"As I prepared for this morning's award ceremony, I was struck by a quote from 19th-century British statesman Benjamin Disraeli, who said, 'Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.' I know he wasn't talking specifically about our profession, but it occurred to me that he easily could have been. As health care professionals, we all have the opportunity to be heroes on some level every day. Each and every one of us can do it on the job every day simply by providing excellent patient care for our patients. We just have to believe in it to make it happen."
— Executive Director Sam P. Giordano, MBA, RRT, FAARC, kicking off the American Association for Respiratory Care's award ceremonies at its International Respiratory Congress in December
"There is nothing competitive about what will result from this misconceived program. There will be fewer competitors, fewer home care services and lowest-common-denominator health care for older Americans and people with disabilities who require medical care at home."
— Tyler J. Wilson, president of the American Association for Homecare, responding to a Washington Post column by George F. Will in which the columnist overlooked the problems with Medicare's DMEPOS bidding program
2.3 million
Number of home health care personal aides predicted to be employed
by 2016
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
50%
Of all COPD patients say their loved ones do not understand what it
is like to live with the condition.
Source: COPD Foundation Survey
1 in 5
People today have some level of disability, or about 50 million
Americans.
Source: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/U.S. Census
Bureau
53%
The increase in the rate of patients discharged from hospitals who
still needed home health care (from 2 million to 4 million) between
1997 and 2006
Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
36%
Of U.S. residents have delayed medical care in the past year
because of cost.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation Survey
7.5
Number of years lived longer by people over the age of 50 with
positive attitudes toward aging
Source: Yale University survey
