5 Transformational Themes that Will Rock the World of Health Care

Posted on by Helen Bevan

Helen Bevan has been a leader of large scale change in the English National Health Service for more than 20 years. What does Helen think is going to shake health care? She told us during a plenary presentation at Quality Forum 2015. Helen is the Chief Transformation Officer of the Horizons Team at NHS Improving Quality. She is acknowledged globally for her expertise in large scale change and ability to translate it into practical action and deliver outcomes. She provides advice, guidance and training on transformational change to leaders of healthcare systems across the world. She is a source of energy and inspiration for change and helps to “think the unthinkable”. In 2008, the 60th anniversary of the National Health Service, Helen was recognised as one of the 60 most influential people in the history of the NHS.

View and download her presentation file at http://ow.ly/KgtLS

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How Did I Quit Smoking? I Just Stopped!

Posted on by Patient Commando

By Sean McDermott

I had quit smoking so many times that I decided not to use that word ever again and now when I hear people say that they have “quit”,  I take it lightly and reserve comment.  Quitting is something that you fear, something that you approach slowly and have a plan in place to overcome the odds, the mood swings, the cravings.  I had no such thing.

Let me give you some untypical background.  In July of 2007 I arrived at Toronto Western Hospital in an ambulance dying of Liver Disease from Alcoholism.  I know this because they told me next morning that I had been dying for about two weeks. I wouldn’t have made it through the night if my sister and Mother had not insisted as I lay in my sweat-drenched Queen bed, throwing up repeatedly, that I had to go to hospital.  Even then I kept thinking,  “if I could just rest” but I went as they say, kicking and screaming.  The Chief Physician the very next morning visited my bedside, told me that I was very lucky and that my life was about to change, that is if I wanted to live.  There is always the [...] continue the story

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Unwanted Thoughts

Posted on by Patient Commando

By Michelle Lemme

Unwanted thoughts keep popping into my head; need to keep myself distracted so as not to get caught up in the never ending vortex of worry and guilt.   No matter what has taken place in the past, I am and always will be, a mother first.  I believe that the thoughts that I am having are not “abnormal” as I believe any mother who is undergoing something difficult with their child would also be plaque by guilt and anxiety.

My tendency is to catastrophize things, it is the rare occasion in deed when I don’t believe the worse can, and probably will happen.  No matter that I rarely have evidence which supports the catastrophic thought that is haunting me.  Sometimes, even my breathing cannot quell the fear that tears at my heart.

The “guilt” thoughts are the most dreadful, the most useless.  All of these invaders drive me to want to fix everything that is precarious in SA’s life, what mother wouldn’t want to make their children’s life easier if they could?  I’m torn apart, knowing that SA needs to continue to learn to live her life independently and responsibly.  How can she possibly succeed if I intervene in every [...] continue the story

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I am a caregiver of someone with MS

Posted on by MS Society of Canada

By Kent Pollard

I think that part and parcel of coming to terms with becoming a caregiver, is acknowledging that there is going to be change, change that will almost always be difficult at the start. Change that we have to accommodate and embrace if we are going to have the best life we are capable of having.

My wife, Victoria was diagnosed with MS on October 5th of 1998, three days after I started a new job. At the time, caregiving didn’t even enter into my experience. We were a couple and there were things that we did for each other, none of them out of the ordinary. For the first 4 or 5 years after the diagnosis, caregiving was a minor, and completely unrecognized, part of my life. Victoria experienced unusual fatigue, and we worked through some initial anger and bitterness toward the world, but she continued to work and our lives were, or at least, my life was, not particularly disrupted. However, the disease state progressed, slowly but inexorably until about four years later when it, and the accompanying symptoms had become much more pronounced and began to creep into our day-to-day lives. Victoria was more tired than ever. [...] continue the story

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