Hands to Help Seniors

Seniors are living longer and longer but many develop serious illnesses as they get older.  There are not only better medical treatment options for many chronic conditions but palliative care (often known as hospice) is getting better.  Although many people fear hospice, feeling that this is an admission that they are at the end of their lives.  However, we have seen many of our clients go on hospice and live many years (despite the criteria for Medicare paying for Hospice being that your doctor write a note saying you have less than six months to live).  Life is unpredictable, and so is disease.  Even if things look bleak, there is still hope.  “Many people who need palliative care are in fact not dying but have one or more chronic diseases which they may live with for many years,” Diane Meier, director of the nonprofit Center to Advance Palliative Care, told The Wall Street Journal.  Studies have shown that not only can palliative care improve the quality of life for those using it, but it can also extend life for some patients.  Hopefully, the attitudes of people towards hospital will change over time to be more positive. 

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There has been quite a bit of controversy over which flu vaccine seniors should take.  Many are skeptical of taking one at all.  The vaccines aren’t always effective, and researchers are constantly looking for ways to improve the vaccine so that it will attack constantly changing strains.  Scientists at the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Influenza (there are six centers all over the world) are working diligently to collect data from sick patients globally to try and predict what the best vaccine should be next year.  There’s variability from year to year as to how effective they are.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced that this year’s immunization may be less effective due to a mutation in a particular virus strain.  “We’re always playing catch-up with these viruses.  We have to crystal ball what’s happening and what’s going to happen,” Ian Barr, deputy director of the WHO’s Melbourne facility, told The Wall Street Journal.  With thousands of people being studied, hopefully they can develop a more effective vaccine next year.

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New research which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will result in a shortage in primary care physicians.  Some people will have longer wait times to get into a doctor while low income residents who were put on Medicaid will have difficulty finding services if they look for a primary physician.  This comes as no surprise.  Even having Medicare coverage, it's difficult to get a new primary physician in Monterey because of low reimbursement rates.  The study suggests that more education and training is needed so we can develop more nurse practitioners and physicians assistances in order to deal with the shortage of doctors.  Other models like retail clinics also show promise for alleviating the shortage.

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Once again, Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital appears to be careening towards a strike.  After more than a year of negotiations, management has declared an impasse with the union which represents the nurses at the hospital.  Although hospital administrators have requested that a neutral third-party mediator or “fact-finder” get involved in the situation, the California Nurses Association has yet to respond and their members have already authorized a strike.  The issues are many with the two sides now deadlocked on pay, health benefits, overtime and the terms of a proposed nursing reorganization program.  It will be sad if a strike is called before the Christmas holidays, a traditionally busy time for hospitals.

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I have written a number of times on my blog about pharmacies which use the compounding process to make specialized drugs.  Local pharmacies like Ordway can come up with concoctions designed specifically for you by your physician.  However, there is potential danger when pharmacies try to come up with their own concoctions and market it to the masses.  In the most egregious cases, these pharmacies produce unsafe products which have not been approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) that can cause severe health problems, even death.  In the worst example yet, two senior executives of New England Compounding Center (N.E.C.C.0 were charged with racketeering and murder after they sold tainted drugs which gave people fungal meningitis resulting in 64 deaths.  “Senior N.E.C.C. pharmacists knew that, despite the filthy conditions at N.E.C.C., the drugs that they made were not properly tested for sterility,” Carmen Ortiz, the United States Attorney for Massachusetts, told The New York Times.  If you are considering taking a compounded drug, talk to your doctor.  You are probably better off getting it from a local pharmacy rather than a firm that is marketing drugs nationwide.

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