TIME TO STAY WELL?

Wellness Model Superior to Medical Model

Recently, a report in USA Today stated that adults in Canada are healthier than adults in the US. The study was conducted by the Harvard Medical School. For example, US adults are 42 percent more likely than Canadian adults to have diabetes and 32 percent more likely to have high blood pressure.
American politicians and medical organizations insist that Canada’s medical system is inferior to the US and not a potential solution for universal health care in America. The reason why Canada’s system is working and the US is reeling with more debt and less coverage, is their commitment to a wellness model versus the US’s love affair with a medical model.
There’s not much glamour in educating people to take better care of themselves by eating less and by exercising more. Instead the US would rather boast about the frequency of expensive open heart surgeries and heart catherizations as “expected for someone in your age group.” The more elaborate the procedure the more glamorous. Have you heard how open heart patients brag about the “number” (bypass grafts) or how fast their healing time? It’s a badge of courage, even among women.
To scare the American public, medical and political leaders point to Canada’s wait list for open heart surgeries. Aren’t you glad you don’t live where you have to wait and possibly die before you get much needed surgery? There’s nothing scarier than telling people they could die before they get proper health care!
The US medical profession has an outstanding reputation for providing remarkable medical outcomes and breakthroughs. Somehow there must be a balance between encouraging excellence and still be able to provide healthcare to millions of uninsured and under-insured families. One approach to keep people healthier longer is teaching them to be responsible for their health. This doesn’t mean that they ignore good medical practices; if anything people embrace them. Limiting access to medical care encourages people to self-medicate and wait too long before seeking medical advice. Lack of access creates the vicious cycle of more expensive medical care to make up the deficit.
For example, regular check ups combined with known public health practices such as vaccinations and removing standing water from around their home will help ward off unnecessary illnesses. Wiser eating habits, proper exercise regimens and eliminating known risks such as alcohol abuse, smoking or drug abuse (even prescription drug abuse) will address a multitude of health concerns without spending a great deal of money. Let’s face it, obese kids will become obese adults and as they age their medical needs will increase.
Chronic conditions such as asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure and other disorders that are environmentally linked are better treated on an on-going basis rather than through emergency room treatments. Emergency rooms are expensive options and the care offered may not add continuity to treating a chronic problem. It is a “single shot” approach and the goal is to get the person out of the ER not to teach them about better health. But for the under/uninsured, the ER may be the only medical service they can use as private practitioners rarely add uninsured patients and their families to their practice.
America needs a medical “Peace Corps” that will provide basic health care and education to millions of needy people. The graduates of this program will not be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when they graduate (forcing them to seek partnerships in urban and higher paid practices). They will have their education financed by “goodwill” donations that will enable hundreds of people to enter the curriculum and later provide primary care in all neighborhoods.
Like most social issues and problems, we must get by the problem of “greed.” There are sufficient resources in the US to address health care (and education) needs. The real problem: who will make outlandish sums of money and who will get wealthy on the needs of others?

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

2% SOLUTION?

High School Diploma Not Necessary

This year, around 25 percent of high school seniors will not get their high school diploma. The reasons are many: they may have failed to complete a course or assignment required in the curriculum; they may have failed a course such as health education; they may have missed a large portion of the school year due pregnancy; they may have been part of a disciplinary action; or they dropped out. According to the US Department of Education, about 40 percent of male students will not get a high school diploma.
To label these students over a lifetime as a failure is not right. Maturity can strike at any time. For some, it can be in the early teen years for others, it may not be until their twenties. Currently our educational system is too rigid to accommodate these natural occurrences. You are done at 18 years old; either you have a high school diploma or you don’t. If you fail to get a diploma, you become the problem of state government and their solution is earning a GED or living in poverty.
That’s why I think it was refreshing to hear that some community colleges are giving high school dropouts a second chance. They are accepting them into the college environment to continue their education. These students are at least 21 years old and have a renewed sense of urgency and dedication to learning. The US Department of Education estimates that about 2 percent of the college population now consists of persons without a high school diploma. (This number does not include home school enrollments.)
I’m sure purists would find it absurd that adults can go to college without a high school diploma. Certainly I am not suggesting that this become the new standard. High school graduates are having a hard time trying to get through college and they are supposedly prepared for higher education.
I believe as a country we should grant people a chance to enter higher education when they are ready. What better way to prepare for the rigors of college than menial work? Why should we condemn people to life of poverty because they weren’t ready at 18? At least with a combined high school and college diploma they can find work to keep them above the financial line of poverty.
Colleges are not going to make it easy on these “special” students. There’s too much pressure on them to not take this course of action. But, if these students apply themselves and earn higher education credits, why not usher them in to the fold of success?
No one can predict when the proverbial light bulb will go on. Maturity is an elusive concept. But when the person is ready, there should be outlets to reward the changes in attitude. There’s no statue of limitations on learning.

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

ONE MILLION NURSES?

Who’ll Take Care of Me?

