SaferCare Texas

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Meet Our New Director, John Sims

We are excited to introduce SaferCare Texas’ new Director, John Sims, MSN, RN, CNL, CMSRN!  As SaferCare Texas’ Director, Johns leads a team of professionals and leaders who create innovative/transformative solutions to eliminate preventable harm around the state of Texas and in local communities.

John Sims

John’s first day in the role was March 23, 2020. Although it’s a challenging time to change careers, John has done an outstanding job jumping right in leading SaferCare Texas and taking on new processes and responsibilities due to COVID-19.

 

John brings 20+ years of experience in the health-care industry with a diverse clinical background. Through innovation, his influence has led team initiatives responsible for patient safety and satisfaction improvements across 14 wholly owned hospitals. His passions include vulnerable patient populations, diabetes management, and health literacy. 

 

To get to know John better, we asked him some personal and fun questions. See what he had to say below. 

 

1.    What are you looking forward to the most being the Director of SaferCare Texas? I thoroughly enjoy building new relationships, especially those who share my passion for a safer community. Building strong relationships is what I look forward to most.  

 

2.    What has been the most exciting part of your first week on the job? I was able to “jump right in” to the Covid-19 Testing site and help our first responders get back to serving our community. 

 

3.    What made you pursue a career in health care? I have always been fascinated by how the human body functions and compensates during injury/disease. I also enjoy translating complicated patient scenarios into understandable terms for patients/families. 

 

4.    If you could be on any sitcom as a reoccurring character, what sitcom would it be? Ha, when I was younger, many told me I resembled Al Bundy in Married with Children. I cannot say that I ever watched a full episode, but I suppose that would be my choice. 

 

5.    Would you rather go 200 years into the future or the past for a day? I would like to go 200 years in the past, but only if I can apply present-day knowledge. This way, perhaps I could work to improve our past so that our present would be that much better. 

 

6.    What’s your favorite fast food restaurant? Taco Cabana

 

7.    Aisle or window seat on a plane? Window-but have to close while taking off

 

8.    Favorite color? Blue

 

9.    Cat or dog person? Dog, but only small breeds

 

10. If you could meet one person, living or dead, who would that person be? Florence Nightingale was truly a pioneer for the nursing profession.  

 

11. If you could fly anywhere in the world for lunch, where would you go? Italy!

 

12. If you could master any sport overnight, what would the sport be? Soccer. 

 

13. What’s a quote you live your life by? “Honesty yields temporary consequences, but permanent rewards, whereas dishonesty yields temporary rewards, but permanent consequences.” 

 

14. What do you enjoy doing when you aren’t working? I love the outdoors-hunting and camping

 

15. What are you most proud of? (my belief) I am most proud that my past, present, and future sins have been forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ and I will one day live eternally with Him.

 

 

We are looking forward to SaferCare Texas’ future with John as our leader! 

 

 

Feel Great while you Self-Isolate!

working out at home

We’ve all had our world turned upside down acting to prevent the spread of Covid-19. We must self-isolate during the risk of this highly contagious disease. Equally important, we must maintain health and wellness to promote a strong immune system and good mental health. Act on the tips provided to “Feel Great while you Self-Isolate.”

Lifestyle Medicine recommends that we pay attention to our Forks, Fingers, Feet, Sleep, Stress and Social Connections. These tips work every day not just during social distancing. During this time, maintain a regular schedule although regular activities may be on hold.

First, Forks: What you put on your fork matters! Good nutrition is the foundation to good health and sets the tone for all of the other recommended activities to feel great.

Remember Regular Meals – It is important to maintain a regular eating routine of three meals and scheduled snacks. This will help avoid mindless snacking. For scheduled snacks, choose nutritious foods such as popcorn, fruit & yogurt or nuts.

    • This is especially important for people living with chronic diseases like diabetes or high blood pressure who need to tend to nutrition on a daily basis. 
    • Careful with canned fruits in sugar for people with diabetes or gestational diabetes (look for juice packed or low- or no-sugar).
    • Careful with prepared foods and canned foods due to high salt content for people with heart disease or high blood pressure.

Provide Plants – Use shelf stable ingredients to cook healthy meals. It may be hard to find or keep fresh fruits and vegetables during this time. Canned, frozen and dried fruits and vegetables, dried grains (such as oatmeal or rice), beans and other plant-based foods are great shelf-stable items to have on hand for recipes. 

The American Heart Association (AHA) has lots of healthy recipes such as Vegetarian 3-Bean Chili and Slow Cooker Bar-B-Q Chicken. If your busy working from home and home-schooling children, a slow cooker makes an easy option for healthy meals!

You can find a variety of recipes online and substitute any ingredients you don’t have on hand. Don’t normally cook? The AHA also has tutorials on cooking-skills basic cooking skills.

Maintain MyPlate Balance – Although, you might not have a wide variety of foods on hand during this time, MyPlate can help you keep a balanced diet while minding your personal restrictions or preferences with what you have on hand.

