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Every hospice is different with varying populations to serve, but an analysis of the reasons that 40% of the 99 hospices in Oklahoma served by Palmetto Government Benefit Administrators (GBA), a Medicare fiscal intermediary, hit the hospice cap shows four predominant reasons, says Greg Wood, LBSW, executive director of the Hospice of North Central Oklahoma in Ponca City and president of the Oklahoma Hospice Association:
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"I just have a few questions." "I'm calling to get some information." "I don't need an appointment now. I'm just making a call for a family member."
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Some of the language of ethics doesn't come naturally to nurses, according to a nurse-ethicist. But an initiative by Indianapolis-based Clarian Health aims to make ethics training and discussion second nature to the 5,000 nurses working there.
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When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) granted The Joint Commis-sion's deeming authority for another six years, some news reports pointed to a change in the way in which supplemental findings are handled as detrimental to a home care organization's ability to achieve accreditation.
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This study of a very large prospective series of cardiac arrests in over 500 US hospitals found that survival rates were lower during nights and weekends, differences that persisted despite adjustments for patient, resuscitation event, and hospital characteristics.
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The risk of venous thromboembolism was double in users of a transdermal contraceptive as compared to users of an oral contraceptive with a 35 mcg ethinyl estradiol component. Warning: no abstract skimming — it's worth your while to keep reading!
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This multi-center, randomized, double-blind clinical trial demonstrated that the addition of vasopressin to patients receiving norepinephrine for management of septic shock had no effect on mortality when compared to increasing the norepinephrine dose.
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Intravascular volume expansion has long been advised as an effective temporizing technique for patients with cardiac tamponade prior to drainage of the fluid, but there is little data supporting this practice.
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Vernakalant is a new investigational anti-arrhythmic drug. The compound is relatively selective, blocking the early-activating potassium channel and the frequency-dependent sodium channel; it has a half-life of two to three hours.
