Cardiac arrest can strike a seemingly healthy individual of any age, race, ethnicity, or gender at any time in any location, often without warning. Cardiac arrest is the third leading cause of death in the United States, following cancer and heart disease. Four out of five cardiac arrests occur in the home, and more than 90 percent of individuals with cardiac arrest die before reaching the hospital. First and foremost, cardiac arrest treatment is a community issue - local resources and personnel must provide appropriate, high-quality care to save the life of a community member. Time between onset of arrest and provision of care is fundamental, and shortening this time is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of death and disability from cardiac arrest. Specific actions can be implemented now to decrease this time, and recent advances in science could lead to new discoveries in the causes of, and treatments for, cardiac arrest. However, specific barriers must first be addressed. Strategies to Improve Cardiac Arrest Survival examines the complete system of response to cardiac arrest in the United States and identifies opportunities within existing and new treatments, strategies, and research that promise to improve the survival and recovery of patients. The recommendations of Strategies to Improve Cardiac Arrest Survival provide high-priority actions to advance the field as a whole. This report will help citizens, government agencies, and private industry to improve health outcomes from sudden cardiac arrest across the United States.

Central findings are as follows: (1) Post-PPS, large variations in use of posthospital services as a function of age, gender, race, and income persist, and are associated with significant variations in outcomes; (2) The elderly poor are significantly less likely than other beneficiaries to receive inpatient rehabilitation; (3) For home health care and rehabilitation, the greatest differences between users' and non-users' outcomes occurred for the oldest old (e.g., 90-day mortality rates for stroke patients were 25 percent for non-users versus 12 percent for users of rehabilitation care); (4) Although non-whites are disproportionately high users of home health care--and disproportionately low users of skilled nursing facility (SNF) care--white users appeared to benefit most from home health care treatment (e.g., for orthopedic diagnoses, 90-day mortality rates for non-whites were the same for users and non-users; for whites,

v. 1. Research findings -- v. 2. Concepts and methodology -- v. 3. Implementation issues -- v. 4. Programs, tools and products.

This book addresses current issues surrounding hospital admissions and readmissions and the practice of post-acute and long-term care (LTC). Now in its fully revised and expanded third edition, it contains the most up-to-date knowledge and regulations pertinent to practice in Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Post-Acute and Long-Term Medicine is divided into four main sections. The first section is an introduction to long-term care. It includes chapters on home health care, assisted living and residential care, department of veteran affairs and nursing facilities, among others. The second section focuses on clinical medicine in post-acute and long-term care and contains chapters on common clinical conditions, preventing hospital admissions and readmissions, palliative care, weight and nutrition and wound care. The third section details psychosocial aspects of post-acute and long-term care. Chapters in this section describe dementia, delirium, depression, ethical and legal issues and caring for families. The fourth and final section centers on special issues in post-acute and long-term care. This section focuses on documentation and coding, medication management and rehabilitation and maximizing function. The outbreak of COVID-19 has led to two very important new chapters in this section. One chapter discusses challenges and opportunities in post-acute long-term care that have arisen during the pandemic. Another new chapter talks about the importance of virtual care and telemedicine in post-acute and long-term care amidst the COVID-19 outbreak. Written by experts in the field, many of whom have worked within AMDA – The Society for Post-acute and Long-term Care Medicine - to create and disseminate a knowledge base for post-acute and LTC, this is a valuable resource for clinicians and educators seeking to maximize the care and living experience of residents in post-acute and long-term care settings.

This open access book aims to provide a comprehensive but practical overview of the knowledge required for the assessment and management of the older adult with or at risk of fragility fracture. It considers this from the perspectives of all of the settings in which this group of patients receive nursing care. Globally, a fragility fracture is estimated to occur every 3 seconds. This amounts to 25 000 fractures per day or 9 million per year. The financial costs are reported to be: 32 billion EUR per year in Europe and 20 billon USD in the United States. As the population of China ages, the cost of hip fracture care there is likely to reach 1.25 billion USD by 2020 and 265 billion by 2050 (International Osteoporosis Foundation 2016). Consequently, the need for nursing for patients with fragility fracture across the world is immense. Fragility fracture is one of the foremost challenges for health care providers, and the impact of each one of those expected 9 million hip fractures is significant pain, disability, reduced quality of life, loss of independence and decreased life expectancy. There is a need for coordinated, multi-disciplinary models of care for secondary fracture prevention based on the increasing evidence that such models make a difference. There is also a need to promote and facilitate high quality, evidence-based effective care to those who suffer a fragility fracture with a focus on the best outcomes for recovery, rehabilitation and secondary prevention of further fracture. The care community has to understand better the experience of fragility fracture from the perspective of the patient so that direct improvements in care can be based on the perspectives of the users. This book supports these needs by providing a comprehensive approach to nursing practice in fragility fracture care.