Webinar: A Revolution in Musculoskeletal Care

Speaker: Dr. Ronald Donelson

Credible data documents that the care of musculoskeletal pain, including low back (LBP) and neck pain (NP), has been worsening with more people suffering from chronic pain, more drugs being dispensed, more injections, and unnecessary surgeries. The results are not positive. With current conventional treatment, we have more people with disabilities and spiraling healthcare costs. Today, there is equally credible data that documents that a highly innovative clinical assessment identifies characteristics of each patient’s condition that also identifies standardized, predictably-effective self-treatment that produces rapid, easy, risk-free, inexpensive recoveries for 80-90% of patients. This session will explain the evidence and assist patient advocates and consumers in understanding better options when dealing with acute and chronic LBP and NP.

Ronald Donelson, MD, MS, DipMDT, is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon who specializes in and has researched non-operative spine care for 30 years. He is Founder/President of SelfCare First, an organization that seeks to globally improve the value of spinal/musculoskeletal care. Dr. Donelson has published numerous research studies, chapters, review articles, and two books on the topic: “Rapidly Reversible Low Back Pain: An Evidence-Based Pathway to Widespread Recoveries and Cost Saving” and “Solving the Mystery: The Key to Rapid Recoveries for Most Back and Neck Pain”

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A Week in the Life of a Palliative Care Doctor: What we really do

Speaker: Dr. Gary Pasternak - 

Dr. Gary Pasternak is medical director at Mission Hospice and Home Care and co-director of the Mission House, a residential hospice home in San Mateo, CA. He is board certified in hospice and palliative medicine and internal medicine. He completed a palliative care fellowship at the San Diego Hospice in 2010 and has been practicing palliative care full time with Mission Hospice since then. He assisted in the design and implementation of Mission’s policy regarding physician assisted dying as well as Mission’s partnership with Stanford University in teaching palliative/hospice care in the home and at Mission House. He completed chaplaincy training at the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley in 2008 and enjoys working with hospice multidisciplinary teams.

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Hospital Drift

Speaker: Lisa Berry Blackstock - 

During this session Lisa Berry Blackstock addressed the prevalence of "hospital drift" within the hospital setting where fragmented care and miscommunications are serious hazards for all patients’ safety.

• Hospital drift occurs when hospital personnel deviate from standard, proven protocol.
• Consequences can range from mild (infection) to serious (Ebola.)

Tips for advocates on how best to provide hospital bedside and discharge services to improve care and eliminate errors.

Lisa Berry Blackstock is the Founder and Owner of Soul Sherpa, a company devoted to comprehensive patient advocacy and personal life care protection.

Lisa Berry Blackstock has worked in the field of patient advocacy as an adjunct to estate and life care planning since 1990. A survivor of an originally misdiagnosed nerve disorder, trigeminal neuralgia, which required major brain surgery in 2007 to restore her to health, Lisa believes in the power of patient advocacy not only for herself, but for every person. After recovering from her health crisis, Lisa became more focused to advocate and educate, believing the movement of patient advocacy has just begun and has a bright, strong future.

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Patient Safety - Protect, Prevent, Prepare

Speaker: Jean Rexford -  

Jean Rexford is the executive director of the CT Center for Patient Safety.

Since 2004, the mission of the CT Center for Patient Safety has been to improve the quality of care provided to patients by promoting attention to safety, patients’ rights and the centrality of the patient’s voice. Ms. Rexford also sits on a number of national committees including the National Advisory Council of AHRQ and Consumers Union Safe Patient Project among others.

The CT Center offers programs to nursing and medical schools on the experience of the patient and the importance of patient engagement and involvement in assuring quality care. She is a frequent national panelist representing the patient voice.

You may download the presentation slides for this event, provided by the speaker.

During this teleconference session Jean Rexford addressed the following topics:

Protect

• What are the biggest safety issues?
• How frequently do they occur.

Prevent

• How can you reduce your chances of becoming a statistic?

Prepare

• How can you help your doctor find time to discuss what is important to you and share in your healthcare decisions?

