The same technology you would find in a grocery store check-out line is coming to a hospital near you!  Bar codes are linking patients to their prescribed medications, cutting down on the number of preventable medical errors.

When nurses roll into patient rooms at West Calcasieu Cameron Hospital, they are rolling right along with their electronic nursing station on wheels.

Every patient now gets an arm band with a unique bar code – specific to them and their personal medical information.  “Every wristband is tied with a bar code and that bar code stays with the patient throughout their entire visit,” said WCCH Chief Information Officer, Trey Rion. (more…)

Throughout the decade in which I cared for my father, who had Alzheimer’s disease, he was hospitalized several times. Each and every stay was a complete nightmare. I could easily name several reasons for these trials but the one I would like to focus on here is this: it’s impossible to simply look at someone and tell they have cognitive disabilities. Due to this fact, my father was regularly mistaken for “just another patient.” (more…)

It’s a busy old world; lots to do, errands to run and kids to try and keep healthy in the midst of some very sophisticated marketing out there in every corner of our lives. If you’ve a medical condition in the family, you’re probably already aware of Medibands, but there are 5 more ways to keep everyone healthy… (more…)

Why has Amtrak stopped letting children take the train on their own?

Last February, exactly one year ago, my children spent three and a half hours by themselves on an Amtrak train ride  (more…)

After the diagnosis of a medical condition, an awful lot goes through your head. ‘Why me”, ‘What now’, ‘Can I still do…’  being among them. Whatever the situation there are a number of things to now consider. Your medical professional is probably helping with many, but he or she can’t help with all. What are the things you can do to get the ball rolling?  The first thing to do is lose a sense of blame. Illness happens. Sometimes it’s genetic, sometimes it’s random bad luck, sometimes we contribute (smoking for example). But it has happened, blame solves nothing, achieves nothing and in fact, sends you backwards. We’ll all react differently, but these people  give some interesting life lessons out of how they coped with illness in their child. Not over-researching on the internet is one of them – you’re guaranteed to find (more…)