Authors

The Petrie-Flom Center staff often posts updates, announcements, and guests posts on behalf of others.
Physical therapist helps person in wheelchair.

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Has Changed Caregiver Education and Training

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Elizabeth Hansen

As a Physical Therapy Practice Leader, I help patients at the rehabilitation level of care — patients who have sustained a significant injury or disease that has life-changing implications.

Caregivers play an important role in the discharge of these patients from the in-patient context back to the home. They take on the burden of learning the techniques and interventions recommended by the clinical team. They may be learning how to use and maintain new equipment, such as power wheelchairs, feeding tubes, and lifts.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I have noticed increased distress among both health care providers and family caregivers as patients are getting ready to discharge home, due in large part to challenges posed by the pandemic to family health care education.

Read More

DUQUE DE CAXIAS,(BRAZIL),MAY,20,2020: doctors take care of patients with covid-19 and an intensive care unit (ICU) at hospital são josé specialized in the treatment of covid-19.

From Pain to Progress: Nursing After the Pandemic

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Victoria L. Tiase and William M. Sage

America’s nurses are a powerful force for good — four million strong, universally trusted, increasingly diverse, serving every community across the country, with an overall economic impact greater than the total output of the median American state. However, the pain of pandemic nursing is real and widespread. Urgent attention to nursing’s vulnerabilities is required for the profession to help the U.S. emerge from the confluence of the worst public health crisis in over a century and the most severe economic decline since the Great Depression.

Read More

ANDOVER,HAMPSHIRE/UNITED KINGDOM-NOVEMBER 6 2019:A district nurse visits a ninety-four year old patient at his home to treat for pulmonary edema and head/brain injury.

Challenges Facing Home Health Caregivers During COVID-19 Pandemic

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Vicki Hoak

The pandemic has emphasized the value of home health caregivers. Their contribution has been overshadowed for decades, but now it is very clear how important their work is to the well-being of older Americans, people with disabilities, and medically-fragile children.

As families were urged to stay at home to stop the spread of COVID-19, home care agencies and their staff became all the more important for preventing the spread of COVID-19 and protecting the most vulnerable from the disease. Home health aides offer clients one-to-one care and continual monitoring of changes in conditions — all in the safety of one’s own home.

Read More

hospital equipment

How COVID-19 Has Widened the Experience-Complexity Gap in Nursing

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Julie Miller

I am a Clinical Practice Specialist for the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), and I have noticed the experience-complexity gap widening during the pandemic. As increasing numbers of nurses retire due to the stress of serving on the front lines, novice nurses are tasked with complex caseloads.

Hospital-based educators tell me they do not have enough experienced nurses to oversee and mentor the novice nurses due to attrition, as experienced nurses are taking advantage of high paying travel contracts, or are leaving the ICU/PCU specialty due to burnout, moral injury, and post-traumatic stress.

Post-pandemic, the experience-complexity gap for progressive and critical care nurses will continue to widen and affect intensive care unit (ICU) and progressive care unit (PCU) orientation and ongoing education.

Read More

Bill of Health - U.S. state flags, part of the federal system, flying, covid-19 and federalism, U.S. states

COVID-19 in a Federal System: Challenges and Opportunities

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Morgan Sandhu, J.D.

Federalism sits at the very core of American government. Yet, the coronavirus pandemic has pushed federalism under the microscope, exposing its strengths and weaknesses in turn. While a number of other countries also have federal systems,[1] federalism has been uniquely important in the United States’ response to COVID-19. Since the Trump administration largely abdicated responsibility to the states, there was virtually no unified national response. Thus, each state’s response became particularly important. States have also had wildly divergent responses to the pandemic. President Biden’s tenure began with federalism in tatters and the United States continuing to struggle to contain and control COVID-19. Further, the ongoing vaccination campaign requires a high level of coordination between the states and the federal government, once again raising similar questions about the efficacy of the United States’ multi-layered federal system.

Read More

First-person perspective photograph of a health care worker holding up a mask used to prevent the spread of germs

Mask Mandates, Unmasked

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Morgan Sandhu, J.D.

On his first day in office, President Biden instituted a mask mandate for airports, on many forms of transportation, and on all federal property. Over the last year, mask wearing has become politicized, making swaths of the country “stubbornly resistant to the practice,” despite its clear public health benefits. President Biden’s swift action was a clear signal and a stark break from President Trump’s derision of masks. Yet to many, Biden’s executive orders fell short of the hoped-for “national mask mandate.”

Read More

Doctor Holding Cell Phone. Cell phones and other kinds of mobile devices and communications technologies are of increasing importance in the delivery of health care. Photographer Daniel Sone.

Viewing Telehealth Policymaking Through the Lens of Disability

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

Join us on Wednesday, April 7 for further discussion of these issues during our virtual event, “Triumphs & Tensions of the Telehealth Boom.“

By Laura C. Hoffman

As a means for delivering health care, telehealth will only be as successful as it is accessible to our most vulnerable populations.

Although the utilization of telehealth has the great potential to increase access to health care while simultaneously reducing barriers to access for individuals, people with disabilities face multiple barriers to telehealth. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted these challenges.

Read More

woman with iv in her hand in hospital. Labor and delivery preparation. Intravenious therapy infusion. shallow depth of field. selective focus

Protecting Patients and Staff in Labor and Delivery During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

As a labor and delivery nurse, I see patients at their most vulnerable and am there for them during an incredibly intimate time. After thirteen years, I am still awed and amazed at each birth I am lucky enough to be present for.

But in March of 2020, everything I knew as a nurse changed when COVID-19 reached my small community hospital.

Our struggles were two-fold — making our patients feel safe and making our staff feel safe.

Read More

Healthcare concept of professional psychologist doctor consult in psychotherapy session or counsel diagnosis health.

The Case for Non-Police Response to Behavioral Health Crises

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Jennifer J. Carroll and Taleed El-Sabawi

People who use drugs continue to die at staggering rates, due not only to overdose from contaminated drug supply, but also due to our persistent reliance on the carceral system to respond to behavioral health crises.

This approach stems from the state-sanctioned violence of the War on Drugs. It takes various forms, including the use of police officers as first responders to behavioral health crises (including welfare checks), the excessive police use of force, and the use of potentially lethal restraint methods to subdue agitated persons. It also manifests in police officers’ use of jail cells as tools for forced “detox” believing that coerced withdrawal while in custody will reduce overdose risk or help someone “go clean” (it very clearly does not).

Evidence-based alternatives to police response for behavioral health crises exist. However, despite being both feasible and effective, these alternatives to police intervention remain the exception, rather than the rule.

Read More