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10 Things Making My Life Better Right Now

I don’t have a wrap-up for you this week: I’ve been with the Army in Orlando all week, and these have been long days. Posts have been tough to get to with internet access only happening after roughly 10pm when I’m back in my hotel room. I’ll bring it back next Friday, don’t worry (maybe even with a few new publications I’ve been waiting patiently to share).

Interestingly enough, several of you have asked me to talk about my own practice a bit. So I figured I’d give you a little something different this Friday as I am winging my way back to the CLE (for a whole 44 hours until I get back on a plane). Here are 10 things making my life better right now. Not all of them are practice-specific, because my professional life is only in part centered on practice. But all of them are necessary as I attempt to keep the chaos under some modicum of control:

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Sexting Podcast

The Indiana Youth Institute has a podcast on sexting available on their website. I’m on the road with the Army this week and haven’t had a chance to listen to this one yet. But since there’s been a flurry of searches for “sexting” on the site recently, I figured this would be timely. I don’t even have any background on the speaker (just the sponsoring organization), so let us know if it’s worthwhile, please.

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DV/IPV

Starting a Family Justice Center

Gael Strack and Casey Gwinn (Family Justice Center Alliance) will be presenting a webinar August 6th at 9am Pacific on starting a family justice center in your community. Participation is free, but preregistration is required.

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We have a winner!

Congratulations Felicia Infante! Do email me off the blog and let me know where to send your copy of the Scope & Standards (go to About for my email address).

Thanks to everyone who left comments…

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Death Investigation: The Basics

IAFN is hosting a webinar Tuesday, July 28th from 2-3pm ET on the basics of death investigation. Cost for members is $20 ($30 for non-members); 1.0 CEUs will be awarded upon completion. Deputy Coroner Bobbie Jo O’Neal is be the featured presenter.

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Sexual Assault

Weekly Wrap-Up @ the Sustainability Blog

What an incredible week we’ve had at both sites. So much traffic, I am frankly a bit stunned. If you haven’t been over to the sustainability site, here’s what you’ll find this week

And of course, don’t forget, we’re having our 1st giveaway on this site. Just leave me a comment here about why you do this work and Monday I’ll choose the winner of the Forensic Nursing Scope &  Standards, hot off the press. If you’re training forensic nurses as part of your job, this is a seriously invaluable tool, folks.

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Rate This

Starting today, I am finally able to add a ratings feature to the site. From now on, you’ll see this at the bottom of each entry:

Picture 1

Although I get a sense of how much you’re interested in the various things I post based on the traffic, this will help me tailor the content even further. Please note that you have to actually click on the title of the entry and view it as a stand-alone page in order to see the ratings bar.

Thanks!

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An FHO Giveaway!

Well, now, lookie here. Courtesy of IAFN, I have in my sticky little hands one copy of the brand new Forensic Nursing Scope and Standards of Practice:

pi

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Sexual Assault

Sexual Violence Against Individuals With Disabilities

On July 22nd, from 2-3pm ET, OVC will be hosting a web forum on addressing sexual violence against individuals with disabilities. If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you know how the web forums work; if you’re a new reader (welcome!), you can read about how to participate here. Heather Kamper from Austin, TX will be facilitating the session. Participation is free and no registration is required.

For previous web forums, visit their archives list on the main page.

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An FHO Extra: Legistalker

So over at Lifehacker today I discovered a new site that might be of interest to all you policy wonks out there. Trying to keep up with specific members of Congress? Legistalker allows you to follow the online goings on of your favorite (for whatever reason) elected official.

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Sexual Assault

nPEP Update

If you weren’t one of almost 300 people who attended the HIV nPEP webinar described here, have no fear: the spectacular Kim Day has made sure you can still check it out at your leisure. You can access the archived offering over at the SAFE TA site. Thanks for making that happen, Kim!

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DV/IPV Sexual Assault

The (Economic) Cost of Violence

Everything can be looked at in economic terms, including violence. It’s important info to have at your disposal, because it can strengthen a grant proposal or negotiations with your healthcare system for an FTE or program. Enough’s been written on the subject that I figured it would be good to review the literature. I’ve chosen to focus mainly on the costs of violence against women. [UPDATE: You can find financial cost of child abuse here.] Unless otherwise indicated, everything listed is full text (if it wasn’t available free online, you’ll have a link to free abstracts). I’m organizing these by pub date, with most recent at the beginning:

2012

Overview of Studies on the Costs of Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (PDF) (Council of Europe, Gender Equality and Violence Against Women Division, Directorate General of Human Rights and Rule of Law)

An Estimation of the Economic Impact of Spousal Violence in Canada, 2009 (PDF) (Department of Justice Canada)

Cost of Injury Reports Application from the CDC has been updated. Using the WISQARS database, the applications allows you to “find cost of injury estimates for fatal or nonfatal injuries classified either by intent and mechanism or by body region and nature of injury”. From the site:

Important Updates: In addition to allowing user-provided data to be integrated into the cost estimation process, this new version of Cost of Injury Reports incorporates three basic changes, effective 04/25/2012:

Updated unit (per person) work loss cost estimates: These updated unit work loss cost estimates affect total and average work loss cost estimates for both fatal and nonfatal injuries. For further details regarding this update, click here.

