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Biomedical subjects

J J Stretch

Publications and source records attributed to J J Stretch.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1993

Autonomy and care for the frail elderly. A one-year project identifies effective interventions for congregate housing residents.

In 1989 the St. Louis-based Cardinal Ritter Institute (CRI) conducted a demonstration project to determine how effective its interventions were in enabling the elderly to age in place. Preliminary screenings of persons at a congregate living site for the elderly revealed four major areas of concern: deficient knowledge of medication regimens, side effects, and purposes; need for basic social interaction; depression-related primarily to loneliness and isolation; insufficient knowledge of community resources. A multifaceted program developed by CRI staff helped alleviate many of these problems. The program's success shows that early identification of frail elderly at risk for losing their independence can guide interventions that allow them to age in place.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1990

As the twig is bent.

The trauma of having no home imposes unique health problems on families, especially children. Homeless children are more subject to infectious diseases, are more in need of immunizations, and have more growth and developmental problems than children growing up in nurturing environments. A study of the homeless in St. Louis found that increasingly they are families headed by single women who had to leave their homes mainly because of overcrowding. A study of data obtained from healthcare clinics set up at shelters showed that the mean age of homeless children was 4.9 years; the mean number of months they had lacked a permanent residence was more than four. Healthcare screenings showed that chronic health problems, such as asthma and anemia and deficits in growth and development, were among the top 10 diagnoses. Less serious problems like colds and lice were more prevalent, however. Intelligence tests administered to homeless children showed that they had three times the cognitive and developmental problems that would be expected among children in general.

Catholicism↗
PubMed1987

Enhancing CEOs' decision making through information systems.

Although healthcare management information systems significantly enhance the decision-making capacity of the chief executive officer (CEO), some CEOs make limited use of this potentially powerful management ally. A central management issue is finding the optimal fit between the CEO's roles and responsibilities and the capacity of information systems to adapt to and support these functions. Thus data system designers must clearly understand the CEO's needs, management tasks, and unique responsibilities. An often misunderstood concept is that data by themselves are not immediately useful and applicable to managerial needs. To become useful information, data must be timely, accurate, relevant, and actionable. CEOs may be disappointed with management information systems because of an inherent conflict between what the computer can do best--rapid, routinized solutions--and what top management usually requires. The CEO's decisions are generally singular, and the system's data may not be structured to serve those decision-making requirements. Building a system that is responsive to the CEO's needs requires an equal partnership between the CEO, data manager, and system designer. The CEO also must be willing to invest a lot of time in shaping the facility's system. In addition, because of the considerable and escalating cost of developing, using, and maintaining organizational data systems, CEOs must assess the cost/benefit ratio of obtaining additional information from existing data bases.

Computer Systems↗
PubMed1976

Are aged blacks who manifest differences in community security also different in coping reactions?

Seventy-two aged Blacks, equally divided between those residing in a high-rise public housing project and those living in the community awaiting admission were interviewed to test the theory that differences in community security would predict differences in coping reactions. Data on perceived community security and reported medical, social and mental coping reactions were colleted, using a simply and directly worded, precoded, stimulus-response instrument developed by the author. Respondents were assigned to either a high or to a low community security group by two methods: first, they were assigned a place of residence; next, they were assigned according to their obtained community security score. Results in general supported the theory. Of the two empirical indicators of community security, however, larger differences in coping reaction scores were found in the high scoring and low scoring community security groups than in the high-rise and community groups.

Black or African American↗