The Health Care Evolution – Ten Trends That Can Revitalize Nursing

Nurses are at the forefront of an evolutionary wave in health care. Whether we take leadership or not will determine nursing’s future.These ten trends can revitalize nursing if nurses break free from the confines of the medical model and use their education and skills to become wave riders.1. Aging Boomers
Boomers are living longer. Quantity of life is driving a desire for better quality of life. This generation wants to learn how to stay vital, mobile, healthy and productive. They are looking for guidance in health promotion and wellness, not only disease prevention and treatment.2. A 2nd Boom
Boomers Grandchildren are driving a huge demand for family health information and support for new and working moms. From birthing to family health education and sick child care, family systems need and want professional advice and innovative strategies to raise a brighter, stronger next generation.3. Information explosion
Internet access provides health consumers with tons of information, but not the knowledge or wisdom to know how to use it without getting confused. They need knowledgeable health professionals as gatekeepers, trusted advisors, or health system navigators.4. Holism
People are increasingly spending out of pocket dollars for alternative and complementary health care. Nursing education focuses on systems, whole person, life cycle perspectives that can guide in selecting appropriate options along a continuum of care.5. Consumer driven health care
As consumers rely less on employer health coverage and more on personal health spending, they are seeking innovative and home based solutions for care including advanced home monitoring, telephone consultation, personalized care, and individualized treatment.6. High Tech – High Touch
The need for personal connection, listening, and caring has never been higher. Nurses consistently rank first in every consumer poll for most trusted professional.7. Shortages and Cost Containment
Professional shortages and a drive to contain costs, creates a push to use mid-level and low-level providers for technical care. Nurses will continue to be driven away from the institutional bed side. With decreasing numbers of people in institutional care, face to face professional health care will be delivered in the home and community.8. Accessibility
Health information and care will be delivered on a global, mobile, remote, phone and internet basis. Nursing phone advice lines are increasingly popular with consumers.9. Back to Basics
With increased interest in information and coaching on proper food and nutrition, supplements, stretching, meditation, simplicity, life balance, joy in work, and relationships wellness and health coaching is a growing field.10. Self-Care/Self-Responsibility
People are realizing that doctors, medication and illness care are not going to keep them well. Employers, third party payers and common sense are driving consumers to take health care into their own hands. This trend will continue to drive an increase in self care information and reduction in in-patient and long term care.Tomorrow’s nurses are not working under a doctor’s direction, or in an institution. To remain viable, nursing will have to think beyond the institutional medical care box.Consumers are desperate for professional nurses to fill the need for proactive community
and home based health care.Tomorrow’s nurses will be innovative community health leaders, who develop and deliver services directly meeting the changing needs of health consumers.Progressive, professional nurses will form cooperatives, and creative health delivery systems that support families throughout the life span. They will provide continuity of health information and care while supporting people to navigate an ever more specialized and complex techno-medical system.Grab A Board – Surfs Up!© Aila Accad, RN

What Is a Hard Money Loan and How It Works?

A hard money loan refers to a type of loan. However, what makes it different from other types of loans is that it’s secured on real property. Moreover, they are considered short-term bridge or last resort loans. Basically, they are used in different real estate transactions. The lenders are either companies or individuals, not banks. Read on to know more.

Key Takeaways

Given below are some of the salient features of these loans.

Primarily, they are used for real estate transactions. And this money comes from a company or individual instead of a bank.
Typically, this type of loan is granted for a short period of time. The purpose is collect money quickly at a lower ration of LTV and higher cost.
Since these loans are not executed traditionally, the funding time is reduced is usually quite quick.
It’s interesting to note that the terms of these loans are negotiated between the borrower and the lender. Plus, these loans use the real estate as collateral.
Although repayment may result in default, they still leave a lot of profit for the lender.
How does a Hard Money Loan Work?
Usually, the terms of hard money loans are based on the value of the real estate, not the borrower’s creditworthiness. Since conventional lenders like banks are not the lenders, private lenders or firms are most interested in this business.

