"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/

Includes information on Mary Beard, black nurses, blacks, Boston (Massachusetts), Charleston (South Carolina), homecare, Ladies Benevolent Society, race, nursing salaries, tuberculosis, visiting nurse associations, etc.

Family caregiving affects millions of Americans every day, in all walks of life. At least 17.7 million individuals in the United States are caregivers of an older adult with a health or functional limitation. The nation's family caregivers provide the lion's share of long-term care for our older adult population. They are also central to older adults' access to and receipt of health care and community-based social services. Yet the need to recognize and support caregivers is among the least appreciated challenges facing the aging U.S. population. Families Caring for an Aging America examines the prevalence and nature of family caregiving of older adults and the available evidence on the effectiveness of programs, supports, and other interventions designed to support family caregivers. This report also assesses and recommends policies to address the needs of family caregivers and to minimize the barriers that they encounter in trying to meet the needs of older adults.

In the United States, health care devices, technologies, and practices are rapidly moving into the home. The factors driving this migration include the costs of health care, the growing numbers of older adults, the increasing prevalence of chronic conditions and diseases and improved survival rates for people with those conditions and diseases, and a wide range of technological innovations. The health care that results varies considerably in its safety, effectiveness, and efficiency, as well as in its quality and cost. Health Care Comes Home reviews the state of current knowledge and practice about many aspects of health care in residential settings and explores the short- and long-term effects of emerging trends and technologies. By evaluating existing systems, the book identifies design problems and imbalances between technological system demands and the capabilities of users. Health Care Comes Home recommends critical steps to improve health care in the home. The book's recommendations cover the regulation of health care technologies, proper training and preparation for people who provide in-home care, and how existing housing can be modified and new accessible housing can be better designed for residential health care. The book also identifies knowledge gaps in the field and how these can be addressed through research and development initiatives. Health Care Comes Home lays the foundation for the integration of human health factors with the design and implementation of home health care devices, technologies, and practices. The book describes ways in which the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and federal housing agencies can collaborate to improve the quality of health care at home. It is also a valuable resource for residential health care providers and caregivers.

Since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, the American health care system has steadily grown in size and complexity. Muriel R. Gillick takes readers on a narrative tour of American health care, incorporating the stories of older patients as they travel from the doctor's office to the hospital to the skilled nursing facility, and examining the influence of forces as diverse as pharmaceutical corporations, device manufacturers, and health insurance companies on their experience. A scholar who has practiced medicine for over thirty years, Gillick offers readers an informed and straightforward view of health care from the ground up, revealing that many crucial medical decisions are based not on what is best for the patient but rather on outside forces, sometimes to the detriment of patient health and quality of life. Gillick suggests a broadly imagined patient-centered reform of the health care system with Medicare as the engine of change, a transformation that would be mediated through accountability, cost-effectiveness, and culture change.

Just a few generations ago, serious illness, like hazardous weather, arrived with little warning, and people either lived through it or died. In this important, convincing, and long-overdue call for health care reform, Joanne Lynn demonstrates that our current health system, like our concepts of health and disease, developed at a time when life was mostly short, serious illnesses and disabilities were common at every age, and dying was quick. Today, most Americans live a long life, with the disabilities and discomforts of progressive chronic illness appearing only during the final chapters of their life stories. Sick to Death and Not Going to Take It Anymore! maintains that health care and community services are not set up to meet the needs of the large number of people who face a prolonged period of progressive illness and disability before death. Lynn offers what she calls an "owner's manual for the health care system," which lays out facts, concepts, strategies, and action plans for genuine reform and gives the reader new ways to interpret information creatively, imagine innovative possibilities, and take steps to implement them.