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May 18

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4000+ Global Nurses in Melbourne to focus on equity & access to health care

CHMP Co-directors, Diana Mason and Barbara Glickstein, are attending the International Council of Nurses 25th Quadrennial Congress 18-23 May 2013 in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to reporting on the proceedings they will be participating on a panel titled, The Strategic Use of Media to Shape Health Policy, where they will discuss the work of the Center for Health Media and Policy.

photo of ICN media room

We’ve arrived. It was quite a journey from NYC to LA to Melbourne. We left on Wednesday and arrived on Friday. Thursday just disappeared.  Closest thing to space travel.

The ICN Media Centre will be our base with media folks from around the world here to report on the Congress. When I asked at the media desk check-in what hashtag we should use for the Congress I was disappointed to find out that  one had not been assigned.  A few tweets using #ICN13 followed by a search on Twitter found three hashtags circulating- #ICN13, #ICN2013, #ICNAust2013.  Oh well, it’s a step forward. Four years ago in South Africa only a couple of us were on Twitter. Progress. Slow, but progress.

Student Power

ICN Student plenary The first session I attended was the Nursing Student Assembly.  Student presenters addressed issues on education, technology, access to care in rural areas and advancing the practice of nursing. I was particularly moved by the students interest in developing more clinical placements in rural areas to address the lack of access to primary care in regions locally and globally. One student reported repeated requests at her university to expand clinical placements in rural areas only to be met with resistance. Her response. She created an independent health promotion elective and forged ahead. Other students followed. The message repeated throughout this session is that student nurses are powerful  individually and collectively and are making a difference. They encouraged each other not to wait until you finish your degree and get your license but to make an impact now to address health disparities and inequity.

These student nurses are smart, bold nurse activists. They are nurse leaders with a serious commitment to address equity and access to health care.

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Barbara Glickstein reporting from ICN 2013 Melbourne, Australia

Apr 25

1 Comment

Health Care Decisions, Part 4: Healthstyles

What’s the difference between an advance directive and a living will? What is a “DNR” order and why is it important?

April is Health Care Decision Month—a time to all of us to reflect on some of the decisions that we or our loved ones might confront around how we die. In keeping with this theme, Healthstyles is focusing its programs this month on how to have the conversations about how we want to die and how to take the legal steps in ensuring that others respect our wishes.

The first program aired on April 4th on WBAI, 99.5 FM (www.wbai.org) and focused on why it’s important to complete an “advance directive” that designates who will make health care decisions for you it you become unable to do so.

The second program aired on April 11th and focused on how to actually have the conversation about your health care wishes with your loved ones, and especially someone who will serve as your health care proxy or agent.

The third program walked you through how to complete an advance directive and health care proxy form, as well as tell you how to make it available to health care providers. If you didn’t already do so, you can download a sample form that is specific to your state at Caring Connections.

If you didn’t listen to the first week’s program, you can do so by clicking here: D&D_0001

The second program can be listened to by clicking here: D&D_0002

And the third program can be heard here: D&D_0003

The final program in this four-part series airs tonight on WBAI, 99.5 FM (www.wbai.org) and will discuss other legal documents related to end-of-life care, such as living wills, the POLST—Provider Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment—and the Do Not Resuscitate documents. You can also listen to it by clicking here: D&D_0004

For the entire series, Healthstyles producers Barbara Glickstein, RN, MPH, and Diana Mason, RN, PhD, talk with Tina Janssen-Spinosa, JD, Staff Attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group where she is Program Coordinator for Total Life Choices, an initiative to disseminate information about end of life planning and help people in their planning needs; and Vidette Todaro-Franceschi, RN, PhD, Professor of Nursing at Hunter College, City University of New York, and expert in end of life issues.

Remember that planning for the end of our lives is about planning for how we want to live.

Healthstyles is sponsored by the Center for Health, Media & Policy at Hunter College.

Apr 18

Advance Directives and Health Care Proxy, Part 3: Healthstyles

Do you have a designated health care proxy or agent and an advance directive that indicates your preferences for health care if you are unable to make decisions for yourself?