Also, these loans may be a good choice for property flippers who have plans to renovate a property and sell it again. Here you may be thinking the cost of this type of loan is quite high. But the good thing is that the extra cost is offset by the loan will be paid off rather quickly. In most cases, the loan is granted for a period of 1 to 3 years. Aside from this, they offer a lot of advantages as well.

Aside from this, this type of loan is considered a great investment as well. You can find a lot of people out there who have done this business and are happy with the practice.

Special Considerations

Typically, unlike the bank financing or the financing programs offered by government, the cost of these loans is quite higher for a typical buyer. However, this cost reflects the higher risk that the loan granter bears. But the great thing is that the extra cost is a worth it as the money is available quickly. The approval process is less stringent and the repayment schedule is also quite flexible.

Also, these loans can be a great choice to deal with turnaround situations. For instance, if you need money quickly for a short-term financing but you have poor credit score, you can give it a go. Since the amount is issued pretty quickly, you can use the funds to stave off a foreclosure, for instance.

Pros and Cons

Now, let’s take a look at some pros and cons of hard money loans.

Pros

First of all, the approval process is quite faster unlike the process of mortgage or a conventional loan. The thing is that private lenders are interested in this type of business as they can make decisions quickly without running a lot of checks. In other words, they won’t check your credit history. These are the steps that slow down the process and make the borrower wait for weeks.

Typically, these investors only care about the repayments. Plus, they have the opportunity to resell the property in case the borrower fails to make payments and becomes a defaulter.

Another advantage is that the lenders don’t apply the conventional underwriting process. Instead, they evaluate all of the cases one by one. Often, applicants can sit with the lender and discuss the repayment schedule based on their circumstances. Aside from this, borrowers can take advantage of a lot of opportunities during the time they have. So, this is another great advantage you can enjoy if you go for this option.

Cons

Since the real estate is used as a security against default, these loans feature lower LTV rations unlike the regular loans. This ration is between 50 and 70% unlike the ration of regular loans, which is 80%. However, if you are an experienced flipper, it can be even higher.

Aside from this, the interest rates of these loans are higher as well. For subprime loans, the rate of interest can be even higher. In 2019, for instance, the rates of hard money loans were between 7.5 and 15% based on the period the loan is granted for. By contrast, the prime interest rate was only 5.25% in the same period.

Another disadvantage is that these lenders may not offer loans against owner-occupied property because of compliance rules and regulatory oversight.

Hope, now you understand what hard money loans are and the pros and cons associated with them. For more information, you can consult your mortgage broker.

Why Good Nutrition and Physical Fitness Is Vital to Good Health?

Health, nutrition and fitness are the three interrelated areas that determine an individual’s sense of happiness and well being.

Health
Health involves the physical, mental and spiritual levels of the individual. A physically healthy person is one who can carry out normal daily physical activities and respond to emergencies with out undo fatigue or pain. The health part of health, nutrition and fitness is achieved through a balanced program of good nutrition, healthy physical activity, continuous education and mental activities, and social and spiritual activities. Your choices of the food you eat and your physical activities affect both your short term and long term health (how you feel now and in the future). You may be getting plenty to eat, but if it is not a proper balance of choices from all five of the basic food groups you may be adding fat to your body without generating the energy to burn the calories and energy to the cells to carry out their functions. Healthy physical activity helps burn off any excess calories you consume, and keeps muscles and joints flexible and strong. Your efforts of continued education (reading, attending seminars, as well as attending formal education classes), and spiritual activities (social activities, attending devotional services, meditation, etc) provides you with a sense of accomplishment and well being. An important part of good health is being physically fit and maintaining proper body weight. Maintaining good health requires following a nutritional diet, and exercising to build and maintain muscles, and to burn of any excess calories.

