05-07-2012 01:05

More:
Before

From constant beeps of machines and the footsteps up and down the hallway to the patient on the other side of the room who refuses to turn his television's volume down, hospitals have a well-deserved bad rap when it comes to getting much-needed rest.

Noise problems in hospitals have received more attention in recent years, including research showing it as more than an inconvenience. A study published online in June in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that hospital noise disrupts patients' sleep and affects their cardiovascular function.

An author of that study, Jo Marie Solet, Ph.D., a clinical instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School, said lack of sleep affects people's immune systems that fight infections, their mood, memory and the ability to process information.

"People who have less sleep suffer more from pain," said Dr. Solet.

In addition to affecting patient health, noisy hospitals could also see changes in reimbursements they receive for providing care. The Affordable Care Act links hospital reimbursements for care to patient satisfaction surveys and other hospital quality measures.

Bob Hoffman, chief nursing officer at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital, compares hospitals to small cities, where noise is a constant.

"There's a lot of people taking care of you," Mr. Hoffman said. "For every patient, probably at least 15 caregivers interact with them at a given time."

Mr. Hoffman and other health care officials who monitor patient surveys of their experiences know that the question about the area around their room "always" being quiet at night usually has the lowest score.

According to patient surveys from July 2010 to June 2011 from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, which provides survey data reported on most hospitals throughout the country, Pennsylvania's patient surveys report always having a quiet environment around their rooms 51 percent of the time, less than the national average of 59 percent.

Most hospitals in the Scranton area have survey ratings in the 50 percent range.

Original post:
In spite of everything, hospitals try to keep down the noise

29-06-2012 13:14 Remodeling Contractors Frisco, tx. Call 214-702-3478 for a free estimate. When your deciding on how whether to hire a remodeling contractors Frisco, tx in your area for improving your house, there are some projects that you can do yourself and others that you cannot by which a remodeling contractors Frisco, tx can. If you feel like you can complete a simple task like repainting the kitchen, then by all means do it, in order to save yourself some extra money or feel free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors Frisco, tx. Just be sure that you know what you're getting yourself into before you start a project. You don't want to try and remodel your bathroom and find out half way through that you're not sure if you can complete the task without hitting a pipeline free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors Frisco, tx to do it the proper way. When removing cabinets as part of a kitchen remodel, make sure you don't just unscrew and yank them off the wall. You will more than likely end up taking some or all of the drywall off with you free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors Frisco, tx to do it the proper way. In case you decide to do it yourself - Take time and care to remove each and every screw, and use a utility knife around the edges to break the caulking that was most likely used to seal between the cabinet ...

Excerpt from:
Remodeling Contractors Frisco | Frisco | tx | Call Now 214-702-3478 | 75034 - Video

29-06-2012 14:17 Remodeling Contractors Dallas, tx. Call 214-702-3478 for a free estimate. When your deciding on how whether to hire a remodeling contractors Dallas, tx in your area for improving your house, there are some projects that you can do yourself and others that you cannot by which a remodeling contractors Dallas, tx can. If you feel like you can complete a simple task like repainting the kitchen, then by all means do it, in order to save yourself some extra money or feel free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors Dallas, tx. Just be sure that you know what you're getting yourself into before you start a project. You don't want to try and remodel your bathroom and find out half way through that you're not sure if you can complete the task without hitting a pipeline free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors Dallas, tx to do it the proper way. When removing cabinets as part of a kitchen remodel, make sure you don't just unscrew and yank them off the wall. You will more than likely end up taking some or all of the drywall off with you free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors Dallas, tx to do it the proper way. In case you decide to do it yourself - Take time and care to remove each and every screw, and use a utility knife around the edges to break the caulking that was most likely used to seal between the cabinet ...

