Hands to Help Seniors

St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 1071 Pajaro Street in Salinas will host a wholesale produce market for seniors on August 26^th from 9:30 to 10:00 a.m.  Every week, they invite those 55 years of age and older to buy fresh produce at wholesale prices and enjoy coffee, refreshments and their lending library.  Doors open at 8:30 a.m. and you should get a number when you enter which indicates your place in line when shopping starts.  For more information, call 424-7331.

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If you are looking to get out and meet new friends and get a good meal as well, there is a group called Dine Out Seniors Which Meets Regularly.  Their next meeting will be on August 28 at 4:00 p.m. at the Bayonet and Blackhorse Golf Course on One McClure Way in Seaside (this is the old Fort Ord Officer’s golf course).  There will be a happy hour with appetizers served.  Call 917-1269 for more information or to make reservations.

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The Wall Street Journal broke a story about nursing homes bilking Medicare, something which has been going on in the industry for many years.  The story talked about Jack Furumura who became severely dehydrated in 2013 and shed more than 5 pounds, partly because staff in his rehab facility didn’t follow written plans for his nutrition or the facility’s policies, a state inspection report showed.  During many of his 21 days there, the 96-year-old man suffering from dementia received two hours or more of physical and occupational therapy combined, records show.  That qualified as what Medicare terms an “ultra high” amount of therapy to help with tasks such as walking, even as he deteriorated. And it allowed the nursing-home operator to bill Medicare top dollar for his entire stay.  Patients getting ultrahigh therapy—at least 720 minutes a week—generate some of nursing homes’ biggest payments from the taxpayer-funded program.  If you have a loved one entering a rehab facility, keep an eye on their care, particularly with dementia patients, who can’t look out for themselves.

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Hospitals are starting to mine data in order to make their intensive care units (ICUs) achieve better outcomes.   More than five million patients a year enter intensive-care units, where death rates range from 10% to 29%, studies show. While some deaths are inevitable, others result from high rates of avoidable complications such as infections caused by equipment and treatments. Other complications include blood clots and delirium caused by oversedation and immobility.  The big-data approach being tested by some hospitals sifts through years of medical records and information from multiple sources—including data sets that may never have been linked in a single analysis before—to find correlations no one knew existed, and thus discover more trouble spots and more potential solutions.  Hopefully this strategy can reduce the death rate in hospital ICUs.

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There is no turning back, we have entered the new age of digital medical records.  The question is, how do you use this to your advantage?  A growing number of patient advocates are trying to spread the word to American health-care consumers that they need to take control of the information that is out there electronically.   “For consumers to start requesting and using their health information will be a game-changer for the health-care system,” Christine Bechtel, a consultant for the National Partnership for Women and Families who spearheads the Get My Health Data campaign to get patients to ask doctors for their records, told The Wall Street Journal.  “Once we unlock the data, there’s an enormous amount we can do with it.”  Indeed, taking charge of your own records helps circumvent “data lock”—where one doctor’s records system can’t talk with another’s, or when hospitals make a stink about transferring files to competing providers.  By obtaining their records, you can serve as your own data hub and give out information when you are consulting specialists, seeking second opinions or shopping for less expensive care.  Talk to your primary physician to get the process started in order to gain access to all of your electronic medical records.

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