In the news: successful prison hospice programs

Edgar Barens, visiting media specialist in the Jane Addams College of Social Work’s Center for Social Policy and Research, talked with the Associated Press about the success of prison hospice programs nationwide.

“It not only helps the prisoner who’s dying of a terminal illness, but it’s so redemptive for prisoners who go through the process of becoming hospice workers. It’s tenfold payback when a prison does this.”

Edgar Barens, media specialist in the Jane Addams College of Social Work whose documentary on prison hospice was nominated for an Academy Award, on the success of prison hospice programs nationwide, Oct. 6 Associated Press

“We’re talking about 80,000 to 100,000 diagnosis codes — we’re beyond the point of human memory. If there is a mistake at any one point, you get a delay in payment.”

Andrew Boyd, assistant professor of biomedical and health information sciences, on the errors possible during the switch from ICD-9 medical coding system to the expanded ICD-10, Oct. 7 Detroit News

“In the end it should be remembered that Cromwell was not a decent sort of chap merely caught up by circumstance. He was a man who, instead of transcending his violent age, typified it. It would be better if Wolf Hall acknowledged this, rather than serving up for its audience a view of Tudor history that most historians no longer accept.”

Alfred Thomas, professor of English, reviews the PBS miniseries “Wolf Hall,” Oct. 5 Commonweal