving the safety and quality of patient car -- not only in the hospital or ambulatory treatment facility, but also of community-based care and the care performed by family members. Nurses need know what proven techniques and interventions they can use to enhance patient outcomes. To address this need, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with additional funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has prepared this comprehensive, 1,400-page, handbook for nurses on patient safety and quality -- Patient Safety and Quality: An Evidence-Based Handbook for Nurses. (AHRQ Publication No. 08-0043)." - online AHRQ blurb, http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/nurseshdbk/

Not As Prescribed

Not As Prescribed
Author: Harry Haroutunian
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2016-04-19
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 1616496282

The leading clinical expert on substance misuse and abuse, Dr. Harry Haroutunian of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, provides caregivers and loved ones with vital information needed to understand and address addiction issues in older adults. Drug and alcohol problems are booming in older adults. Dramatic lifestyle changes, along with growing health problems, have led many to turn to alcohol, prescription painkillers, and marijuana to medicate their physical and psychological pain. You may think, Dad is just enjoying cocktails and retirement, or Mom still has pain and needs her pills. Maybe so, but consider that an estimated 17 percent of people age sixty and older struggle with misuse of alcohol and prescription drugs alone. Older adults are now hospitalized as often for alcohol-related problems as they are for heart attacks. In this book, Dr. Haroutunian, physician director of the Professionals Program at the Betty Ford Center, provides you with the information needed to understand the dynamics of addiction in older adults. You’ll learn to; clearly distinguish between the signs of aging and the signs of addiction, many of which overlap; identify the indications of drug misuse and its progression to addiction; understand the unique treatment needs of older adults; and get the help you—as a caregiver or loved one—need to cope with your loved one’s addiction. This essential guide can help you transform stress and chaos into understanding and compassion.

Facing Addiction in America

Facing Addiction in America
Author: Office of the Surgeon General
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2017-08-15
Genre:
ISBN: 9781974580620

All across the United States, individuals, families, communities, and health care systems are struggling to cope with substance use, misuse, and substance use disorders. Substance misuse and substance use disorders have devastating effects, disrupt the future plans of too many young people, and all too often, end lives prematurely and tragically. Substance misuse is a major public health challenge and a priority for our nation to address. The effects of substance use are cumulative and costly for our society, placing burdens on workplaces, the health care system, families, states, and communities. The Report discusses opportunities to bring substance use disorder treatment and mainstream health care systems into alignment so that they can address a person's overall health, rather than a substance misuse or a physical health condition alone or in isolation. It also provides suggestions and recommendations for action that everyone-individuals, families, community leaders, law enforcement, health care professionals, policymakers, and researchers-can take to prevent substance misuse and reduce its consequences.

Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions

Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2006-03-29
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309133661

Each year, more than 33 million Americans receive health care for mental or substance-use conditions, or both. Together, mental and substance-use illnesses are the leading cause of death and disability for women, the highest for men ages 15-44, and the second highest for all men. Effective treatments exist, but services are frequently fragmented and, as with general health care, there are barriers that prevent many from receiving these treatments as designed or at all. The consequences of this are seriousâ€"for these individuals and their families; their employers and the workforce; for the nation's economy; as well as the education, welfare, and justice systems. Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions examines the distinctive characteristics of health care for mental and substance-use conditions, including payment, benefit coverage, and regulatory issues, as well as health care organization and delivery issues. This new volume in the Quality Chasm series puts forth an agenda for improving the quality of this care based on this analysis. Patients and their families, primary health care providers, specialty mental health and substance-use treatment providers, health care organizations, health plans, purchasers of group health care, and all involved in health care for mental and substanceâ€"use conditions will benefit from this guide to achieving better care.

TIP 35: Enhancing Motivation for Change in Substance Use Disorder Treatment (Updated 2019)

TIP 35: Enhancing Motivation for Change in Substance Use Disorder Treatment (Updated 2019)
Author: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2019-11-19
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1794755136

Motivation is key to substance use behavior change. Counselors can support clients' movement toward positive changes in their substance use by identifying and enhancing motivation that already exists. Motivational approaches are based on the principles of person-centered counseling. Counselors' use of empathy, not authority and power, is key to enhancing clients' motivation to change. Clients are experts in their own recovery from SUDs. Counselors should engage them in collaborative partnerships. Ambivalence about change is normal. Resistance to change is an expression of ambivalence about change, not a client trait or characteristic. Confrontational approaches increase client resistance and discord in the counseling relationship. Motivational approaches explore ambivalence in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way.

Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Save Lives

Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Save Lives
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2019-06-16
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309486483

The opioid crisis in the United States has come about because of excessive use of these drugs for both legal and illicit purposes and unprecedented levels of consequent opioid use disorder (OUD). More than 2 million people in the United States are estimated to have OUD, which is caused by prolonged use of prescription opioids, heroin, or other illicit opioids. OUD is a life-threatening condition associated with a 20-fold greater risk of early death due to overdose, infectious diseases, trauma, and suicide. Mortality related to OUD continues to escalate as this public health crisis gathers momentum across the country, with opioid overdoses killing more than 47,000 people in 2017 in the United States. Efforts to date have made no real headway in stemming this crisis, in large part because tools that already existâ€"like evidence-based medicationsâ€"are not being deployed to maximum impact. To support the dissemination of accurate patient-focused information about treatments for addiction, and to help provide scientific solutions to the current opioid crisis, this report studies the evidence base on medication assisted treatment (MAT) for OUD. It examines available evidence on the range of parameters and circumstances in which MAT can be effectively delivered and identifies additional research needed.