Recently in the news it was stated that the US will need one million additional nurses to meet the demands of the future. The immediate discussions that followed stated that university and college based nursing education programs were understaffed due to “low wages.” In other words, higher education was not prepared to respond to the vacancy demands.
A second idea was that America will “import” nurses from foreign countries, especially the Philippines, to offset the need. Foreign trained nurses would need to pass a standardized RN test and speak English to qualify. Unfortunately, this solution will create shortages in those countries when nurses leave for the US. A nurse may be the only healthcare available to a large number of people in poor, rural areas.
Looking at the university training issue, nursing students are much like the general population of college students meaning that less than 50 percent will graduate. Given the challenge of a nursing curriculum, many more students probably transfer to another discipline in order to stay in school.
Second, students that can muster through a tough nursing curriculum may go on for master’s degrees or move to other options that have higher wages, such as nurse practitioners or nurse anesthetists. Others go into business, schools or take faculty jobs.
The other variable that will be a factor is funding to pay for one million nurses. In a recent USA Today headline, Medicare debt accounts for every American household “contributing” nearly $250 thousand. That amount funds today’s medical needs not the future. Currently the national Medicare costs are $4.5 trillion and future costs are set to “soar.” It will be difficult for hospitals and other healthcare facilities to afford to fill all their vacancies.
Beyond the potential funding issues, the problem is the control of nursing education by universities and colleges. Needed are nurse assistants, licensed practical nurses and non-degree nurses to fill the vacancies. These are 1-2 year programs and accessible to a larger number of students. Universities are offering too much training for the everyday needs in a hospital. A person doesn’t need 5 years of higher education to perform daily living activities required by hospital patients.
For over 100 years, most large hospitals funded their own nurse training programs. Graduates who passed the license exam were hired by the hospital to fill vacancies; others went to other facilities. Today, these schools have been closed and students must now attend a college, university or career school. This limits the number of students that can attend due to class size, tuition and proximity to the school.
There is no simple answer and more money won’t solve the problem. Colleges and universities may have created the shortage but they won’t be the answer. Further, hospitals don’t have the human or financial resources to operate schools and create graduates to fill their vacancies.
Maybe communities need to train family members to take care of their older relatives. Helping people with everyday living activities won’t take much training. It may be an unpleasant thought that a person would take care of mom or dad, but it may be the practical answer.
Like so many of America’s social concerns and issues, communities are the answer. Expecting someone else to address the needs of our families just isn’t practical. We need to take responsibility.

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

INOCULATE

Not About Bird Flu

Most people are familiar with what it means to inoculate someone. You inject a small dose of virus into the blood stream in order to build immunity. The small dose may cause a minor illness, but the trade-off is worth avoiding a major illness and possibly death.
Leaders can inoculate their workplace to prepare employees for upcoming increases in problem-solving, workload and stress by simulating the event, or inoculation.
This is much like the two-minute drill in American football. The team must perform almost flawlessly in order to score the winning points. Teams practice the two-minute drill every week to prepare for this possibility. In the event of a rout, the team sets aside the two-minute drill for the current contest, but it will be practiced again next week.
Athletes know that if you want to perform at a maximum level under duress, you must condition your mind and body to act reflexively. You must have faced the intensity of the situation as often as possible in order to defeat thoughts of doubt or imperfect physical reactions that lead to a loss. Inoculation.
In addition to physical practice, athletes also condition their minds through the use of mental imagery. Mental imagery allows the athlete to see themselves in a pressure situations and “role play” how they will respond. The mind works like a tape recorder, replaying the images until everything feels right. The more the mind sees the successful outcome, the more it will program the body and other intangibles to be ready. Inoculation.
Businesses fail to inoculate employees and their leadership. Perhaps the thought is that it is a waste of time to prepare for something that may never happen or may happen with less intensity. Here’s the challenge: turn on quality thinking like you would a light. You know, like the image of a person with a light bulb over their head.
Well-prepared people practice thinking and procedures. Professional rescuers continually practice knowledge and skills. They know that if you don’t continuous practice key skills, you fail to respond in a timely and efficient manner. Inoculation.
Thinking is a skill and needs to be practiced. If you want to be surrounded by problem-solvers, you need to offer practice sessions. Just like athletes or rescuers, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it, so you set up simulations and classes. It is unwise to wait until you need quality thinking to get people together to think. It is not that easy to turn it on. Inoculation.
When businesses practice the “as needed” approach, chances are they will get “shallow thinking.” From an employee’s view, it’s a half-hearted effort to provide feedback. Since no one has invested in them since the last “think tank”, they are not prepared to think. Even with the best intentions, the thinking won’t provide much innovation or research. The skill of thinking has diminished.
Businesses say they look for people with outstanding thinking skills. Unfortunately, if that person ends up staying with a company that doesn’t have time to practice thinking, those skills will be wasted. And, as with the flu season, if there are insufficient doses of vaccine the outcomes could be tragic.

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

MORE ILLITERACY?

Reading Success Is A Family Affair

In a recent issue of USA Today (05-23-2006), a research study by an independent, non-partisan group stated that today’s graduating education majors are under prepared to teach reading using the latest strategies and tools. Reading, a fundamental staple in the course of our lives and our commitment to continuous education, will not get the most advanced ideas for improvement because, apparently, something else in the college curriculum for education majors was more important. Does it seem like every time we turn around, “we shoot ourselves in the foot?”
Unless you have been living in isolation or out of the country for the last 5 years, reading and comprehension scores have been a focus of No Child Left Behind legislation. Poor test results will close schools (including terminating teachers) that don’t meet annual yearly progress standards (there’s that word again; see yesterday’s blog).
There’s an old story that asks why a worker spends all day fixing bent bumpers for automobiles. Why not find the source of the problem and fix the manufacturing process? One time fix and you’re done. While few things in education can be labeled as a one-time fix, it would help if schools were choosing from a pool of innovative individuals prepared to teach reading in every subject area.
And yes, I know about standardized testing that supposedly measures a future teacher’s ability to be an expert in the classroom. Unfortunately the test does not measure the individual’s passion. Give me an emotionally charged teacher that energizes his or her classroom any day over a good test taker.
If you think reading test scores have been horrible over the past few years, you may be seeing more of the same. There is a remedy; teaching good reading skills is not a teacher’s job alone. There is no excuse for parents to shirk their duty to promote reading at home. The best readers come from homes that read. You know, little things like a daily newspaper, weekly news or financial magazine or maybe, just maybe, a book. It works.

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE