5 minute read The Department of Health and Human Services recently released their new health workforce strategic plan. There is a lot of good information here. I’ll share a few thoughts below. The plan is worth looking over and will undoubtedly inform future federal spending in workforce development. The new plan has four goals: expand […]
2 minute read The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated the list of underlying medical conditions associated with higher risk for severe COVID-19. Their list is based on what has been reported in the scientific literature as of August 31, 2021 and is available here. Mental health disorders (such as mood disorders including depression, […]
3 minute read Mobile phones are ubiquitous, with data from GSMA Intelligence citing 5.27 billion unique mobile phone users around the world (Datareportal.com, 2021), and the number of users growing at a rate of 2.3% per year. This represents 66.9% of the population (Datareportal.com, 2021). According to a 2021 report by Statista, the United States […]
If you’re looking for the hottest research, then swipe right here. This serial post covers several categories of research in integrated behavioral healthcare over the past 6-7 months. The top article on my list today is a report of strategies for integrating social care practices into primary care, an example of the expanding role of […]
4 minute read It is no surprise that COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the wellbeing of individuals and families. Overall stress and worry for all Americans increased from 47% in 2019 to 59% in 2020. Two in five individuals reported an adverse mental or behavioral health condition in June 2020 with many linking their symptoms […]
3 minute read There is no question that precision medicine, defined as the use of genetic, genomic, and epigenetic information to ‘personalize’ therapeutic strategies is creating unprecedented opportunities for improving health care delivery (Denny et al., 2021). As the cost of genomic sequencing decreases, the speed at which such technologies are transitioning from ‘bench-to-bedside’ has […]
3 minute read Concentration is a scarce commodity in healthcare delivery. Although our systems are flush with data, we can only process a finite amount of information to make clinical decisions for engaging, treating, and monitoring patients in our catchment areas. We screen and triage patients as stewards of scarce resources using measures that we […]
2 minute read The Cambridge dictionary defines mathematics as a system for the study of numbers, shapes, and space (Cambridge.org, n.d.). While most of us conceptualize mathematics as a method for computing complex functions, the true beauty of numbers lies in their ability to transcend cultural and linguistic barriers. Simply put, mathematics is the universal […]
3 minute read Spreading the gospel of care integration is not for sprinters. To be sure, this game is for long distance runners. One of the beauties of integration is that individual clinics and care systems can use whatever model meets the needs of their patients and matches their available resources. This variability, though, also […]
5 minute read. Original post here. In 2018, I had a sweet setup for my work commute. My friend, who also worked downtown, would pick me up at my house, use the carpool lane on the highway, and drop me off in front of my office building. When I offered to pay for gas, he […]
2 minute read The role of mindfulness meditation in reducing stress, anxiety and depression is well established, with a 2017 meta-analysis linking such practices to better control of the sympathetic nervous system (Pascoe et al., 2017). Key to the practice of mindfulness is present-state awareness, also referred to as flow (Davis & Ludwig, 2018). In […]
3 minute read I recently received an emotionally laden call from a close friend of mine, Jessica, that sucked the air right out of me. Jessica is the mother of “Chrissy,” a 30-year-old woman with profound intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) who lives at home. My agency has provided Chrissy with supports in Jessica’s home […]
3 minute read If neurons are the brain’s rock stars, then glia are its supporting cast. Although neurons are the only brain cells that can transmit electrical signals, glia maintain energy homeostasis via glycogen storage and regulation (Dienel & Carlson, 2019) and are intimately involved in the production and regulation of two essential neurotransmitters: GABA […]
5 minute read We work with children, adolescents, and adults with chronic conditions: mental illness, medical conditions, intellectual or developmental disabilities. We do the very best we can to treat the patient, but what about their siblings? What about them? The first memory Nathan has is being in the hospital. He says, “I pretty well […]
3 minute read Behavioral economics, as proposed by Kahneman and Tversky, was created in response to neoclassical theories that endorse rational decision-making (Reuter & Montag, 2016). According to Nobel laureate, Daniel Kahneman, people make decisions based on heuristics and biases, which, depending on the situation, may or may not yield the greatest gain (Kahneman, 2011). […]
5 minute read. Original post link. Nominated for five Academy Awards, “Amour” is a film about love and death. (Read no further if you haven’t seen the film and don’t want to know who dies and how.) The setting is Paris, the language French, but any resemblance to a conventional French film about light-hearted romance […]
5 minute read In the pre-Covid years, when I was the family caregiver for my mother with mild dementia and chronic pain, I became the point person for her home-based care team. I was forever on the phone managing the shifting schedules of her home health aides and receiving instructions from her home-based physical therapists […]
5 minute read In 1974 Sue delivered two beautiful identical twin daughters. They were the “talk of the hospital,” she says. They were still talking days later, but for different reasons, when the girls had their first seizure in the nursery. At three months, Kaylie and Kylie were diagnosed with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. The […]