  • Protein helps build your body’s immune system, especially for healing and recovery. Eat a variety of protein foods such as seafood, lean meat, poultry, eggs, beans and peas, soy products and unsalted nuts and seeds.
  • Plant-based proteins are low-cost, easy to store and easy to use: Red Beans/Rice, Corn/Black-Eyed Peas, Pea Soup/Bread, Refried Beans/Tortillas, Hummus/Bread or Crackers, Tofu/Rice, Corn/Lima Beans, Wheat such as Bulgur/Lentils.
  • Remember that nutrients work together. Plant foods provide vitamins and minerals that act with protein to build your ability to fight off sickness such as viruses.
Myplate

Second, Fingers: Keep your fingers busy washing your hands rather than using tobacco! According to the CDC, patients with COVID-19 have had mild to severe shortness of breath. Avoid smoking, vaping, or inhaling any substance, which can be toxic to the lungs.

Third, Feet: Use your feet to stay active! Regular, moderate physical activity helps keep the immune system strong! Physical Activity Guidelines say get at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week. Take a walk outside or create an at home circuit workout. Choose three or four exercises you can do at home like jumping jacks, lunges or jogging in place. Staying active helps your body fight off sickness such as viruses.

Fourth, Sleep: Sleep helps the body repair and be fit and ready for another day! Lifestyle Medicine recommends 7 to 9 hours of sleep using these tips:

  • Maintain regular sleep: Set an alarm for when to go to sleep and when to wake up.
  • Prepare a cool, dark, quiet, and comfortable room to improve sleep.
  • Avoid screens at least 90 minutes before bedtime.
  • “Wind down” before bed (listen to soft music, write in a journal, or read a book).

Fifth, Stress: The stress hormone, cortisol, suppresses your immune response. Lifestyle Medicine also recommends managing your stress. Stress management may include:

  • Taking a pause or meditating.
  • Take a few seconds to consider your breathing.
  • Listen to a favorite song or watch a funny video.
  • Being mindful, even in small doses, reduces stress and as a result, cortisol production.

Lastly, Social Connections: Social distancing does not need to feel isolated or lonely! Lifestyle Medicine says connect with friends and family via FaceTime, Zoom, texting, and phone calls. Positive emotions can help improve immunity and arise from even brief, virtual social connections.

An unexpected change in circumstance is stressful. Use the additional time at home as an opportunity to start or maintain good health habits. Take a few minutes each day to eat right, wash your hands, move your body, improve your sleep, manage your stress and reach out to friends and family to stay socially connected. Although these tips cannot guarantee against Covid-19 infection, they can help improve your health and wellness!

 

 

 

Author:  Teresa Wagner, DrPH, MS, CPH, RD/LD, CHWI, DipACLM, CHWC

Dr. Wagner is a registered dietitian certified in Health Coaching & Lifestyle Medicine as well as a Doctor of Public Health. She combines her passion for health literacy and wellness education to helping people stay healthy and well.

Is Your WebLitLegit? Helping Teens Discern Health Information Truth from Trash on the Internet

Would you trust Internet health information for your teen? A study in 2016, found that 70% of youth use the internet as their first source of health information (Sansom-Daly et al., 2016). This is problematic because during this phase of pre-adulting, many teens have limited e-health literacy, lacking the knowledge and skills to filter and distinguish reliable from unreliable health information on the internet (Freeman, et al. 2018; Jain & Bickham, 2014). Locating health topics on the internet is challenging because searches return large, robust amounts of information, making it difficult to recognize whether information is reputable. 

In a 2018 study, youth reported “difficulty in determining the quality of information,” indicating that they were unsure of “the trueness and correctness of the information,” “validity and reliability of the information,” and “understandability of the information” (Esmaeilzadeh, Shahrzadi, & Mostafavi, 2018, p. 9).  Consequently, they may obtain poor quality or even misinformation about health for themselves, their family members, or friends.

To address these issues, a new study funded by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM) called WebLitLegit aims to develop an interactive, teen-driven program to improve the health literacy of teens empowering them to ascertain credible health information on the Internet. Created with teens, WebLitLegit is innovative as it can be delivered in a wide range of teen settings and by a range of diverse educators such as school librarians, public librarians, secondary school teachers (health, science, etc.), school nurses, museum educators, and community volunteers. WebLitLegit aims, goals and objectives align with the NNLM mission to improve the public’s access to health information and to make informed decisions about health. 

There are several reliable online information resources currently available for teens to address their health. WebLitLegit exposes teens to these reliable sources of online health information while improving their health literacy about topics they identified as important (Ghaddar, Valerio, Garcia, & Hansen, 2012).  Credible online teen health information resources include but are not limited to the following list:

General teen health

Teen sexual health

Healthy and unhealthy relationships

Mental health

Violence

Medline Plus suggests considering using the internet to find health information like going on a treasure hunt. Your teen could find some real gems but could also end up in some strange and dangerous places! So how can they tell if a website is reliable?

There are five quick steps to check out a website. Let’s consider the clues to look for when checking out websites.

  • Who runs or created the site? Can you trust them?
  • What is the site promising or offering? Do claims seem too good to be true?
  • Where does the information come from? Is it based on research?
  • Why does the site exist? Is it selling something or a scam? What do they want from you?
  • When was the information written or reviewed? Is it up-to-date?

