Thousands of elderly people are abused at home by relatives in Japan, news reports said Saturday, as the country faces a rapidly aging population. More than 12,600 cases of elderly abuse were reported in 2006, almost all of them at home, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry survey released...
Author Archives: anthony
Gifts for Nursing Home Patients
I don’t usually take kindly to people selling in their blogs but I came across a unique one that actually does a great service. It is a gift basket company that devoted a post to talking about appropriate gifts to by loved ones in nursing homes. It is worth a...
Blacks likelier to live in poor-quality nursing homes
A new report in the September/October issue of Health Affairs, finds that 60% of blacks in nursing homes ended up in just 10% of the facilities ÛÓ typically ones that had been cited for quality problems. Interestingly the south was the least segregated around this issue. And that is consistent...
House Bill 3162
U.S. House Bill 3162 is getting a lot of publicity these days because it addresses one of the most vulnerable segments of our population – that’s right children. Its noble goal to expand health coverage to children comes at a price. Hidden in the bill is a provision to slash...
Medical Tourism in the Nursing Home Industry
A “small but steadily growing number” of U.S. residents “are moving across the border” into Mexican nursing homes, which provide care at a “fraction” of the price of U.S. facilities, reports USA Today. About 40,000 to 80,000 U.S. retirees currently live in Mexico, but no data exist on the number...
Doctor Fees
A small but growing number of doctors in South Florida and elsewhere have started charging patients annual fees to help make ends meet. These are not “boutique” doctors offering exclusive attention to patients who can afford to pay thousands upfront each year for special access and attention. These are regular...
Medical Illiteracy
A new study of patients ages 65 and older were more likely to die within six years of receiving written medical instructions than those who easily understood their caregivers, despite the health conditions at the outset. The study was done by a team at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine,...
Medical Tourism in the Nursing Home Industry?
As a health care marketing professional, I have done some overseas work in the area of medical tourism, that is helping overseas hospitals market to U.S. and European patients. Until yesterday, I had never seen the concept applied to nursing homes. This is an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune...
Oscar the Cat
The business of nursing homes and caregiving is a serious one. But you can’t help but pause and maybe find the gallows humor in the following. Oscar, a two-year-old feline was adopted as a kitten and grew up in a third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation...
Nursing Home Watch List
Senator Charles Grassley is proposing a new “watch list” for nursing homes that aren’t meeting federal health and safety standards. “That would include nursing homes that yo-yo in and out of compliance by using grace periods to correct deficiencies, but only then on a temporary basis,” Grassley says. The public...