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superpower

Pain: The Solution – Many Solutions

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Podcasts, Researcher

You’re in for a treat. Amy Baxter, pediatric emergency physician, pain researcher, and device manufacturer, is the CEO and Founder of Pain Care Labs. We talked about:

  • Pain is inevitable, it’s life. Unnecessary pain is wasteful and it sucks.
  • Doctors’ superpower is writing prescriptions. While lots of research has been done about non-pharm pain, doctors aren’t familiar with it.
  • Public policy doesn’t support non-drug solutions. It funnels people to doctors and medication.
  • Attitude and attention impact pain. If you focus on life rather than pain, the pain can be more manageable. We’re in control.
  • The 1-10 pain scale has limited value unless you’re evaluating what’s not working for acute pain.
  • We could teach our kids about pain differently. Think, dancers and other athletes.
  • While cannabis may be helpful for chronic pain, it’s not a panacea, especially for young brains.

We learned about TENS units, Buzzy, the Meissner Corpusle, the thalamus (the brains CPU/microprocessor), the Schmidt Sting Pain Scale, the IKEA bias,  beta nerves and mechanoreceptors, and more. My head spins.

I think the most important lesson I’ve learned from Amy is that it’s not about the pain, it’s about what we want to do with our lives and how we manage the challenges we face that get in the way, including pain. Let’s take control. It’s the most powerful tool we have.

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Best Spiritual Health, Dying

By Caregiver, ePatient, Family man

Sixteen years ago on November 18, 2002, our son, our brother, our friend, Michael Funk, died of metastatic melanoma at age 26. Mike said that he wasn’t born with a tattoo on his butt telling him how long he had to live.  What a gift.  Mike was a gift. His perspective about dying was a gift. One day we were sitting at the kitchen table talking about dying and superpowers. Mike thought that he and I had the same superpower: we both accept what is. Yup, he died young. That’s life. You open your heart and tragedy just walks right in. What’s the alternative? Closed heart? Not for me.

Welcome, my dear Health Hats blog readers, let me introduce you to the birth of Health Hats, the Podcast. We are here to empower people as they travel together toward best health. Best health includes physical, mental, and spiritual health. Today’s blog post and podcast are about Mike who found his best spiritual health over the last year of his life, as he died. Read More

Best Health at End of Life

By Caregiver, ePatient, Family man, Podcasts

Episode Summary

Best Health includes physical, mental, and spiritual health. Michael Funk, my son, died at age 26 on November 18, 2002, of metastatic melanoma. Mike found his best spiritual health in the last year of his life as he died. As Mike said, I wasn’t born with a tattoo telling me how long I had to live. This first episode of Health Hats, the Podcast, celebrates Mike’s journey through a montage of an interview with Mike several months before he died, a conversation with Bob Doherty who conducted that interview, and stories about my experiences with Mike. Listen as we try to make sense of this reality.

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CMS Quality Measures for People

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Informaticist, Leader, Researcher

Payment for medical services is shifting from paying for volume (more visits, tests, visits, days = more money) to paying for value (quality of care). Makes sense. But what does value and quality of care mean? It means that physicians get paid an incentive (more money) for certain results (outcomes, process, actions). An example is readmission rates. If a physician’s patients are readmitted to a hospital after discharge more than most physicians, they don’t get the extra payment. There are roughly 1,000 of such quality measures. These quality measures are very important to us – people at the center of care (patients, caregivers, parents, direct care clinicians and staff) – because measurement strongly influences people and organizations who get paid for medical services. Following the money doesn’t necessarily mean better medical care, better health for us, better relationships among our healthcare teams, or better work life for our health professional partners.