Corrected unit medical cost estimates: These corrected unit medical cost estimates affect total and average medical cost estimates for nonfatal emergency department treated-and-released injuries. Cost estimates for fatal injuries and for nonfatal hospitalized injuries are not affected by this correction. For further details regarding this update, click here.

Average costs: For reports involving injury deaths classified by body region and/or nature of injury, average costs are now expressed per person (similar to the averages for all other types of injury outcomes and classification schemes). Such averages were previously expressed in terms of apportioned cases. For further details regarding this update, click here.

Violence Containment Spending in the United States (FULL TEXT)

Institute for Economics and Peace

The Economic Costs of Partner Violence and the Cost-Benefit of Civil Protection Orders.

Logan, T.K., Walker, R., and Hoyt, W. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 2012 Apr;27(6): 1137-54

2011

Costs and Consequences of Sexual Violence and Cost-Effective Solutions

National Alliance to End Sexual Violence

Social and economic costs of violence–workshop summary

Deepali M. Patel and Rachel M. Taylor, Rapporteurs; Forum on Global Violence Prevention; Institute of Medicine

Attributing Selected Costs to Intimate Partner Violence in a Sample of Women Who Have Left Abusive Partners: A Social Determinants of Health Approach (PDF)

Varcoe, C., et al. (Canadian study)

2010

The healthcare costs of domestic and sexual violence (fact sheet).

Futures Without Violence, updated March 2010

Changes in health care costs over time following the cessation of intimate partner violence.

Fishman PA, Bonomi AE, Anderson ML, Reid RJ, Rivara FP.

J Gen Intern Med. 2010 Sep;25(9):920-5. Epub 2010 Apr 23.

A review of cost measures for the economic impact of domestic violence.

Chan KL, Cho EY.

Trauma Violence Abuse. 2010 Jul;11(3):129-43.

2009

Health care utilization and costs associated with physical

and nonphysical-only intimate partner violence.

Bonomi AE, Anderson ML, Rivara FP, Thompson RS.                             Health Serv Res. 2009 Jun;44(3):1052-67. Epub 2009 Mar 17.

Hidden Costs in Health Care: The Economic Impact of Violence and Abuse

Dolezal, T.et al. Academy on Violence & Abuse

Intimate Partner Violence: High Costs to Households and Communities

International Center for Research on Women

See also: Bonomi & Corso’s presentation at AVA, 2009

2008

Methods for estimating medical expenditures attributable to intimate partner violence.

Brown DS, et al.

J Interpers Violence. 2008 Dec;23(12):1747-66

2007

Cost of Sexual Violence in Minnesota

Minnesota Department of Health

The Effects and Costs of Intimate Partner Violence for Work Organizations

Reeves, C. & O’Leary-Kelly, A.M.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Vol. 22, No. 3, 327-344

The effect of intimate partner violence on health care costs and utilization for children living in the home. (FULL TEXT)

Rivara FP, Anderson ML, Fishman P, Bonomi AE et al.

Pediatrics 2007;120(6):1270-7.

Medical Costs and Productivity Losses Due to Interpersonal and Self-Directed Violence in the United States

Phaedra S. Corso, et al.

Am J Prev Med 2007;32(6)

2006

Making the Case for Domestic Violence Prevention Through the Lens of Cost-Benefit: A Manual for Domestic Violence Prevention Practitioners

Browne-Miller, A., Transforming Communities: Technical Assistance, Training and Resource Center (TC-TAT)

The welfare cost of violence across countries

Soares, R.R.

Journal of Health Economics, 25(5), September 2006, Pages 821-846

Long-term costs of intimate partner violence in a sample of female HMO enrollees.

Jones AS, et al.

Womens Health Issues. 2006 Sep-Oct;16(5):252-61.

2005

A Considerable Sacrifice: The Costs of Sexual Violence in the U. S. Armed Forces

Hansen, C. The Miles Foundation

The costs of interpersonal violence—an international review

Waters, H.R., et al.

Health Policy, 73(3) 8 September 2005, pp 303-315

Gender-Based Violence: A Price Too High

From: UNFPA State of World Population 2005

United Nations Population Fund

2004

The Economic Dimensions of Interpersonal Violence

Waters, H., et al., World Health Organization

The economic toll of intimate partner violence against women in the United States.

Max, W. et al.

Violence Vict. 2004 Jun;19(3):259-72.

