Covid Caution Healthy Life Lines

Wash your hands often.

In high-risk areas if unvaccinated or vaccinated, wear a mask.

Keep safe distance to task.

Give it all you got, get a shot!

Boost immunity with healthy food.

Be kind to yourself and others.

Thank you.

Medical Preparation for Stormy Weather

 Be organized and keep it simple.  When preparing for any weather emergency, this is important to do especially when it comes to your health.  Anxiety and uncertainty in this flight or stay adrenaline pumping situation can decrease your awareness of what you really should be doing to stay healthy and safe.  Taking care of yourself is primary to sustain weather hazards. 

These tips will help you prepare.

• stay well rested 
• avoid unnecessary distractions
• know the facts, be present and up to date on storms and emergency preparation by reading and listening to lectures 
  
• prepare and check medical provider list to include your primary care doctors including specialists, nearest urgent care community health centers and hospital
• contact electric company to help with medical provisions like home oxygen should power failure occur
• contact community emergency services for listing if medical condition requires extra attention
• prepare food and water stock for two weeks or more
• freeze water for ice enough to fill two or more coolers
• keep prescription medication current with adequate supply for two months
• stay informed with neighbors and community resources
• get batteries for lights, radio, fans, medical devices like glucometer, blood pressure monitor
• charge all sources of power for telephones, limit use and keep turned off if not in use

Prepare yourself first, and plan before the storm arrives. Check and update your plan monthly. Stay healthy and safe.  Best health!

Home Health Helps Heal

Did you know that most Medicare expenses are utilized in the last year of life?  This fact has become more recognized as patients find themselves financially unable to afford proper services to maintain an independent quality of life.  In addition, many over 60 years of age have multiple chronic conditions.  Aging plus chronic conditions that may have become disabling can make health diagnosis and treatment less effective yet more challenging to all healthcare providers.  This also includes family and non-family caregivers who must give up their time, job, etc. to help with care that is unaffordable on a fixed income.

Home based health care is on the rise as the population ages.  More patients than ever before are transitioning to healthcare in their homes including primary care provider visits, tests, and treatment. Studies have found that home health care keeps people healthier and out of the hospital.  It is only natural that the best place to heal and recover is home.


Hospital discharge planning has prepared you for your return home. Most of your care and treatment can be at your home. The old-fashioned housecall remains an important part of medical care.  Most of all it provides continuous continuity at a time when you are unable to physically go to your healthcare providers office.  This is further enhanced with modern technology such as telemedicine.  The convenience and quality time spent with patients in home care lets the doctor, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, nurse, and other ancillary providers see you in your natural environment of everyday living.


Home health care includes personal care, too.  Often this service is necessary for help with bathing, dressing and activities of daily living.  Cooking and light housekeeping are just a few of the other services that may be offered.  Patients are able to recover comfortably and quicker when this type of home assistance is included.  Though rarely covered by regular insurance, it is an important part of any home care plan.  Saving money over the years for home personal care should be included in your financial plan especially long term.


Many primary care providers do well care in the home, too.  Minor medical maladies and routine medical care are easily rendered during a house   call. Timely appointments can be made to fit your schedule. As this method of direct primary continues patients are seeing better health outcomes especially after hospitalization.  Readmissions within thirty days are less likely.  Best of all the patient feels better and recovers more quickly.  Home based health care provides greater continuity of care and active, current communication for the patient and all those involved. Get better, stay better at your house.  Best health!

Maintenance of Healthcare for Continuity

Healthcare providers are lifetime givers of healthcare.  While many patients and their families attempt to provide this level of care, it is very difficult.  It is usually a sudden life threatening or termonal illness that causes many to be aware how this changes lives.  Family members who have help all along can be suddenly displaced by those who have failed to provide care due to lack of money incentives and other responsibilities.  This creates lack of continuity and knowldge during a vulnerable moment for those who have provided continuous care. 

It is usually a delayed emergent medical crisis that awakens the uninvolved to terminal illness reality especially when the current caregivers have exhausted themselves.  Studies show that the majority of cases leave the patient and other caregivers in this quandry especially if one has terminal disease like dementia.  Once this is recognized by the least active caregiver of years, attempts are made to discredit the current ones with false often untrue allegations especially if money is involved. 

