April Leadership and Workplace Mondays Summary

keywords:  leadership, workplace, workplace culture, being an employee

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Inspiration for Employees and their Leaders 

Review of the "Leadership and Workplace Mondays" theme from the public HHP Facebook Page, April 2019

Dare to Lead  by Brene Brown

Power Moves: Lessons from Davos by Adam Grant

• Recommended books to read/listen to this month:  
• Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead 
• Go here for related leadership and workplace recommendations from the Hospital Handbook Project.
• "Power doesn’t corrupt." Power magnifies who a person is; it magnifies virtues and faults. 
•  Parapharase from this Washington Post business & economy article from Adam Grant. This is one of those lessons learned when Adam Grant recorded a series of interviews for the audio-only book, Power Moves: Lessons from Davos audiobook.
• Adam Grant’s TED podcast, WorkLife, is a recommended leadership-theme listen from our free resource, “Getting Your Foot in the Door of Hospital-based practice”:
• Articles
• Good sleep (quality and quantity) fills your resilience bucket. Don’t underrate it. 
• Results from a Cigna workplace survey notes that women surveyed reported more lack of sleep than men. Not clear from this article if this is (a) better self-awareness of health than their male colleagues (b) self-awareness of lack and significantly less hours (quantity and quality) due to managing work responsibilities
• “Instead, invite them to think about what kind of person they want to be — and about all the different things they might want to do.”
• Article: “Stop Asking Kids What They Want to Be When They Grow Up” by Adam Grant

Want to see more resources related to the workplace for hospital-based integrative health practitioners?

• Sponsorship for the wisdom-share series, "Basics of Being a Healthcare Employee" is now open.  
• Please share this sponsorship opportunity with people and organizations you feel would support this Project.  Thank you. 
• More information and links about this resource at the website

If you enjoyed this, check out our public Facebook Page and subscribe to our email list. 

For more recommended reading (books and audiobooks) on leadership, see our Reflecting on Leadership post.

More posts on Leadership

• Lunchtime Listens (audiovisual resource recommendations)
• March 2019 Leadership and Workplace Mondays roundup
• February 2019 Leadership and Workplace Mondays roundup
• January 2019 Leadership and Workplace Mondays roundup
• December Leadership and Workplace Mondays roundup
• November Leadership and Workplace Mondays Roundup
• A leader that practices mindfulness and self-awareness is a positive force in his/her organization
• Making Space for Innovation
• National Academy of Medicine's Clinician Well-being Series--audiovisual resource
• The Mind of a Leader

If this was useful, please support this community work.  

You can buy me a coffee, sponsor a newsletter, or sponsor a project via the website.

You can request a pdf copy of this blogpost via the website for the cost of a cup of coffee. All proceeds go toward basic operating costs to keep this HH Project work going. Thank you.

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Research Thursdays Summary for April 2019

keywords:  research literacy, funding and grants, sharing related research in the field, research in integrative health; JACM special focus issue on whole system approach to integrative health in mainstream systems, the new Flourish Index from Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, update on Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) policy papers on acupuncture for chronic low back pain (cLBP), humanism in healthcare spotlights from the Gold Foundation's research roundup, review of some research literacy basics, and funding announcements

You can request a pdf copy of this blogpost via the website for the cost of a cup of coffee. All proceeds go toward basic operating costs to keep this HH Project work going. Thank you.

The JACM Special Focus issue March 2019
 "Multimodal Approaches in Integrative Health: Whole Persons, Whole Practices, Whole Systems"
 the entire issue is free to access

The April Research Roundup

Review of the "Research and Metrics Thursdays" theme from the public Facebook Page and newsletter

At the Hospital-practice Handbook Project, we encourage practitioners to cultivate mentor-relationships and practice research literacy.

Recommended Research Reads this Month

• Models of integrative health in hospitals and medical centers.  An entire special issue focused
  
  on this topic in the March 2019 JACM.  volume 25, issue S1.  Special Focus Issue on Multimodal Approaches in Integrative Health: Whole Persons, Whole Practices, Whole Systems.  Article titles include:
• "Values Align for Researching Whole Systems: A Reflective Overview of the Special Issue" by John Weeks, Heather Boon, and Cheryl Ritenbaugh
• "What Should Health Care Systems Consider When Implementing Complementary and Integrative Health:  Lessons from Veterans Health Administration" by Taylor et al
• "Whole Health in the Whole System of the Veterans Administration:  How Will We Know We Have Reached This Future State?" by Tracy Gaudet, MD and Benjamin Kligler, MD, MPH
• "Evaluation of an Integrative Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment Program" by Hilton et al.