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Networking for the Non-Social: Building a professional network in person and online

Speaker: Casey Quinlan - 

Casey Quinlan gave herself the title “Mighty Mouth” on the theory that if you can’t hide it, hang a flag on it.

After getting a breast cancer diagnosis just days before Christmas in 2007, she wrote the Amazon best seller Cancer for Christmas: Making the Most of a Daunting Gift, which tells her story of managing medical care and exhorts everyone to become their own patient advocate.

She’s a member of the Society for Participatory Medicine, produces audio and video content for the Society of Hospital Medicine’s The Hospitalist Magazine, and is one of the Disruptive Women in Health Care, an online community of women dedicated to serving as a platform for provocative ideas, thoughts, and solutions in health and medicine. She has also been named an ePatient Scholar to MedicineX 2013 at Stanford University, and is a member of a federal workgroup on consumer engagement and health IT.

Casey is a former network news field producer who helped cover breaking news across the globe for over two decades, learning all about what makes a great story. She talked her way out of police custody in Saudi Arabia, and did standup comedy in New York for several years – “fear” is not a word in her dictionary.

Handouts and Worksheets

• Presentation Deck
• Social Media Readiness Assessment
• Social Media Checklist Worksheet
• 10 Questions
• 3 Questions

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Caring From a Distance – Tools to Help Long-Distance Caregivers

Speaker: Nora Jean Levin - 

Nora Jean Levin has been Executive Director of Caring from a Distance since 2004, when the position was created. She is responsible for the organization's website, designed with assistance from a team of long distance caregiver advisors, and powered by CFAD's award-winning technology partner, Trilogy Integrated Resources. With strategic community partners, she created the pilot on-line Metro D.C service directory, forging agreement between CFAD, the Guide to the Retirement Living and the Jewish Council for the Aging Senior Helpline. In 2009, responding to a initiative suggested by two families, Levin spear-headed CFAD's Caregiver Award Program using YouTube and a Caring from a Distance Channel as a unique platform to increase public awareness of the important role of caregiving.

The author of "How to Care for Your Parents: A Practical Guide to Eldercare" (4th edition), WW Norton (1997), Levin has written, spoken and consulted on eldercare issues for almost 25 years. In 2001, she was nominated for the Rosalynn Carter Caregiving Award as an "exceptional eldercare pioneer and consumer advocate for contributions focusing on family needs for better access to eldercare information and services."

Ms. Levin describes the tools available through “Caring from a Distance” to help families organize care for their loved one, including checklists, a library, and new technology tools that make information available to caregivers, medical staff and family members. In this session, we explored various scenarios that families frequently confront and solutions to manage the challenges.

Presentation Links (*some links no longer available)

• Howard Gleckman blog
• Caring From A Distance “What To Do Checklist”*
• Action items to help distance caregivers get organized*
• United Hospital Fund Next Step in Care site with checklists and guides from everything from transition of care to best way to help at doctor visits.
• To order bulk orders of the free pamphlet, Frankly Speaking about Cancer; Support from a Distance, click the link and go to Caregiver section
• Gaining access to Medicare/ VA health records via Blue Button. Access, add personal information and share vital information.
• IBlueButton apps* - to get and share records from multiple sources using scan codes
• ICEBlueButton - In Case of Emergency view a record with important health information

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Knocking on Heaven’s Door: the Path to a Better Way of Death

Speaker: Katy Butler - 

Katy Butler's memoir, "Knocking on Heaven's Door", was named "One of the Ten Best Memoirs of 2013" by Publishers Weekly as well as one of the “100 Notable Books of 2013” by the New York Times. It most recently won the “Books for A Better Life Award”

Her memoir chronicles the last 8 years of her parents' lives, as Katy was her parents' part-time caregiver and full-time medical advocate. Her ground breaking book explores her struggle to allow her parents the "Good Deaths" they wanted, and the forces within medicine that stood in the way. Its provocative thesis is that modern medicine, in its quest for maximum longevity, often creates more suffering than it prevents.

Her many essays and articles, often blending memoir and investigative reporting, have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Best American Essays, Best American Science Writing, and Best Buddhist Writing.

Accompanying presentation slides (10 MB PDF)

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