In California, Post-Acute and Long Term Care is rapidly changing with emphasis on improving the patients experience of care and on providing high value care.  The latter demands better care at lesser cost.  At CALTCM, we now have experience achieving this goal through our partnership with INTERACT to provide California-specific training.  We have provided this training in partnership with hospital / SNF partners.  We now have data documenting a significant improvement in 30-day readmission rates and other quality metrics.  This data will be on display at the POSTER session of our annual meeting in May. 

by Tim Gieseke MD, CMD

I look forward to family reunions.  It’s great to be with people who understand you, share common interests, and are committed to your success. 

CALTCM is our family.  It’s a safe place to share our passion, to develop close friendships, and to develop professionally in a stimulating environment.  We understand each other’s work and know the challenges of translating best practices into best care practices at a team and facility level.

At the November 2, 2013 CALTCM Board of Directors meeting, our 2014-2016 slate of officers and committee chairs was proposed by nominating committee and approved by the BOD.  The term will run from our annual meeting in May 2014 until the annual meeting in 2016. The positions will become official after the annual meeting membership meeting at the Omni in Los Angeles on May 2, 2014. 

by Tim Gieseke, MD, CMD 

Last November, the long-awaited guidelines for reducing the risk of atherosclerotic events through optimal lipid management were released (see link below).  With the advent of multiple generic statin drugs and with the evidence for their efficacy for reducing events when given in high dose (>50% reduction in LDL) or moderate dose (30-50% LDL reduction), the new guidelines emphasize who should be treated with statins and dividing patients into 4 statin-responsive classes of patients, and then a 5th class of discretionary situations.  With these guidelines, the key issues are identifying atherosclerotic risk and then matching statin intervention with the identified risk.