Improving Care Transitions: An Academic Service Partnership to Achieve Coordination of Care Using Students as Health Coaches.

To avoid penalty through the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, an academic practice partnership, Health Transitions Alliance, was formed with the local university, resulting in adoption of an innovative transitional care model. Key to the model was a health coach who operationalized transition care to the home setting. Health coaches, interns in their last semester of college, used motivational interviewing to help patients set disease management goals.

Cultural influences on safety and health education among Vietnamese fishermen.

Every ethnic group has its own cultural background and history that influences how it views health behaviors. By virtue of their work history, many Vietnamese have pursued the fishing industry when migrating to the United States. Even though the fishing trades are among the most dangerous jobs in the world, there has been little attention in the literature to the significant role that culture plays in the expression and experience of occupational health practices among Vietnamese shrimp fishermen.

Graduate nursing online orientation course: transitioning for success.

Graduate nursing students beginning their graduate education often lack technological preparedness when beginning the journey in a virtual e-learning environment. These gaps in preparedness include lack of understanding course delivery, accessing resources remotely, participating in asynchronous course activities, and use of emerging health care technologies. This article describes an educational innovative online orientation course that simulates course activities so that students get a true perspective of what e-learning entails.

Self-reported back pain among farm women in southeast Louisiana.

This cross-sectional survey details the incidence and predictors of self-reported back pain among farm women from southeastern Louisiana. The sample was obtained from a preexisting data set of a cross-sectional randomized sample of farm women who participated in the Louisiana Farm Family Injury Prevention and Health Initiative research project. The Haddon Injury Model was used as the conceptual framework.

My father's experience with macular degeneration: implications for the home healthcare nurse.

Macular degeneration has become a problem of substantial proportions for older adults. This article can help the home health nurse gain a greater understanding of macular degeneration and therefore be more effective in the home setting. The addition of vision rehabilitation also can prolong older adults' independent years and enhance their satisfaction with life.

The impact of farm lifestyle and health characteristics: cervical cancer screening among southern farmwomen.

Background: Rural residence, access to healthcare facilities, and multiple roles of farmwomen may pose barriers to cervical cancer screening among women living in southern farm states.

Objectives: To compare the proportion of women failing to obtain cervical cancer screening in three Southern states to state-level Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data and to identify factors contributing to cervical cancer screening and detection behaviors.

Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used.

Occupational risky business: injury prevention behaviors of farm women and children.

On farms in the United States, there are approximately 100 fatal and 32,800 nonfatal injuries annually in children 19 years and younger (United States Department of Labor, 1999). Up to 40% of nonfatally injured children are left with permanent disabilities. The impact of injury and death on children associated with farming in the United States is substantial.

Adiponectin responses to continuous and progressively intense intermittent exercise.

Purpose: Adiponectin is a recently discovered adipocyte protein that is lower in patients with coronary artery disease and in Type II diabetics who have insulin resistance. Regular exercise is known to be a preventative factor in the development of atherosclerosis and Type II diabetes. Acute exercise increases insulin sensitivity; however, it also increases beta-adrenergic and glucocorticoid activities that may suppress adiponectin expression.

Depressive symptoms in farm women: effects of health status and farming lifestyle characteristics, behaviors, and beliefs.

A multitude of responsibilities, environmental and social influences, and stressors place farm women at high risk for depressive symptoms. This cross sectional survey design study examines demographic, health status, and farm lifestyle characteristics, behaviors and beliefs as risk factors contributing to depressive symptoms among farm women in southeast Louisiana. The study was conducted in a stratified, random sample of 657 women 18 years and older.

Nonfatal injury experiences among women on family farms.

Agricultural injury occurrence was determined among 1,096 working farm women in Texas and Louisiana. The 1-year cumulative incidence was 4.8%.