2002

Economic Costs of Domestic Violence

Laing, L. & Bobic, N., Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse, University of New South Wales

The Rape Tax: Tangible and Intangible Costs of Sexual Violence

Post, L.A., et al.

Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Vol. 17, No. 7, 773-782 (2002)

1999

Intimate partner violence against women: do victims cost health plans more?

Wisner, C.L., et al.

J Fam Pract. 1999 Jun;48(6):439-43

Costs of health care use by women HMO members with a history of childhood abuse and neglect.

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1999 Jul;56(7):609-13.

Walker EA, Unutzer J, Rutter C, Gelfand A, Saunders K,

VonKorff M, Koss MP, Katon W.

PUB DATE UNKNOWN

The Cost of Violence/Stress at Work and the Benefits of a Violence/Stress-Free Work Environment

Hoel, H., et al. International Labour Organization

BONUS TOOL (I can’t speak to validity or reliability, but it’s a cool concept)

Texas Health Resources DV Costs Calculator

See also: Financial Cost of Child Abuse

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Nursing Misconduct & State Boards of Nursing

I never just post a news item on this site, but this one is so fascinating to me, I thought it was worthy of space. In California this weekend, the Governor fired 2/3rds of the state Board of Nursing for failing to discipline nurses accused of serious misconduct. It all came out after a lengthy joint investigation between the LA Times and ProPublica.

“Reporters found nurses who continued to work unrestricted for years despite documented histories of incompetence, violence, criminal convictions and drug theft or abuse. In dozens of cases, nurses maintained clean records in California even though they had been suspended or fired by employers, disciplined by another California licensing board or restricted from practice by other states.”

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DV/IPV

Batterers in the Workplace

The Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence has a webinar series as part of their S2 intiative–the next one is at the end of August and I’ll post on it soon. For now, check out the previous one, held at the end of May, on batterers in the workplace. The whole session is available on line, as are the materials from the presenters. You can also find a variety of info on this topic from the Articles section of the website, much of which is full-text.

UPDATE: The August session closed out before I could even get it posted. I will try and get the archived material up as soon as it’s available.

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Compassion Fatigue Podcast

One of the most commonly searched terms on this site is “compassion fatigue” (or alternately  “secondary trauma” or “burnout”). Enough of you have been searching the term lately that I’m compelled to give you a new offering on the subject. This one‘s from PESI, and while it’s not free (cost is $29), it nets nurses 1.5 CEUs in a convenient audio package.

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Child Abuse Sexual Assault

New Online Courses at IAFN

Two new online courses have been announced at IAFN: SANE Dialogues: Focus Group on the Use of nPEP in SANE Programs and Patterns of Injury in Non-Accidental Childhood Fatalities. They’re free for members; non-members pay $10 each. It would appear that there are CEUs attached, but I could not find any specifics related to how many for either course. If you’re a Firefox user, be forewarned: you may not be able to complete the posttest to get credit for the course, so Internet Explorer is really the only way to access this content (which frankly sucks for Mac users like me).

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Weekly Wrap-Up @ the Sustainability Blog

This week was a good one at the Sustainability site. We’re back with a new Coordinator Q&A, and a couple additional goodies for all you program managers out there:

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

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Cultural Competency & Disaster Response

The Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of Minority Health has a new curriculum available: Cultural Competency for Disaster Preparedness & Crisis Response. The curriculum consists of 4 courses that “are designed to equip disaster and crisis volunteers and personnel with the awareness, knowledge, and skills needed to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services to diverse communities during all phases of disaster. The curriculum is grounded in the Office of Minority Health’s CLAS Standards, which are grouped into three themes: Culturally Competent Care, Language Access Services, and Organizational Supports.”

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Evidence-Based Medicine, Pt. II

Time once again for another installment of evidence-based medicine. The issue gets brought up in emails to me from time to time, and recently I’ve had a spate of them. So here’s another tutorial for your learning pleasure– this time, from the University of North Carolina and Duke University.

I think this issue is an important one, because as I’ve expressed many a time, one of the most critical questions you should be able to answer as a clinician is “Why?”. “Because that’s the way I was taught” or “That’s how we’ve always done it” probably isn’t going to cut it.

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Sexual Assault

Guest Post: Evaluating SANE Trainers

I’m pleased to welcome Jennifer Pierce Weeks to Forensic Healthcare Online. As a clinician, administrator, national trainer and President of IAFN, she is another one of those folks who spends a lot of time talking with people in the field, and has a great perspective on healthcare-focused, patient-centered, sustainable programming.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the issue of quality in SANE/SAFE education. There are no mandated qualifications for who provides the education, so caveat emptor is the rule of the day. IAFN does not police training, but provides education guidelines that describe the minimum body of knowledge all SANEs/SAFEs should possess (there are also training standards for sexual assault forensic examiners (PDF) around the National Protocol). Needless to say, some of the education out there is definitely better than others.