The purpose of this article is to describe The Joint Commission's 7 foundations of safe and effective transitions of care to home: (a) leadership support; (b) multidisciplinary collaboration; (c) early identification of patients/clients at risk; (d) transitional planning; (e) medication management; (f) patient and family action/engagement; and (g) transfer of information. These foundations were...

The importance of home healthcare telemonitoring for elderly and outpatients has been widely recognised. However, the adoption rate of home healthcare telemonitoring remains low due to limited evidence for cost-effectiveness. The core objective of this work is the cost-effective design of a real-time home healthcare telemonitoring system based on mobile cloud computing. A second objective is to...

Advances in technology and the increased use of home medical devices, will revolutionise the way public healthcare is administered. Homes and their associated networks in conjunction with such devices will take over many mundane healthcare tasks and manage new and enriched lifestyle choices that affect our overall quality of life. Through the combination of wireless and fixed networking infrast...

Major depression is disproportionately common among elderly adults receiving home healthcare and is characterized by greater medical illness, functional impairment, and pain. Depression is persistent in this population and is associated with numerous poor outcomes such as increased risk of hospitalization, injury-producing falls, and higher health care costs. Despite the need for mental health ...

Home healthcare nurses often work in isolation and rarely have the opportunity to meet or congregate in one location. As a result, nurse leaders must possess unique leadership skills to supervise and manage a dispersed employee base from a distance. The nature of this dispersed workforce creates an additional challenge in the ability to identify future leaders, facilitate leadership capacity, a...

This study explores the characteristics of Medicare-only beneficiaries and Medicare-Medicaid dual eligibles in comparison, assess what factors determine the dual eligibility status, and examine the association between dual eligibility status and home healthcare service use. Using retrospective observational study of the U.S. 1996-2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we find that dual eligible...

The improvement of the conditions of daily life at home and work, promoted by the socio-economic progression, best quality private living environments and the immense development in healthcare and biomedical technologies has extended the average age of life beyond 70. According to recent surveys this “population aging” phenomenon will contribute to reach the record number of 1 billion people ov...