How Barriers to Using the Electronic Health Record Effects Behavioral Healthcare

The healthcare scene is rapidly changing due to the introduction of the electronic health record (EHR) and advances in technology. This means more patient data is readily available for use and gives physicians and patients’ faster access to that data. With the passing of recent legislature such as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, resulting in the rapid adoption of electronic health records due to incentive payment programs. With this comes the push for use of the electronic health record to prepare for Meaningful Use and improved quality of patient care. One field however, seems to be behind the times in regards to the use of the electronic health records, and it is the field of behavioral health. The simple reason being that behavioral health has barriers that other health fields do not. The challenge is how behavioral health can overcome these barriers in order to move forward with using the electronic health record

Media Usage Patterns of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community of Colorado

Using a sample of 1,483 gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender identified participants at various GLBT-related social and political events, this study describes the media usage patterns and examines differences that emerge in those patterns based on sexual identity, identification as a smoker, and health change behavior

Elderly Parents' Expectations and Realizations of Informal Care from Adult Children: An Economic Perspective

Over the next 50 years, the U.S. will see a tremendous growth in the elderly population due to the aging baby boomers and rising life expectancies. Currently, forty-five percent of seniors need assistance with activities of daily living. Medicare and Medicaid provide little coverage for these services, leaving the elderly to rely on informal care. While previous research has examined who provides care and the process by which children and parents arrange care, I use the Study of Assets and Health Dynamics among the Oldest Old (AHEAD) to examine parents' expectations about future care from children and the implications of those predictions after the onset of a disability. Using a probit framework, I examine who anticipates care from children among non-disabled households and who actually receives care among disabled households. The household characteristics correlated with anticipating future care differ from those correlated with the true probability of receiving care. For example, an additional daughter increases the probability that an elderly household expects future care, however an additional daughter is not statistically significantly related to the true probability of receiving care. Conversely, parents' socioeconomic status is not statistically significantly related to the probability of expecting future care, but lower socioeconomic households are more likely to receive care. I directly evaluate the accuracy of parents' predictions using the panel nature of the data. Among households that expect future care from children, over 60 percent do not receive care after the initial onset of a disability and nearly 50 percent still do not receive care after living with disabilities for five years. Among households that do not anticipate care from children, approximately 25 percent unexpectedly receive care after the initial onset of a disability, while slightly more than 50 percent receive care after needing help for five years. Further analysis reveals that inaccurately predicting care from children is associated with some economic and psychological costs, whereas unexpectedly receiving care is correlated with some economic and psychological benefits

Notes from the Field: 10 Short Lessons on One-Shot Instruction

Librarians teach. It might not be what they planned to do when they entered the profession, or it may have been a secret hope all along. Either way, librarians teach, and one teaching scenario remains quintessential: the one-shot library instruction session. In recognition of the centrality of the one-shot, this article shares several authors\u27 notes from the field. The notes provide a range of strategies for developing pedagogically sound one-shot library instruction sessions, grouped loosely into three categories: planning, delivery, and integration. The authors offer these insights in their own words in hopes that other teaching librarians may benefit from their experiences

A Systematic Review of Dietary Interventions for Cancer Survivors and Their Families or Caregivers

Family or caregiver engagement has the potential to support healthy dietary changes among cancer survivors. However, little is known about these family- or caregiver-involved dietary interventions and their effects. This systematic review aimed to identify the behavior change techniques (BCTs) used in dietary interventions for cancer survivors and their families or caregivers and to synthesize intervention effects on dietary and health outcomes. Following the PRISMA guidelines, we conducted systematic searches in three databases and identified 12 trials (16 peer-reviewed manuscripts) for inclusion in this review. Data were extracted from these manuscripts and the BCT taxonomy was used to identify the BCTs. A total of 38 BCTs were identified from 12 trials, 13 of which were used in at least half of the 12 trials. Ten studies reported significant intervention effects on health outcomes (e.g., adiposity) and six suggested significant improvements in dietary behaviors (e.g., fruit and vegetable intake). Overall, this review found that family- or caregiver-involved interventions for cancer survivors significantly improved dietary and health outcomes. Future research should identify BCTs particularly for dietary changes and develop effective dyadic strategies to facilitate diet-related interactions between survivors and their families or caregivers to enhance their engagement in healthy diets

Understanding Centenarians' Psychosocial Dynamics and Their Contributions to Health and Quality of Life

While it is understood that longevity and health are influenced by complex interactions among biological, psychological, and sociological factors, there is a general lack of understanding on how psychosocial factors impact longevity, health, and quality of life among the oldest old. One of the reasons for this paradox is that the amount of funded research on aging in the US is significantly larger in the biomedical compared to psychosocial domains. The goals of this paper are to highlight recent data to demonstrate the impact of four pertinent psychosocial domains on health and quality of life of the oldest old and supplement recommendations of the 2001 NIA Panel on Longevity for future research. The four domains highlighted in this paper are (1) demographics, life events, and personal history, (2) personality, (3) cognition, and (4) socioeconomic resources and support systems

Reducing Healthcare Waste Through Systemic Design

The healthcare sector produces substantial amounts of clinical and non-clinical waste, which creates a significant financial cost and environmental footprint to safely dispose of and manage the waste, in addition to sustainability implications for producing, transporting and using healthcare products. This participatory research project is a multi-partner collaboration between a university and three healthcare organisations to explore possibilities and identify new practices to reduce healthcare waste for improved sustainability. The multi-disciplinary research team includes design, materials science, waste, sustainability and healthcare professionals, therefore providing a range of perspectives. A mixed methods approach will use focus groups with healthcare staff and analysis of procurement data to identify highly consumed items and those with a high level of waste, as well as explore the systemic challenges causing the waste. For instance, waste resulting from over-packaging, pre-packaged items containing unnecessary components, systemic inefficiencies and poor waste management practices. Inventories will be conducted of shortlisted items to describe their lifecycle, weight, associated packaging and composition. This evaluation will include a detailed analysis of materials to identify the types of plastic and makeup of composite materials and to better understand their function, recyclability, and reusability. Recommendations for sustainable alternatives and systemic redesign will be fed back to the three participating healthcare organisations in a follow-up workshop. This work-in-progress presentation to the RSD11 conference will share key findings from the design component of the project as a report of the ongoing research. The research team will be responsive to comments received during the conference presentation to further enhance the analysis of how systemic design can contribute to reducing healthcare waste

Gap Detection Measured With Electrically Evoked Auditory Event–Related Potentials and Speech-Perception Abilities in Children With Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder

This study aimed 1) to investigate the feasibility of recording the electrically evoked auditory event-related potential (eERP), including the onset P1-N1-P2 complex and the electrically evoked auditory change complex (EACC) in response to temporal gaps, in children with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD); and 2) to evaluate the relationship between these measures and speech perception abilities in these subjects

Acoustically Evoked Auditory Change Complex in Children With Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder: A Potential Objective Tool for Identifying Cochlear Implant Candidates

The overall aim of the study was to evaluate the feasibility of using electrophysiological measures of the auditory change complex (ACC) to identify candidates for cochlear implantation in children with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD). In order to achieve this overall aim, this study 1) assessed the feasibility of measuring the ACC evoked by temporal gaps in a group of children with ANSD across a wide age range; and 2) investigated the association between gap detection thresholds (GDTs) measured by the ACC recordings and open-set speech-perception performance in these subjects