• From this April’s IHPC newsletter—measuring health and wellness
• A different set of metrics than the conventional paradigm of measuring the presence of disease: The Flourish Index

“Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, released a much anticipated manifesto in JAMA on April 2, 2019 that dramatically shifts the philosophy of patient care from an "absence of disease or infirmity" to a concept that embraces whole-person care and patient well-being. This important paradigm change that "reimagines health" is a concept that is not new to integrative health. It respects patients' desires to grow and feel satisfied with their health and subsequent quality-of-life. 

 Author Howard, K. Koh, MD, MPH defines this as a flourish index, which includes six domains of patient wellness: 1: happiness and life satisfaction, 2. physical and mental health, 3. meaning and purpose, 4. character and virtue, 5. close social relationships, and 6. financial and material security. 

 Dr. Koh writes: "Measurement of flourishing makes possible weighing the effects of different treatment decisions not only on physical and mental health, but in the full context of what matters in a person’s life. While this makes treatment decisions more complex, it lies at the heart of patient-centered care."  link to JAMA article

• New paper from Memorial Sloan-Kettering on insomnia in cancer patients
• Both cognitive behavioral therapy and acupuncture had clinical effectiveness in treating the severity of insomnia and had sustained benefits for 20 weeks It was the first comparative effectiveness study for this clinical research query
• Sheila N Garland, Sharon X Xie, Kate DuHamel, Ting Bao, Qing Li, Frances K Barg, Sarah Song, Philip Kantoff, Philip Gehrman, Jun J Mao, Acupuncture Versus Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia in Cancer Survivors: A Randomized Clinical Trial, JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute.  https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jnci/djz050/5426666

When Clinical Research Impacts Health Policy

• U.S. Medicare and Medicaid Policy Information Call-Out Updates on Acupuncture for Low Back Pain
• JACM article, "Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain: Recommendations to Medicare/Medicaid from the Society for Acupuncture Research". This is a free access article on the JACM website.
• citation:  Jun J. Mao, Robert T. Davis Remy Coeytauz, Lee Hullender-Rubin, Jiang-Ti Kong, Hugh MacPherson, Vitaly Napadow, Rosa Schnyer, Peter M. Wayne, Claudia Witt, and Richard Harris. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Apr 2019. ahead of print. published in volume 25, issue 4: April 9, 2019.   http://doi.org/10.1089/acm.2019.29067.jjm 
• The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Call for Submissions on acupuncture for cLBP updates, February 2019
• The ASA and NCCAOM joint submission to the CMS call
• ASA and NCCAOM collaborated to write a response to the CMS call for info on the use of acupuncture for chronic back pain.  You can find the coalition response here. 
• The February 22nd, 2019, CMS Acupuncture Policy statement (after receiving all the letters and statements for their call-out), in the CMS Bulletin dated 2.22.2019,
• "Medicaid Strategies for Non-Opioid Pharmacologic and NonPharmacologic Chronic Pain Management":

“States have considerable flexibility in determining what non-pharmacologic services are available in the state plan under optional benefits. For example, a state may elect to provide coverage for acupuncture, massage therapy, chiropractic care, cognitive behavioral therapy, physical therapy or other Medicaid-coverable services through an array of Medicaid coverage authorities. States wishing to add coverage in optional benefit categories described below would need to submit a state plan amendment for CMS approval.” 

Reviewing the Basics

• "How to Identify and Assess Well-Designed Trial Research", a resource post from the Society of Acupuncture Research (SAR)
• On writing a scientific paper—this article is a good review with specifics to the practice of acupuncture and East Asian medicine. 
• “Writing a Solid Scientific Paper That Will Sail Through the Peer Review Process:  Valuable tricks from the experts” by Jennifer A.M. Stone, LAc, pages 30-35 of Meridians: The Journal of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, spring 2018. 

Bodywork/Massage Therapy

• Massage therapy can relieve low back pain, fibromyalgia pain, arthritis pain, tension headaches, and improve post-operative recovery.  AMTA article has a concise list with links.
• “Research continues to support the health benefits of massage therapy for pain management. Find out how massage therapy can help these five painful conditions.”