April is Health Care Decision Month—a time to all of us to reflect on some of the decisions that we or our loved ones might confront around how we die. In keeping with this theme, Healthstyles is focusing its programs this month on how to have the conversations about how we want to die and how to take the legal steps in ensuring that others respect our wishes.

The first program aired on April 4th on WBAI, 99.5 FM (www.wbai.org) and focused on why it’s important to complete an “advance directive” that designates who will make health care decisions for you it you become unable to do so.

The second program aired on April 11th and focused on how to actually have the conversation about your health care wishes with your loved ones, and especially someone who will serve as your health care proxy or agent.

Tonight’s program will walk you through how to complete an advance directive and health care proxy form, as well as tell you how to make it available to health care providers. You can download a sample form that is specific to your state before the program at Caring Connections.

If you didn’t listen to the first week’s program, you can do so by clicking here: D&D_0001

The second program can be listened to by clicking here: D&D_0002

Tonight’s program airs at 11:00 on WBAI, 99.5 FM, NYC (www.wbai.org), or listen to it by clicking here: D&D_0003

The last program will air on April 25th and will discuss other legal documents related to end-of-life care, such as the POLST—Provider Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment—and the Do Not Resuscitate documents.

For the entire series, Healthstyles producers Barbara Glickstein, RN, MPH, and Diana Mason, RN, PhD, talk with Tina Janssen-Spinosa, JD, Staff Attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group where she is Program Coordinator for Total Life Choices, an initiative to disseminate information about end of life planning and help people in their planning needs; and Vidette Todaro-Franceschi, RN, PhD, Professor of Nursing at Hunter College, City University of New York, and expert in end of life issues.

Remember that planning for the end of our lives is about planning for how we want to live.

Healthstyles is sponsored by the Center for Health, Media & Policy at Hunter College.

Apr 11

Advance Directives and Health Care Proxies, Part 2: Having the Conversation

Have you talked with your loved ones about what is important to you regarding end-of-life care, such as whether you would want to be resuscitated if you were terminally ill and your heart stopped beating? Or whether you would want artificial hydration and nutrition if you were terminally ill and couldn’t make health care decisions for yourself?

April is Health Care Decision Month—a time to all of us to reflect on some of the decisions that we or our loved ones might confront around how we die. In keeping with this theme, Healthstyles is focusing its programs this month on how to have the conversations about how we want to die and how to take the legal steps in ensuring that others respect our wishes.

The first program aired last week on WBAI, 99.5 FM (www.wbai.org) and focused on why it’s important to complete an “advance directive” that designates who will make health care decisions for you it you become unable to do so.

The second program airs tonight and focuses on how to actually have the conversation about your health care wishes with someone who will serve as your health care proxy. These are not easy discussions for people who may not be comfortable talking about their own death or the death of a love one. But they are absolutely essential if we want to ensure that someone is acting in our best interests if we become incapacitated.

The third program will air next week and walk you through how to complete an advance directive and health care proxy form, as well as tell you how to make it available to health care providers. But you first have to have the conversation with a loved one.

If you didn’t listen to last week’s program, you can do so by clicking here: D&D_0001

Tonight’s program airs at 11:00 PM, but you can listen to it by clicking here: D&D_0002

The last program will air on April 25th and will discuss other legal documents related to end-of-life care, such as the POLST—Provider Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment—and the Do Not Resuscitate documents.

For the entire series, Healthstyles producers Barbara Glickstein, RN, MPH, and Diana Mason, RN, PhD, talk with Tina Janssen-Spinosa, JD, Staff Attorney for the New York Legal Assistance Group where she is Program Coordinator for Total Life Choices, an initiative to disseminate information about end of life planning and help people in their planning needs; and Vidette Todaro-Franceschi, RN, PhD, Professor of Nursing at Hunter College, City University of New York, and expert in end of life issues.

Remember that planning for the end of our lives is about planning for how we want to live.

