Literature Review

16 sustainable health care design examplesgb&d / Health Care, by Andrew Biro; 1/17/24WHO defines a sustainable health care facility as one that “improves, maintains, or restores health while minimizing negative impacts on the environment and leveraging opportunities to restore and improve it, to the benefit of the health and well-being of current and future generations.”Editor's Note: Does your organization plan to build any type of building? Examine these healthcare designs and guiding priniciples.

Home-based leaders are focusing on culture, creative benefits to mitigate staffing challengesHome Healthcare News, by Joyce Famakinwa; 1/16/24One of Accurate Home Care’s biggest strategies for combating the nursing shortage is positioning the company as the employer of choice and focusing on culture. ... “We have to focus heavily on culture, and we have to focus heavily on purpose, and try to attract those who have a heart for home care, and the money is secondary to them,” [Bill] English said [president and CEO of Accurate Home Care]. “Those are the nurses that we went after. Today, we were voted as one of the top 200 workplaces in Minnesota by the Star Tribune.”

Moving beyond death anxiety to reflections on mortalityPsychology Today, by Shoba Sreenivasan and Linda E. Weinberger, reviewed by Lybi Ma; 1/15/24For the healthy, it may be considered macabre to contemplate their mortality; it may seem fatalistic, negative, and something that pulls one away from the present joy of living today. Yet, it can also remind us of the inevitable and consider how we want to spend today as well as whatever time we have left.

The 100 club: U.S. centenarians are set to quadruple by 2054chartr, by U.S. Census Bureau; 1/12/24... As life expectancies increase and birth rates decline, the US is anticipated to trend older in the coming decades, with the median age already reaching a record high of 38.9 in 2022. Zooming out, the global population is generally aging at a much faster pace too. Indeed, in 2020, the number of people aged 60+ outnumbered under-5s, and there are an estimated 772k centenarians the world over at present.

Rural nursing homes' livelihood may depend on non-existent staffMcKnights Long-Term Care News, by Kimberly Marselas; 1/15/24... Rural skilled nursing providers have been among the most deeply affected by pandemic-era losses, a fact acknowledged by a provision in the mandate that gives them two extra years to hire needed staff. ... Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the American Health Care Association, has called staffing “the metric that will matter most” for rural healthcare over the next five to 10 years.

UnitedHealth Group posts $5.5B profit in fourth quarterBecker's Payer Issues, by Jakob Emerson; 1/12/24UnitedHealth Group recorded double-digit growth in revenue year over year across its core lines of business at UnitedHealthcare and Optum, according to the company's fourth quarter earnings report released Jan. 12. UnitedHealth Group total revenues in 2023 were $371.6 billion, up 14.6% year over year. In the fourth quarter, revenues were $94.4 billion. For 2024, the company projects revenues of $400 billion.Notable mention: Andrew Witty, CEO.

Bayard Rustin: Why MLK's right-hand man was nearly written out of historyHistory.com, by Thaddeus Morgan; 1/2/24Bayard Rustin was an indispensable force behind the civil rights movement, and openly gay. ... To the hundreds of thousands who were bused to Washington for the [August 28, 1963] March [on Washington for Jobs and Freedom], Rustin was synonymous with the movement. After all, he was the march’s chief organizer.Editor's Note: Learn more by viewing Rustin, the biographical drama film released via Netflix on November 3, 2023.

Sutter Health announces its first-ever Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer; Dana Beckton to drive diversity, equity and inclusion strategy and initiativesGlobeNewsire; 11/29/23... Beckton will lead the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy for the California-based integrated health system, while serving as a key member of Sutter’s Executive Leadership Team. She will work directly with Sutter Health President and CEO Warner Thomas and interim Chief Human Resources Officer Gail Lerch to drive DEI programming and initiatives.   

Dr. Richard Besdine, a professor of medicine and health services, policy and practice, and Terrie “Fox” Wetle, a professor of health services, policy and practice, were honored in 2023 by HopeHealth with the Human Dignity Award. The nonprofit organization, a teaching affiliate of the Warren Alpert Medical School, recognized Besdine and Wetle for their dedication to the essence of hospice, which is to provide comfort, compassion and dignity to patients, and hope and healing to their families.

Speaking out: Hello and goodbyeThe Bismarck Tribune, by Amanda Godfread; 1/11/24As I said hello to 2024, though, I had the difficult honor of saying goodbye at two funerals. One for a dear friend’s father who passed away unexpectedly and another for my great aunt, who was 94 and in hospice when she died. Two very different lives that led to the same kind of commemoration by friends and family to remember, to say goodbye, and to figure out how to move forward.

Danger on the job: Workers suffer the most injuries in these 25 jobsNewsCenter1, by Colleen Kilday; 1/9/24Editor's Note: For HR leaders, 12 of the 25 are from healthcare jobs. How does this data compare with your employees' job-related injuries and illnesses?

Agrace partners with nonprofit SAGE to meet needs of LGBT community eldersIn Business - Greater Madison; 1/8/24... At least 80% of the nonprofit’s staff have completed annual cultural competence training about the needs and concerns of the LGBT community. SAGE, the country’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBT older adults, reports that discrimination, harassment, and violence often lead LGBT elders to become ill at an earlier age than their straight peers. Agrace has partnered with SAGE to provide services including hospice, supportive (palliative) care, adult day care, grief support, and nonmedical senior care and serve elders across southern Wisconsin.