It’s women who are the more active gender on online social networks. Women are the healthcare decisionmakers in most families, too. Taken together, these two facts help explain why women–moms in particular–often are responsible for using the web to bring powerful stories from the grassroots level to the world, effecting real change in healthcare. To learn more about the topic I spoke with Deb Levine, a pioneer when it comes to using the web as a tool for social change related to health information access and technology. She founded the award-winning online sexual health Q&A site Go Ask Alice, and recently won an…

There are nearly 50 million family caregivers and countless paid caregivers in the US.  Caregiving has wonderful rewards, but can also be very difficult.  As in any relationship or profession, there are those who are wonderful and do an excellent job, and others that are not so excellent. Relationships can be tested to the limit when there is a caregiver and care recipient within a family relationship.  In a paid caregiving position there are those who have something special within them and those who are just making an income.  I think about and meet all types of caregivers on a…

By Michelle Voss I’ve spoken a lot about education in my blogs, but this is something that I’ve learned the hard way; education is the key to keeping my facilities running smoothly and maintaining consistency in my staffing. I’ve just completed a run through 3 of my states that I service and when I sit down with my Directors of Nursing, the complaint I get routinely is that staff won’t stay, they won’t do their jobs appropriately and that keeping them motivated is so difficult. Well, I say this is up to us as managers to change. When I ask…