Healthstyles is sponsored by the Center for Health, Media & Policy at Hunter College.

Apr 2

5 Comments

Kevin Ware – Inspires athletes & non-athletes

On Sunday evening during the Louisville Cardinal vs Duke NCAA Elite Eight tournament game millions of television viewers witnessed Louisville Cardinal sophomore guard Kevin Ware’s awkward fall to the ground, after trying to block a 3-point shot, resulting in a compound fracture of his leg that left his teammates in tears. He was removed from the court, the game went on after a 9 minute delay, and Louisville won. The Louisville Cardinals are headed to the Final Four.

For the most part, broadcast media maintained Mr. Ware’s respect for privacy and the viewers from seeing replays of his fall and close-ups of his compound fracture. Social media went wild with tweets.

Colorlines  respectfully published A Non-Grotesque Picture From Louisville’s Kevin Ware Hospital Room. MSNBC’s new primetime anchor Chris Hayes, in his first All In program covered the story addressing a bigger policy issue, Are NCAA players uncompensated employees of the organization?  Of the many points he raised is this one, “if college basketball players are paid in scholarship dollars, what happens when an athlete is out the game? And who foots the medical bills- the “employer” (the college) or the student and his family?”

Reports today state that his medical bills will be covered.

Last night, by email,  I received the poem published below, Sport Is, written by my son, Ezra Ellenberg, a junior at the University of Maryland at College Park. He’s an athlete and a sports enthusiast.  He hosts a radio show, The Dugout Binder, on WMUC Sports, the college campus station.  He and his co-host,  Sung-Min Kim, evaluate teams and transactions based on sabermetrics and other advanced statistics. (A front page article in today’s NY Times talks about this new era of of baseball stats and sports reporting).

I think it sheds light on the many ways this young man, Kevin Ware, has touched us.  Athletes and non-athletes alike.

 We wish Mr. Ware a complete and full recovery.

Sport Is

Sport is beautiful.

Sport is raw.

Sport is emotion.

Sport is a freak accident.

Sport is seeing your brother go down.

Sport is knowing how hard he worked, only to have it all disappear.

Sport is collapsing.

Sport is tears.

Sport is disbelief and denial.

Sport is a huddle.

Sport is relying on your coach, your basketball father, who has been there before.

Sport is looking to his eyes for an answer.

Sport is seeing none.

Sport is kneeling next to your broken brother, drawing on every ounce of courage you have saying “don’t look down, stay with me, you’re ok, I’m here.”

Sport is pulling team mates closer, even those who can’t bear to look.

Sport is crouching, laying, kneeling next to him while he’s in agony.

Sport is weeping openly with your country watching.

But laying on your back, half dazed, half in agony, knowing your career could be over… telling your team mates “don’t worry about me, guys. Just win.”

That is more than sport.

That is superhuman.

That is heroic.

That transcends.

That moves people.

That moves me.

That makes me believe.

Sport is nine minutes of waiting, terrified.

Sport is wiping those tears

Sport is underperforming

Then, Sport is a jolt

Sport is a recalibration of focus

Sport is a reason

Sport is playing with a new found purpose

Sport is pressure

Sport is blitzing your opponent after halftime

Sport is seizing

Sport is the undeniable feeling that you are destined

Sport is ‘not today, Duke’

Sport is winning for Kevin

Sport is the final buzzer

Sport is throwing your hands in the air, triumphant at last

Sport is holding your brother in your heart because you can’t hold him in your arms

Sport is a moment

Sport is wearing his jersey with a smile on your face

Sport is ‘we’re bringing this home’

Sport is ‘no one’s fuckin stopin us now’

Sport is bringing him the trophy

Sport is telling him how proud you are, taking his head to rest on your shoulder

Sport is rehabilitation

Sport is a wheelchair, then a cast, then walking, then running, then jumping

Sport is feeling that first bead of sweat forming… and smiling

Sport is seeing the ball go in for the first time in too damn long

Sport is the weight room

Sport is the swimming pool

the sauna

the elastic band

the medicine ball

the scar tissue

the massage

the PT

Sport is the practice court

Sport is the press conference

Sport is checking in and hearing your name announced

Sport is the home crowd roaring with pleasure like so many proud relatives

Sport is ‘I’m back’