Humanism in Healthcare: Patient-Centered-ness and Clinician Resilience

• The April edition of the Jeffrey Silver Humanism in Healthcare Research Roundup includes:
• "The timing of family meetings in the medical intensive care unit." Piscitello GM, Parham WM 3rd, Huber MT, Siegler M, Parker WF. Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2019 Apr 14.  quote:

"This troubling pattern suggests that family meetings are often used to negotiate withdrawal of life support rather than to learn about values. The authors conclude that there are ample opportunities to improve communication skills training for clinicians in the ICU to help maximize the role of family meetings."

• "The crossroads of posttraumatic stress disorder and physician burnout: a national review of United States trauma and nontrauma surgeons." Jackson TN, Morgan JP, Jackson DL, Cook TR, McLean K, Agrawal V, Taubman KE, Truitt MS. Am Surg. 2019 Feb 1;85(2): 127-135
• "Healthcare provider compassion is associated with lower PTSD symptoms among patients with life-threatening medical emergencies: a prospective cohort study." Moss J, Roberts MB, Shea L, Jones CW, Kilgannon H, Edmondson DE, Trzeciak S, Roberts BW. Intensive Care Med. 2019 Mar 25.

Research Conferences

• The Society of Acupuncture Research (SAR) conference will be June 27-29, program here.
• The 2019 International Massage Therapy Research Conference will be May 9-10, 2019 in Alexandria, VA.  "IMTRC 2019 will feature keynote speaker Helene Langevin, MD, Director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), and panel sessions on pain management and addressing the opioid epidemic with massage therapy.  Education sessions will explore the use of therapeutic massage for arthritis, breast cancer, low back pain, and anxiety."  

Funding Announcements

• The Society of Acupuncture Research (SAR) posted an easy-to-read blogpost on all the current NIH acupuncture research funding announcements.  
• PCORI funding announced April 2019
• $45 million to support research in improving treatment for opioid use
• Of that $45 million, “$2.7 million in funding for a study comparing two non-drug approaches – acupuncture and massage therapy -- to improve care for severe pain in people with cancer”
• For more about the research on non-pharm options for pain relief study (acupuncture and massage), go to this article link.

For more on the topic of research

• follow the tag/label in this blog for "research literacy"

Other monthly research summary blogposts

• March Research Roundup
• February Research Roundup
• January Research Roundup
• December Research Roundup

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Happy Earth Day and National Parks Week!

keywords:  spending time outdoors (nature) and health, environmental health, self-care, supporting kids and their adults to connect with nature, integrative healthcare paradigm, recommended books and resources

updated December 2020

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better.  It's not.  -Dr. Seuss

In the U.S. we honor today as Earth Day and the following week or so as National Parks week.  My school-age kid loves Earth Day and the variations of school-sponsored activities she's participated during the last several years.  If you've been following the blog and the HH Project newsletters, you know I love an excuse to get outdoors with the kids.  Growing up in the northern Midwest, I was taught that we can be outdoors in most weather, as long as we prepare for it (proper clothing, changes of clothes, etc).  Exceptions, of course, for dangerous-to-health weather conditions like skin-freeze warnings (cold weather) or the black flag days (hot and humid), etc.

I feel that building confidence in kids (and adults!) to enjoy the outdoors (and feel safe doing so) helps foster a sense of wonder.  And, there's nothing quite like wonder and finding wonder in the natural world, from backyards to local parks, to national parks. I am sure there are personal health benefits to feeling wonder and awe.  In fact, this is one of the many areas of nature research Florence Williams writes about in The Nature Fix.

If you are looking for ideas of how to get outdoors with kids of all ages (or need some fresh ideas for your list), check out Richard Louv's Vitamin N:  The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life or the website for the Children and Nature Network.  I recently started reading How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature by Scott Sampson (who my kids know as the paleontologist from the PBS show, Dinosaur Train).

There has been a trend in "natural navigation" lately.  An old way of understanding our environment and direction that has been lost to some in the past generation or so requires practicing your skill of observation and pairing it with some farmer's almanac-style facts mixed with modern science.  Tristan Gooley has a full set of resources to learn more about this on his natural navigation website.

Nature time and Your Health

Connecting with nature, whether it is a walk in the town park, gardening, or a trip to your state or national park, is healthy for us.  Health benefits are myriad from movement to the air we breathe to the scenery (see Nature Fix for the details and research citations).  Also, hopefully, it keeps us mindful of our impact on our environment, on both local and regional/national scale.  From gardening classes in schools or your local Master Gardener county extension community courses, you can learn how to grow plants in your area from veggies to local flora.