Those inexperienced, uninvolved seeking self gain intentions for whatever reason do so at the cost of the patient's quality of life.  Studies show this unhealthy behavior may lead to more unhealthy behavior compromising the demented patient, and previous caregivers who really care. It is usually a delayed emergent medical occurence like altered mental status, dehydration, infection that awakens those actively and inactively involved to terminal illness reality.

Be a lifetime caregiver instead of waiting for devastating disability and demntia to be diagnosed in your loved ones. Best health! 

Covid Caution Healthy Life Lines

 Wash your hands.

Wear a mask.

Keep safe distance to task.

Give it all you got,

Get a shot.

Be kind to yourself and others.

Thank you.

Covid Crisis Call to Action

During these times of a pandemic, more precise, valid , reliable information is necessary. Medical and health channels would be optimal. This post was originally written in 2007. It is fifteen years later during a global crisis.  Lttle has changed. The content back then was more plentiful. There is still hope this will become a reliable resource for patients, doctors, and all healthcare professionals.  

Medical information on TV is limited and stagnating. Sixty seconds on the news. Two minutes on the talk show after commercials on prescription medication. Outdated show on this channel, and outdated repeat on that channel in between the new show. Watch some on this channel then click and click to different channels to connect your medical news for today.

Remember the crawler at the bottom of the screen. Oh, you missed that there was a bird flu outbreak in Pakistan today, and that HPV vaccines will be required for teen women (what about the men?). These are the ways we learn about some of the most important news we should know. It concerns our health and public safety.

If only we had a dedicated medical TV CNN (instead of just Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s excellent show on early weekend mornings, or his occasional special). You know, like the sports channels by sport, the cartoon channels by age (and now one for the boomers!), the movie channels, government channels, and on and on. Where is the “MTV” of medical channels? Discovery Health has been carrying the TV health media for years. There should just be more!

The TV box is probably the most used medium by which folks get their news and information. It is certainly a way to get information to people. The most used information source is one of the least used by the cutting edge medical field. This was noted in my research paper, “Building an American Health System”, in 2002. This is 2007, and it’s pretty much the same, maybe even less.

A medical TV channel (actually several would be optimal) would be great! A daily health news show would be a great start towards 24-7 medical TV. Envision yourself clicking to the heart channel, or to programs with content about specific diseases. You could learn more about that high blood pressure you are trying to control, and how you can monitor it at home. Topics on maintaining good health, and prevention of disease would be a click away. And if you missed a show, it would be shown again and again.

Health and medical coverage on TV is surely lacking in this consumer driven health conscious society. We can watch as much sports, cartoons, movies, news as we want, but we still have to piece together our medical news and supplement it with the written word, or health care providers’ spoken word. And radio.

Great health is true wealth. Medical TV would make us even richer.

Medical Tips for Storm Preparation

Be organized and keep it simple.  When preparing for any weather emergency, this is important to do especially when it comes to your health.  Anxiety and uncertainty in this flight or stay adrenaline pumping situation can decrease your awareness of what you really should be doing to stay healthy and safe.  Taking care of yourself is primary to sustain weather hazards. 

These tips will help you prepare.

• stay well rested 
• avoid unnecessary distractions
• know the facts, be present and up to date on storms and emergency preparation by reading and listening to lectures 
  
• prepare and check medical provider list to include your primary care doctors including specialists, nearest urgent care community health centers and hospital
• contact electric company to help with medical provisions like home oxygen should power failure occur
• contact community emergency services for listing if medical condition requires extra attention
• prepare food and water stock for two weeks or more
• freeze water for ice enough to fill two or more coolers
• keep prescription medication current with adequate supply for two months
• stay informed with neighbors and community resources
• get batteries for lights, radio, fans, medical devices like glucometer, blood pressure monitor
• charge all sources of power for telephones, limit use and keep turned off if not in use

Prepare yourself first, and plan before the storm arrives. Check and update your plan monthly. Stay healthy and safe.  Best health!