Kevin Ware– You Are Sport

by Ezra Ellenberg

Follow him on Twitter @ezraellenberg

 

Apr 1

1 Comment

LGBT & Health Disparities. #LGBThealthweek

photo credit: Mary Ann Liebert Publishers

photo credit: Mary Ann Liebert Publishers

Every day LGBT people hide who they are from people working in the health care delivery system. They do this to survive. Survive from the wide-spread discrimination and poor treatment by service providers and the institutions they enter for care.  Places that haven’t worked to improve their knowledge so they can work towards eliminating LBGT health disparities.

There is evidence that these disparities in health care lower overall health status.

Here’s one step toward addressing LGBT health disparities –  update every medial history or health inventory form and make it  inclusive to  allow  for the person to identify by their sexual orientation and gender identity. That’s a quick to-do that’s a no-brainer.

Another critical next step – start recognizing gay and transgender families. They matter to the health outcomes of each member of the family.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a statement on March 25 saying that HHS has been fighting to ensure that LGBT people get the same rights and protections as other Americans.“For example, we have released rules requiring Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals to allow visitation rights for same-sex partners. This means LGBT Americans now have the same opportunities as other Americans to be with their families and loved ones when they are sick,” Sebelius said.

The Affordable Care Act calls for equity in LGBT health care, but very few states have taken action thus far to codify these rights.  The roll-out of the provisions will continue to change that state by state.

For a comprehensive report on the impact of the ACA on LBGT health, in March 2011 The Center for American Progress and the National Coalition for LBGT Health co-authored a report Changing the Game What Health Care Reform Means for the gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Americans.

The Center for Health, Media & Policy’s Envision Health Film & New Media Series is a co-sponsor of the screening of Generation Silent, a film that addresses the oppression that LGBT elders experience and how they are (not) coping. The screening is on Saturday, April 20 at 3Pm at Roosevelt House Institute for Public Policy at Hunter College. The event is free but we require that you rsvp here.

The hashtag #lgbthealthweek  provides great facts from LGBT Health Awareness Week

Barbara Glickstein

Mar 20

3 Comments

Nurses can talk to almost anyone about anything but…

The majority of nurses have the skills to talk about almost anything with patients and family members – from intimate conversations about body functioning to feelings about facing death to chatting with someone about their shared love of bicycling.

But talking to a health reporter about their nursing expertise is something that many nurses have shied away from. And before recent times, many journalists didn’t consider calling on their expertise for a story. But that’s changing.  All for the good of the public.

300298_10151491510874356_356164808_nCHMP’s is working to make nurses nationally media ready through our program, Nurse Messenger, part of our Media & Leadership Training for Health Professionals. Nurse Messenger media training provides nurses the tools, skills, and confidence necessary to participate in the media’s coverage of health issues, and to reach the public with their messages.

Diana Mason and I just returned from Columbia, South Carolina, where we co-led a one-day intensive workshop for nurse leaders of the South Carolina One Voice One Plan Action Future of Nursing Action Coalition (SC OVOP).  SC OVOP  is working with nurses and organizational leaders across the state to ensure the implementation of the recommendations of the 2010 landmark Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health.

This group of distinguished nurse leaders, all with prior media experience, took it to the next level. They polished those media skills and worked seamlessly together to create strong messages to advance nursing in South Carolina. They targeted key issues on education, scope of practice and leadership.

They were just awesome.

Reporters in South Carolina reading this – contact them (and they’ll be pitching you soon) for interviews on the latest issues on health care for the citizens of you state.

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Nationally, we are creating a corps of nurses trained and ready to engage the media in health-care issues so their voices are heard and to better reach the pubic to advance conversations about health and health policy.

