Exceptional Experiences at Community Health Network

Welcome! I’m Cindy, the Patient Representative at The Indiana Heart Hospital. What this means is that I visit with our patients daily to see how their stay is going and to make sure that we are doing all that we can for them. I also meet their family members and offer emotional support and will address any questions or fears that they may have. We strive to make every visit an exceptional experience.

I will be blogging about my everyday experiences with patients and their families: the compliments, the concerns, the good days and the sad days.I feel lucky that I personally to get know our patients and hear so many inspirational stories that I want to share these stories with you!

I know that most of you are reading this and thinking…The BEST heart care in Indiana… well prove it! The first thing that comes to mind is the exceptional patient care and the high quality of patient care that we give every minute of everyday for our patients. It is not just because we have one of the Top Doctors for Thoracic surgery( http://www.indianapolismonthly.com/article.aspx?id=17732) or that we were the 1st all digital heart hospital; it is not even the fact that we have cardiologists on site 24 hours a day; not on-call. The bottom line is that we want you to know that you are our number 1 priority.

Imagine a hospital that just gets it! We are always here for you in your time of need. Whether it is a smiling face, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold or just someone to talk to… we are here. It is not uncommon to have staff stay late to support a family or patient in need or to call once we have gotten home to just make sure that you are doing OK. We get to know our patients and their family and truly understand your fears; we are one big family and we want you to feel like you are a part of it. Almost all of our patients say that they can see this and more importantly feel how much we care. We understand that no one wants to be in a hospital and that is why we are different…always striving to see that smile on your face and making sure that you feel safe. The Indiana Heart Hospital…we get it!!
www.indianahearthospital.com

From PEDIATRICS Vol. 120 No. 3 September 2007, pp. 649 (doi:10.1542/peds.2007-1911)

The American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed the publication: Wilson W, Taubert KA, Gewitz M, et al. Prevention of infective endocarditis. Guidelines from the American Heart Association. A guideline from the American Heart Association Rheumatic Fever, Endocarditis, and Kawasaki Disease Committee, Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young, and the Council on Clinical Cardiology, Council on Cardiovascular Surgery and Anesthesia, and the Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Interdisciplinary Working Group. Circulation. 2007;

Infective endocarditis prophylaxis for dental procedures should be recommended only for patients with underlying cardiac conditions associated with the highest risk of adverse outcome from infective endocarditis.  Those are prosthetic cardiac valve, previous IE, unrepaired cyanotic congenital heart disease (CHD) including palliative shunts and conduits, completely repaired congenital heart defect with prosthetic material or device during the first 6 months after the procedure, repaired CHD with residual defects at the site or adjacent to the site of a prosthetic patch or prosthetic device which inhibit endothelialization, cardiac transplantation recipients who develop cardiac valvulopathy.  For patients with these underlying cardiac conditions, prophylaxis is recommended for all dental procedures that involve manipulation of gingival tissue or the periapical region of teeth or perforation of the oral mucosa.  Administration of antibiotics solely to prevent endocarditis is not recommended for patients who undergo a genitourinary or gastrointestinal tract procedure.

Refer to the publication below for more background and details:

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIRCULATIONAHA.106.183095v1.pdf

You may comment on this topic below.

From PEDIATRICS Vol. 119 No. 1 January 2007, pp. e124-e130 doi:10.1542/peds.2006-1222)

This study looked at the effectiveness of Lactobacillus Reuteri in the treatment of  Infant Colic (10⁸ live bacteria per day).  Infants receiving L reuteri showed a significant reduction in daily crying time by day 7, compared with infants treated with simethicone. On days 14, 21, and 28, crying times were significantly different between the 2 treatment groups. At the end of the study (day 28), the median crying time in the probiotic group was 51 minutes/day (range: 26–105 minutes/day), compared with 145 minutes/day (range: 70–191 minutes/day) in the simethicone group, with a difference of 94 minutes/day.  On day 28, 95% were responders in the probiotic group and 7% were responders in the simethicone group.

Are you using probiotics in infant colic?  Please relate your experience in the comments below.

I was reading my month old copy of Wired today and they had an article about Twine which is a Semantic Web software to filter and provide users based on their browsing history and bookmarks. It’s the type of application that I have been discussing in my last few posts.  And it supports what I’ve been writing about.

I visited the site to sign up and they are only accepting applications for the beta release which is disappointing.  I wanted to use this site.

I read some of the articles on the press page and some of them were extremely intriguing discussions of Web 3.0 and the Semantic Web.