I was nominated to sit on a CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services)/Battelle Quality Measurement Development Technical Advisory Panel (TEP). The TEP had its first meeting in Baltimore last week. I was one of 19 Panel members (and one of two with expertise in all four of the selection criteria -Consumer Perspective, Clinical Content, Performance Measurement, Coding and Informatics).  The TEP seeks to improve the process of developing measures. It isn’t trying to develop measures. The good news is that the TEP gelled as a team and the CMS/Battelle leaders seem open to, if not eager for, actionable advice. I am honored to have been asked to sit at this table.

As a Patient Activist and a change catalyst, I appreciate the formidable forces of inertia and the current business realities of the medical care industrial complex. What can little Danny van Leeuwen hope to accomplish? My goal in accepting this appointment is to find one lever that can move the Value-Based Measurement battleship three degrees toward value to people at the center of care. My superpower is to accept what is and go from there. After listening to my esteemed TEP colleagues, my perception of what is is:

  1. Measures serve to evaluate the performance of individual practitioners (not measure whether patients attain optimal health or how the team is functioning),
  2. Inertia is heading to further measure specificity by specialty and diagnosis (not toward the patient with more non-medical than medical determinants of health who is more than a sum of their diagnoses),
  3. Data for measurement exists primarily in claims, diagnostic systems, and Electronic Medical Records (much less patient-generated data and experience/perceptions of people at the center of care),
  4. Physicians bristle at the idea of being held accountable for anything they deem out of their control (rather than what can I do to contribute to improving whatever?),
  5. People at the center of care, insurers, and policymakers all feel ill at ease with uncertainty,
  6. Few, if any, incentives exist for data vendors to integrate their data (So patients, caregivers, and parents using the most health care dollars provide the bulk of communication at transitions in care, if they can do it at all),
  7. Testing measures in real-life seems to be an almost insurmountable challenge (so the link between measures and what they seek to measure and the link between measurement and value to patients is tenuous),
  8. Direct care clinicians are stressed and burning out – the proportion of time they spent documenting rather than caring is growing while they feel pressure to increase productivity (rather than technology helping to reverse those trends),

Jeesh. Houston, we have a problem. Read More

Giving Thanks

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, ePatient, Family man, Leader, Musician

I’m thankful for the superpower that I shared with my mother, Ruth, and son, Mike – accepting what is.

I’m thankful that I was born a  white straight male to a closeted gay dad, Ruben, and a Holocaust survivor, Ruth – I appreciate that I have first world problems and learned from them that I must act to better the world.

I’m thankful that my best friend is my life partner and care partner – I strive to be equal to her love.

I’m thankful for my extended family, characters all.

I’m thankful for a 40+ year career as a nurse – privileged to serving during people’s most vulnerable moments.

I’m thankful that I was invited to join my grandmother, mother, and son during their end-of-life journeys.

I’m thankful that my grown sons love the strong women they married, revel in fatherhood, and contribute to community well-being – they keep me honest.

I’m thankful for my grandsons – OMG, what can I say?! Read More

Superpower: Opening our hearts

By Advocate, Caregiver, Clinician, Consumer, ePatient, Family man, Leader, Musician

I’m scared but not shocked. The level of disappointment so many people feel about their lives profoundly saddens me. I should have more. I would have more if it weren’t for others – all sorts of others. Feelings of injustice can power so much. I don’t pretend to understand all the righteousness, anger, and meanness that erupt when disappointment builds. But it feels as familiar as the human condition throughout the planet and over the ages. It’s like earthquakes from fracking.  I’m thankful that my mother, a Holocaust survivor, is no longer alive. She would be apoplectic and inconsolable.  What’s going to happen now? How should I act? As when grieving, I will mindfully minimize controllable stress – exercise, rest, listen to and play more music, spend more time with friends and family. I will continue to give thanks for all I have in my first world life. I will continue to pursue my passion for maximizing the experience of people at the center of care. I pray for the physical and spiritual strength to speak up, stand up, and act when the moments seems right. I’ll need strength to take the high road in this low road time. More than anything I’ll pray for unexpected open hearts. The community needs it. Our grandchildren need it.  The unborn need it. Onward.

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