Nutrition
The nutritional health part of health, nutrition and fitness deals with the food we consume to maintain our health and provide energy to carry on our daily lives. Nutrition is the process of nurturing or being nourished; the total of all the processes that a plant or animal uses to take in and process food substances to maintain a healthy life. A healthy nutrition life style requires a balanced diet of food selected from the five basic food groups, fruits, vegetables, naturally calcium rich dairy products or calcium enriched products, whole grains, and protein (lean meat fish, peas and beans). Other nutritional factors should also be considered. Most fruits and vegetables are better if they are consumed raw because heating destroys some of the healthy nutrients. Steaming and broiling food is better than boiling or frying foods. Preparing fresh fruits and vegetables is better than processed or prepared foods.

The prepared foods generally contain more salt (sodium) than necessary and other flavor enhancing substances. Some of these additives do not add any nutritional value to the food and may even be harmful to your health. More nutritional factors to consider are the variety of the fruits and vegetables in our diet. Nutritional data shows that dark green vegetables (romaine lettuce, kale, broccoli, etc.), and orange vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin and summer squash) provides more nutritional value than some of the less colorful vegetables. Here are even more nutrition facts. Some foods contribute to burning fat. Green tea contributes to fat burning by increasing the body’s metabolism and increasing energy level. Foods high in protein are more difficult to digest so they require more calories in the digestive process. Good nutrition practices may not be sufficient for some people they may require unique supplements such as CoEnzimeQ10 or others.

Physical Fitness
Physical fitness part of fitness, health and nutrition is the ability to carry out daily activities, enjoy leisure activities and have a healthy immune system to resist disease and infection. Developing and maintaining good physical fitness requires a balance of good nutrition and varied physical exercise. There are there elements to physical fitness: specific fitness the ability to perform daily functions related to work or recreation, general fitness the ability to enjoy leisure time and a sense of peace with the environment, preparedness the ability to over come or avoid emergencies.

There also three factors in achieving good physical fitness good nutrition, physical exercise and restful (sleep). The nutrition maintains the health of the cells and provides the energy to perform the exercises. Physical exercise may be used to accomplish work to earn a living, participate in athletic events, develop and maintain healthy cardiovascular system, or control body weight. Physical fitness and how physical fitness is achieved varies depending on individual. If a person is involved in an occupation that requires vigorous activity and has good nutrition possibly no other exercise is needed to maintain a fit body.

However, even people who are who work hard at their occupation may need additional cardiovascular exercise to keep their heart and blood vessels in optimum condition. People whose profession does not require vigorous physical exercise special effort is required to achieve and maintain physical fitness. A good nutritional diet is the obvious starting point. Some easy things are use stairs rather than elevators, park a little farther from the office or store entrance, throw away the television remote, change channels the old fashion way, and walk to near by offices or neighbors rather than using the telephone. These efforts will help, but more vigorous physical exercise is needed for good physical fitness.

For cardiovascular health a routine of physical exercise over a period a minimum of 20 minutes three times per week is required. The best and generally most convenient cardiovascular exercise is walking. Another good cardiovascular exercise is swimming. Swimming will also help in building and toning muscles. The other factor in developing and maintaining physical fitness is strength exercise to build and tone muscle and to burn fat. Strength exercises are good for weight management because they stimulate muscle growth even after the exercise has been completed. This means that the body continues to burn fat for an extended period of time.

Mental Health
Mental health, as it applies to health nutrition and fitness, is the way we think, how we feel and how we act as we interact with our surroundings. Our mental health contributes to our relations with other people, how we make decision, make choices and how we cope with stress. People with good mental health are able to control their emotions, feelings and behavior. Keeping the mind active through reading, playing games, and an active social life contributes to good mental health.

Spiritual Health Spirituality can be defined as sensitivity or attachment to religion, or as a state condition of being spiritual. Some people ignore or overlook the importance of spirituality in relation to health nutrition and fitness, because they relate spirituality only to religion. Through out history man has struggled with the concept of spirituality. Basically spirituality is the struggle to become the most perfect person or individual. The path to achieve this goal may be through seeking external help through religion of some form, or internal through meditation and study of both present and past human interactions. The above is based on personal study, experiences and observations through out my life.