Tag Archives: KHN

Shared Decision Making

Questions older Americans should ask their surgeon

Larry McMahon, who turns 80 this month, is weighing whether to undergo a major surgery. Over the past five years, his back pain has intensified. Physical therapy, muscle relaxants, and injections aren’t offering relief. “It’s a pain that leaves me hardly able to do anything,” he said. Should McMahon, a retired Virginia state trooper who […]

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Judith Graham Judith Graham writes the Navigating Aging series for Kaiser Health News, which focuses on medical issues and advice associated with aging and end-of-life care, helping America’s 45 million seniors and their families navigate the health care system. To contact Judith Graham with a question or comment, click here.

Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News has 8 post(s) at EngagingPatients.org


Shared Decision Making

Older adults undergo nearly 40% of surgeries but lack data for informed decision making

Nearly 1 in 7 older adults die within a year of undergoing major surgery, according to an important new study that sheds much-needed light on the risks seniors face when having invasive procedures. Especially vulnerable are older patients with probable dementia (33% die within a year) and frailty (28%), as well as those having emergency […]

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Judith Graham Judith Graham writes the Navigating Aging series for Kaiser Health News, which focuses on medical issues and advice associated with aging and end-of-life care, helping America’s 45 million seniors and their families navigate the health care system. To contact Judith Graham with a question or comment, click here.

Judith Graham, Kaiser Health News has 8 post(s) at EngagingPatients.org


Engaged Patient

Reporter reacts to sleep apnea diagnosis with questions, research and a better solution

I woke up in a strange bedroom with 24 electrodes glued all over my body and a plastic mask attached to a hose covering my face. The lab technician who watched me all night via video feed told me that I had “wicked sleep apnea” and that it was “central sleep apnea” — a type […]

Engagement Strategies

At 988 Call Centers, Crisis Counselors Offer Empathy and Juggle Limited Resources

On a Friday evening at a call center in southeastern Pennsylvania, Michael Colluccio stirred his hot tea, put on his headset, and started up his computer. The screen showed calls coming in to the suicide prevention lifeline from around the state. Colluccio, 38, said he knows what it’s like to be on the other end […]

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Brett Sholtis is a health reporter for WITF/Transforming Health. Sholtis is the 2021-2022 Reveal Benjamin von Sternenfels Rosenthal Grantee for Mental Health Investigative Journalism with the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Sholtis is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh and a veteran of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard Kosovo campaign.

Brett Sholtis, WITF has 1 post(s) at EngagingPatients.org

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Consumer Empowerment

Right-to-Repair Laws Aim to Put Wheelchair Users in Charge

Robin Bolduc isn’t the type of person who takes “no” for an answer — particularly when it comes to fixing her husband’s wheelchair. Her husband, Bruce Goguen, 69, is paralyzed from multiple sclerosis. And without his chair, he would be stuck in bed, at risk of developing pneumonia or pressure sores that could lead to […]

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Martin Hawryluk Markian Hawryluk, Senior Colorado Correspondent for KHN, is based in Denver. He has reported on health care for more than 25 years, writing for such publications as the Houston Chronicle, American Medical News, and, most recently, The (Bend, Ore.) Bulletin. In 2009, he won Oregon’s top reporting prize, the Bruce Baer Award for investigative journalism. In 2013, he was named a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan.

Martin Hawryluk has 1 post(s) at EngagingPatients.org


Community Engagement

Hispanic Community Cares for Each Other with Covid Precautions

On a snowy January morning, Luis Portillo stood in line on the side of a busy road in Silver Spring, Maryland — a suburb just north of Washington, D.C. — with about 200 other people, waiting for his turn to get tested for covid-19 at Mary’s Center, a federally qualified health center. Portillo, a 65-year-old […]

COVID-19

Engaged Patients Playing Catch-Up with Delayed Care

Editor’s note: The article below, first published by Kaiser Health News, reports on the effect of delays in medical care caused by the pandemic during the past year. That effect garnered immediate concern from many quarters last spring. I reported on it here in late May 2020, and, in hindsight, am taken aback to see how I failed […]

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Susan Carr Susan Carr is a medical editor and writer specializing in patient safety and engagement. In addition to curating the EngagingPatients blog, she produces publications for the Betsy Lehman Center in Boston and the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. Susan lives and works in Lunenburg, Massachusetts.

Susan Carr has 185 post(s) at EngagingPatients.org

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