News & Articles

Catholic Health Partners Offers WSAT to Administrators
Catholic Healthcare Partners is utilizing the Center for Health Futures' (CFHF)
Wellbeing Self-Assessment Tool (WSAT) to help health administrators reflect on their individual health challenges and to support and sustain their wellbeing. The CFHF defines wellbeing as the intentional cultivation of an optimal life experience. Our newest Wellbeing Self Assessment Tool (WSAT) allows busy executives to assess their wellbeing against group norms in four domains: bio-physiological, psychoemotional,sociological and spiritual.
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NPCes ToolKit Available for More Efficient Nursing Practice Councils
Nursing Practice Councils (NPCs) have emerged in hospital systems to help facilitate shared governance, vertically aligning power so that nurses feel ownership and accountability; fostering improvements in patient care and professional nursing practice. Ultimately, NPCs can improve nurse engagement, career satisfaction, nurse recruitment and retention, and patient outcomes. However, until now, no tools existed to measure NPC effectiveness. The Center for Health Futures (CFHF) and the Center for Nursing Research and Innovation (CNRI) at Florida Hospital joined forces to bridge this gap. Together they conducted pilot studies and developed an evidence-based Nursing Practice Council effectiveness scale and tool kit under the guidance of a national advisory group tha included members from the University of Iowa, University of Florida, Montana State University and Oregon Health & Sciences University.
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Living Healthy: Chronic Disease Self-Management Programs Improving Lives Throughout Central Florida
Through its "Living Healthy" workshops, Florida Hospital's Center for Health Futures is helping people who suffer from chronic diseases to lead healthier lives. This Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) boasts 1,689 "graduates" and is based on a proven model developed by the Stanford University Patient Education Research Center that is used worldwide to improve health and reduce hospitalizations. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Administration on Aging have adopted the CDSMP model as an effective, evidence-based program.
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My Care Decisions: Credit Card-Size CD Allows Patients to Keep Living Wills and Other Important Legal Documents with Them Wherever They Go
Fewer than 25 percent of Americans have an advance directive, more commonly known as a living will. And even for those who do, it is not always readily available when needed. In response, Florida Hospital's Center for Health Futures has developed "My CD" which stands for "My Care Decisions." It is an electronic advance directive people can carry with them to let physicians and family know precisely how they want decisions about their healthcare handled.

Individuals simply log on to a secure Web site to access their Care Decisions booklet, complete the online forms and create their customized CD. The My CD program scans their personal healthcare instructions such as religious preferences and decisions about life support, on a pocket-sized compact disc that fits easily into a wallet or purse. This allows individuals to carry it along wherever they go and readily access the information in an emergency situation. In fact, the CD can be used at any hospital or location in the world.
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New Physician Self-Assessment Tool Evaluates Four Areas of Whole-Person Well-Being
The Research shows that physicians who take care of four key areas of their own health--biological, psychological, sociological and spiritual--positively impact their patients' health as well. From more complete diagnoses to improved communication with their patients and fewer medical errors, these doctors better cope with the daily demands of their work. And physicians who lead balanced lives are also more likely to counsel their patients to engage in healthy behaviors like proper nutrition and health screenings. In turn, patients tend to enjoy better relationships with and follow the advice of physicians who "practice what they preach."
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Florida Hospital Community Health Impact Connection (CHiC) and its Online Management Tool Serve as a National Model
The Center for Health Futures has developed an online system called CHiC Online to more effectively and efficiently monitor and track the results of community benefits initiatives. And now the system has been packaged so that other healthcare systems and nonprofit organizations throughout the country can subscribe and use this tool.
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1. CHIC Online Suite Demo at ACHI Conference - March 11 - 13, 2009 - Los Angeles, CA
2. System Mission Leadership Forum: How Best to Engage Physicians in Catholic Health Care - January 26 - 28, 2009, St. Petersburg, FL
3. Health Care Center for the Homeless (HCCH) Receives Mobile Medical Unit from Senior Resource Alliance (SRA) and Florida Hospital - January 22, 2009 - Orlando, FL
4. Best Practices Forum: Transitional Care Program for the Elderly - January 8, 2008, Orlando, FL
5. Lauren Josephs, PhD, Receives the Golden Choices Award in Support of Florida's Elder - April 29, 2008, Orlando, FL
6. Florida Hospital Apopka Launches Heart of Apopka Community Wellness Program with Funding from CHIC - May 18, 2008, Orlando, FL
7. Pocket your will - Florida Hospital is testing the first living will on CD - June 21-27, 2007, East Orlando Sun
8. More PE for kids? New bill to mandate 150 minutes per week - May 17-23, 2007, East Orlando Sun

1. Shared governance as vertical alignment of nursing group power and nurse practice council effectiveness (Journal of Nursing Management, 2009, 17, 4-14)
2. Secrets of Physician Satisfaction (The Physician Executive, November-December 2006)

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