Our connection and stewardship of our environment is integral to our health and the health of our community.  In traditional Chinese medicine, we talk about the body as a garden, affected by both internal and external factors.  Our environment is an essential piece to the integrative health paradigm. 

Rachel Carson, known for her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, also wrote a book of poetry-prose of her time with her nephew and mentoring his sense of wonder.  If you are interested in this poetry-prose book of hers, The Sense of Wonder, I recommend the audiobook version narrated by Kaiulani Lee for the lyrical style.

How are you and your healthcare practice connecting to the environment/nature/Earth?

So, how are you connecting nature in your healthcare practice?  Does your healthcare system already have environmental stewardship, nature-mentoring, or other sustainable-environment health practices in place?  Maybe you have a nature area nearby for easy walking or a hidden sitting garden?  Are you connected to a Teaching Kitchen? Or maybe you have a gardening program with your county's Extension Service and Master Gardener resource? How are you working with your patient population in developing a healthy connection to nature?

More resources and ideas below.  And, please add a resource in the comments if it is not listed here and you think it may help others!  Thank you.

Note: if you follow a link directly from this article to Amazon and buy something, a few pennies of your purchase goes toward the Hospital Handbook Project (HHP), a nonprofit community resource.

Reflective reading and poetry

• Meditations on John Muir
• poetry by Mary Oliver
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (non-fiction)
• The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson (more poetry)
• The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Resources for Parents, Grandparents, Educators (for kids)

• "Nutrition and Health Lifestyle:  Nature and Children a Natural Fit" from the Center for Parenting Education 
• Hike it Baby--an online resource to connect with other parents and kids to get outdoors with others at a kid-pace 
• Children and Nature Network
• National Wildlife Foundation (NWF), known for the Ranger Rick magazines for kids.  Resources for parents and other adults spending time with kids. They have a new book about attracting birds, butterflies, and other backyard wildlife.
• Learn about reading maps and orienteering at the USGS website
• More USGS resources for kids/parents and educators
• books
  
• The Down and Dirty Guide to Camping with Kids:  how to plan memorable family adventures and connect kids to nature by Helen Olsson
• How to Raise a Wild Child by Scott D. Sampson
• Vitamin N:  The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life by Richard Louv
• Omnivore's Dilemma, young readers edition
• The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Get Outside and Learn More 

• REI Co-op Journal
• Gardening
• Local master gardeners (county volunteers related to the extension service of your state’s land-grant university).  For example, the Washington state master gardener resource.
• Learn about your local U.S. geology and ecology at the USGS website
• "4 ways to mindfully appreciate nature" from mindful.org
• Read more about natural navigation from supermoon and tides, how to read wave patterns, temperature inversions, and more at the Natural Navigator website.

Books/Audiobooks

• The Nature Fix:  Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier and More Creative by Florence Williams
• The Ultimate Hiker's Gear Guide: Tools and Techniques to Hit the Trail by Andrew Skurka
• The Down and Dirty Guide to Camping with Kids:  how to plan memorable family adventures and connect kids to nature by Helen Olsson
• How to Raise a Wild Child by Scott D. Sampson
• Vitamin N:  The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life by Richard Louv
• Omnivore's Dilemma, young readers edition
• Tristan Gooley books: 
• The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs: Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals—and Other Forgotten Skills
• The Nature Instinct: Learn to Find Direction, Sense Danger, and Even Guess Nature’s Next Move—Faster Than Thought (August 2019 publication)
• or the (2020) boxed set of How to Read Nature, How to Read Water, and The Natural Navigator

Gear and Games

• Ecological Calendar 2021
• Card deck--Don't Die Out There!
• Card deck--Urban Survival playing cards--has basics of what to do in emergency disaster situations.  Useful for the car, and your emergency preparedness kit
• Solo stove fire pit ranger kit
• Eno hammock and suspension straps
• camping chairs:  Coleman, Terralite, Trekology, Onwego, Trek rotating camp chair

Related Blogposts

• Health and Wellness Learning with Children
• Gift Ideas page
• Reflective Reads
• any post tagged with "self-care"

If you follow one of the Amazon links above and buy something from Amazon within 12 hours of clicking the link, a few pennies go toward the project.  

The most direct way to support the project?  

Buy us a cup of coffee or sponsor the Project for the day. 

 If you love supporting your local library system, most of these books are available through Overdrive or through the Libby app via your library card.  :)

Happy Earth Day from the Hospital-practice Handbook Project!

www.thehospitalhandbook.com