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Jan 30

Do you wear a bullet-proof vest to work everyday? Well, some abortion clinic workers do.

Back in the late 1970s I worked in an abortion clinic that was fire-bombed by an anti-choice zealot. I wasn’t scheduled to  work that day. I arrived at the scene immediately after a co-worker telephoned me with the news.

Clinic staff stood together on the sidewalk watching the firefighters put out the blaze numb but determined we’d fight back.  No one was killed. Staff acted swiftly to get everyone out of the building. Most of the injuries suffered were invisible.

We quickly moved clinic operations to a location about 30 miles away. This was inconvenient and disruptive to the staff and people we served. There was limited complaining and a lot of collective action to make this work. Women counted on us.

Since then there has been an organized campaign by anti-choice extremists resulting in physicians and clinic workers being murdered; more abortion clinics bombed, burned down, invaded, and blockaded; and patients persistently being harassed and intimidated.

Ever wonder how the people who work in abortion clinics in our country are dealing with the violence and threat of violence in their lives on a day-to-day basis? Read more

Dec 13

1 Comment

Bye-bye gender rating in health insurance – can we say hello to the ERA?

Photocredit: Nat'l Women Law Center

Photocredit: Nat’l Women Law Center

The health care law is working for women. But for many reasons women have learned that we can’t breathe easy when it comes to access to health care.  As we’ve seen recently in the debate over access to birth control, the promise of expanded access to affordable health care for women only comes with the force of law behind it.

The Affordable Care Act took on gender rating inequality. Clearly related to the health and well-being of over half the population.

Women spend $1 billion more annually on their health insurance premiums than they would if they were men because of gender rating, according to a recent report by the National Women’s Law Center. The report shows that in states that have not banned gender rating, more than 90 percent of the best-selling health plans charge women more than men. One plan even charges 25-year-old women 85% more than men.

A provision in the Affordable Care Act eliminates gender rating, or charging women more because they’re women.  In late November, Health and Human Services released the new regulations that prohibit insurers from charging women a higher premium than men. These regulations go into effect in 2014. The health law permits insurers to vary premiums based on four factors: individual vs. family enrollment, age, where the insured people live and tobacco use.

Women have been paying more for health insurance and make less money because of the gender pay gap, which is closing at glacial speed.  The Institute for Women’s Policy Research reports that in 2010, female full-time workers made only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 23 percent.

This new law exists to stop the discriminatory practice that currently exists when women purchase health insurance. But laws can be changed or overturned out of existence. And many existing laws don’t go far enough. The passage of the Equal Right Amendment is what is needed to finally provide women with their rightful place in our society – fully equal under the law. Studies show that improving the condition of women raises the standard of living for the community as a whole. Now that’s good public health policy.

Barbara Glickstein is co-director of the Center for Health, Media and Policy at Hunter College.

Nov 30

WORLD AIDS DAY – two media options to raise awareness

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Today, Friday, November 30th at 3:00 p.m. ET there will be a special session of White House Office Hours with Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett and Gayle Smith, Senior Director, National Security Council.  During a live Q&A on Twitter they will answer your questions about the Obama administrations role in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.

Here’s are the details:

On World AIDs Day you can focus on youth:

Young people ages 13 to 24 account for 26 percent of all new HIV infections, according to the report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was released on Tuesday in advance of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. Every month, 1,000 young people in America become infected with HIV and more than half of young people with HIV do not know it.  Black gay, bisexual youths at high risk.

MTV will air “I’m Positive,” a 60-minute special produced by DrDrew Productions and Octagon Entertainment on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. ET/PT, with a simulcast on MTV Tr3s. “I’m Positive” goes inside the lives of three young people from around the country who are HIV positive.  Click here to watch a sneak peek scene of the special.

This is part of MTV’s 15-year public information partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation “GYT: Get Yourself Tested” campaign.  ”I’m Positive” dispels common myths and stereotypes associated with HIV. For more on “I’m Positive,” as well as information about HIV/AIDS, and to find local testing services, go to ImPositive.mtv.com.

 

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