Launching in October for Health Literacy Month, WebLitLegit can be implemented in venues where teens typically go to learn and socialize including local libraries, museums, and schools.  In addition to being shown and demonstrating known, reliable online health resources, teens will have the opportunity during the WebLitLegit workshop to independently locate new websites. 

Educators adopting the workshop will empower teens with functional e-health literacy to locate information, critical e-health literacy to critically appraise the quality of health information, and interactive e-health literacy to apply the health information and make informed decisions about health (Jain & Bickham, 2014; Nordheim, Gundersen, Espehaug, Guttersrud, & Flottorp, 2016).

Contact us to learn more about the WebLitLegit study. Also, join our #WordsToLose campaign to spread the word about Health Literacy Month. Learn more here. 

References

Esmaeilzadeh S, Ashrafi-rizi H, Shahrzadi L, Mostafavi F (2018). A survey on adolescent health information seeking behavior related to high-risk behaviors in a selected educational district in Isfahan. PLOS ONE, 13(11): e0206647.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206647

Freeman, J.L., Caldwell, P.H., Med, B., Bennett, P.A.,& Scott, K.M. (2018). How adolescents search for and appraise online health information: A systematic review. Journal of Pediatrics, 195, 244-255.

Ghaddar, S. F., Valerio, M. A., Garcia, C. M., & Hansen, L. J. J. o. s. h. (2012). Adolescent health literacy: the importance of credible sources for online health information. Journal of School Health, 82(1), 28-36.

Jain, A.V., & Bickham, D. (2014). Adolescent health literacy and the internet: Challenges and
opportunities. Current Opinion in Pediatrics, 26, 435-439.

Nordheim, L.V., Gundersen, M.W., Espehaug, B., Guttersrud, Ø., Flottorp, S. (2016) Effects of school-based educational interventions for enhancing adolescent’s abilities in critical appraisal of health claims: A systematic review. PLOS ONE,11(8): e0161485. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0161485

Sansom-Daly, U.M., Lin, M., Robertson, E.G., Wakefield, C.E., McGill, B.C., Girgies, A., Cohn, R.J. (2016).  Health literacy in adolescents and young adults: an updated review.  Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology, 5(2), 106-118.  Doi: 10.1089/jayao.2015.0059

We are Speaking Up for Patient Safety

For the first-ever World Patient Safety Day on September 17, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) has launch a global campaign to create awareness of patient safety and urge people to show their commitment to making health care safer. 

 

We at SaferCare Texas are proud to join the WHO and other leading organizations around the world to declare patient safety to be a global health priority.  For this inaugural year, WHO is urging all stakeholders to “Speak Up for Patient Safety.” 

 

HOW WE ARE SPEAKING UP 

 

At SaferCare Texas our mission is to eliminate preventable harm. We work every day to educate, train, and identify opportunities to eliminate medical errors to assure all patients receive the safest care.  Below are several of our resources and programs that we use to speak up for patient safety. 

 

Asthma 411

Our Asthma 411 program is a comprehensive evidence-based program that equips school nurses with the necessary training and resources to quickly respond to a child in respiratory distress.

 

With a physician’s standing orders, a school nurse can quickly assess a student who is having difficulty breathing and administer nebulized albuterol to help the child breathe better. 

 

In collaboration with public school districts and schools, Asthma 411 staff members track attendance information and other data to validate the program’s effectiveness. We work with the district to use those data to generate state-mandated reports.

 

What About Mom? App

Moms need help too! After having a baby, there is a lot to think about for new moms. Our app makes life a little easier. The What About Mom? app shows postpartum moms how to take care of their health. Check it out. 

 

WHAT ABOUT MOM

Friday Night at the ER

A game-like tabletop simulation, Friday Night at the ER challenges teams of 4 to manage a busy hospital during a simulated 24-hour period that takes just one actual hour. Our team of trained facilitators teach patient safety through collaboration, innovation, data driven resources, and systems thinking. Schedule your simulation today. 

 

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Room of Hazards

We designed this two-part activity called the “Room of Hazards” using clinic exam rooms to demonstrate common ambulatory care safety threats. Our exam rooms simulate safety threats including medication related errors, potential infection related harms, and environmental hazards. This activity provides employees with hands-on training, team development, and skills assessment. Read how we enhanced a clinical staff’s awareness of patient safety with our “Room of Hazards” activity. 

 

Room of Hazards

 

Training on Culture and Linguistically Appropriate Services Standards (CLAS)

Health literacy is a major driver of patient safety at SaferCare Texas. If health care professionals don’t communicate with patients correctly, they can do more harm than good. The C.LA.S. standards course, led by our health literacy subject matter expect, Dr. Teresa Wagner, teaches health care professionals how to provide culturally competent care for patients and clients. 

 

These are just a few resources and activities we are using to eliminate preventable harm. Contact us today to learn how you can be a part of the patient safety community. 

 

 World Patient Safety Day was established by Member States at the 72nd World Health Assembly in May 2019.  

 

Visit the World Health Organization’s campaign site for further details about observations around the world.

#PatientSafety and #WorldPatientSafetyDay.