In the grey area between adult and pediatric care is teenage care, and navigating this area can pose a challenge for both providers and their patients. As nurse Christine Pintz put it in an article for Medscape (linked below), "Adolescents are not children and they are not adults. They dwell in that interim period between childhood and adulthood. It is essential to consider the shift in their thought processes in order to provide optimum care." To address this, many providers today are learning to put down the pager, pick up the smart phone, and embrace the use of text messaging and social media to connect with their teenage patients. Today we give you five perspectives on re-imagining care for this unique population:


photo from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

This Week's "Friday 5":
Teenage Patient Safety

1. World Health Organization | Engaging young people in their own care is key to improving adolescent health: 
Read Post. 

2. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | Helping Young People in Crisis, One Text at a Time: 
Read Article.  
 
3. Medscape | Caring for Adolescents: Challenge or Opportunity?: 
Read Article.   

4. Amstrong Institute | What Teenage Patients — and Their Parents — Want from Their Care Team: 
Read Post.  

5. New York Times | Texting the Teenage Patient: 
Read Article.  

WEBINAR



According to researchers with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, there is a growing evidence-base that “designing for safety and quality can improve patient outcomes and safety, promote healing, increase patient satisfaction, and reduce costs.” Join us March 29th for Applying the 6 Elements of Safety Risk Assessment to Healthcare Redesign with David Frum of Salus Architecture and Mary McHugh of the Northwest Kidney Centers to learn more about this important element of safety culture that is too often overlooked. The webinar will define the Center for Health Design’s 6 elements of Safety Risk Assessment – Infection Control, Patient Handling, Medication Safety, Falls, Behavioral Health, and Security – and illustrate how they can be applied to the design of medical environments. Register here. 

CONFERENCE

Early Bird Registration Deadline Approaching!  
Register by 3/24/2017:



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PeaceHealth, based in Vancouver, WA, is a not-for-profit Catholic health system offering care to communities in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. PeaceHealth has approximately 16,000 caregivers, a group practice with about 900 providers, a laboratory system, and 10 medical centers. PeaceHealth was founded in 1890 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace to fill a need for health care services in the Pacific Northwest. The Sisters shared financial and personnel resources to open new hospitals. They shared expertise and transferred wisdom from one medical center to another, always finding the best way to serve the unmet need for health care in their communities. Today, PeaceHealth is the legacy of the founding Sisters and continues with a spirit of collaboration and stewardship in fulfilling its mission. This is The Spirit of Health.