An hour or so before the siren in our long-term care factory blasted the official start of the work day, and feeling a heightened level of job-related stress, I strolled into a colleague’s office uninvited...
A day that made an indelible impact on me
By
Martie Moore
Oct 20, 2023
The room was packed, with tambourines and drums in individuals’ hands. A resident had passed, and we were gathered to walk alongside the man named John. They called it a walk-out. In the past,...
Honoring the fallen
By
Michael Wasserman
May 08, 2024
It’s been more than four years since the onset of the tragic pandemic that took the lives of nearly a quarter million vulnerable older adults living in nursing homes. Their lives mattered. How they spent...
Plugging in to the source
By
Gary Tetz
Dec 14, 2023
Somewhere down the road, when I walk through the front doors of your long-term care facility on my first day as a resident, I hope to move with even half the vigor 80-year-old Barry Manilow showed as he...
How do we offer hope when we can’t see beyond the next shift?
By
Julie Thorson
Oct 11, 2023
Find hidden hope and hold on to it. Hope in healthcare hides in plain sight. Hope is here. It’s unfortunate that sometimes the moments of frustration overtake our soft, but powerful, hopeful...
Artificial intelligence to the rescue: Putting humanity back into healthcare
By
Martie Moore
Apr 05, 2024
The box remained unpacked from coast to coast. Needing to clear out the closet in my office, I finally opened it and looked at the contents. At the bottom of the box was a plain journal, pages folded over...
Three questions to boost nursing home audit readiness
By
Brian Evans
Sep 20, 2023
Nursing home and long-term care operators have already faced a number of key shifts since the beginning of 2023. Consider a recent example from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: an update on...
Medicare Advantage: A not-so-advantageous deal for beneficiaries and providers
By
Brendan Williams
Nov 29, 2023
Open enrollment is well underway for Medicare, as television viewers inundated with cheesy insurance company ads can tell. Those ads must work. For the first time 2024 will see most Medicare...
Lessons from nurses, reflections from the past
By
Renee Kinder
Apr 11, 2024
How fascinating was the solar eclipse this week? I am still in awe of the posts, shares and stories I hear about how the skilled nursing facilities embraced the day and found ways to allow those...
AI: Living in the future
By
Jean Wendland Porter
Oct 17, 2023
Artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare is a rapidly growing field that has the potential to revolutionize the way medical professionals diagnose and treat patients. The use of AI algorithms and machine...