Original post:
Remodeling Contractors Dallas | Dallas | tx | Call Now 214-702-3478 - Video

29-06-2012 15:52 Remodeling Contractors McKinney, tx. Call 214-702-3478 for a free estimate. When your deciding on how whether to hire a remodeling contractors McKinney, tx in your area for improving your house, there are some projects that you can do yourself and others that you cannot by which a remodeling contractors McKinney, tx can. If you feel like you can complete a simple task like repainting the kitchen, then by all means do it, in order to save yourself some extra money or feel free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors McKinney, tx. Just be sure that you know what you're getting yourself into before you start a project.You don't want to try and remodel your bathroom and find out half way through that you're not sure if you can complete the task without hitting a pipeline free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors McKinney, tx to do it the proper way. When removing cabinets as part of a kitchen remodel, make sure you don't just unscrew and yank them off the wall. You will more than likely end up taking some or all of the drywall off with you free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors McKinney, tx to do it the proper way. In case you decide to do it yourself - Take time and care to remove each and every screw, and use a utility knife around the edges to break the caulking that was most likely used to seal between ...

See the article here:
Remodeling Contractors mckinney | mckinney | tx | Call Now 214-702-3478 | 75069 - Video

29-06-2012 16:01 Remodeling Contractors McKinney, tx. Call 214-702-3478 for a free estimate. When your deciding on how whether to hire a remodeling contractors McKinney, tx in your area for improving your house, there are some projects that you can do yourself and others that you cannot by which a remodeling contractors McKinney, tx can. If you feel like you can complete a simple task like repainting the kitchen, then by all means do it, in order to save yourself some extra money or feel free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors McKinney, tx. Just be sure that you know what you're getting yourself into before you start a project.You don't want to try and remodel your bathroom and find out half way through that you're not sure if you can complete the task without hitting a pipeline free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors McKinney, tx to do it the proper way. When removing cabinets as part of a kitchen remodel, make sure you don't just unscrew and yank them off the wall. You will more than likely end up taking some or all of the drywall off with you free to set up a no obligation estimate appointment with your local remodeling contractors McKinney, tx to do it the proper way. In case you decide to do it yourself - Take time and care to remove each and every screw, and use a utility knife around the edges to break the caulking that was most likely used to seal between ...

Go here to read the rest:
Remodeling Contractors mckinney | mckinney | tx | Call Now 214-702-3478 | 75070 - Video

A while ago, I was in the depths of the exhaustion that happens when ones house is 17 weeks into a remodel, and one has perhaps stupidly decided to stay in that house. In the very back two rooms. Neither my husband nor I was able to bathe, or make ourselves a cup of tea, or figure out where anything was, starting with our winter coats and ending with postage stamps. Worse still, decision fatigue had ground our marital nerve endings into bloody stumps: Brushed stainless or shiny? Round drawer pulls or rectangular? A 10- or 11-inch counter overhang? We stopped bringing each other our morning toast, started snapping orders as we flew out the door to return tile samples or buy paint before starting our real jobs.

As I watched my husband walk away from the house one morning without having even said good morning, I said glumly to our contractor Charlie, The only thing that will perk me up today is if you come out back at exactly 11:30 and bring me and my writing students chai tea.

We laughed. It was a joke, after all. This isa guy with strong opinions on grout and hinges, who disappears his underperforming subcontractors overnight with Gadhafi-like efficiency and derives his daytime nutrition from Marlboro cigarettes. Asking Charlie to bring Indian tea to the building out back where I teach creative writing carried the same odds as asking Newt Gingrich to bring us cupcakes.

Imagine my utter amazement, then, when Charlie showed up in the middle of class with a tray of chais and mochas for my class and me, and then returned with another tray of muffins and pastries. Newly bought.

Every woman in the room gasped. Charlie flashed a wolfish smile, while his eyes sparkled a green like the wave crashing on a beach in Costa Rica with the sun setting behind it (the same exact color as 1-by-2-inch glass tile named SURF currently available at Daltile in Denver for $18.80 a square foot). Oh dear. Id been counting the days till our contractor would leave. Was it wrong, now, that I hoped hed never leave?

But I wasnt the only one ready to slut out over a cup of coffee delivered by a man in a tool belt. My class was all pheromones.

He is so hot! whispered the lady whos been married for 20 years.

Hmmmm breathed the lesbian.

A few days after the chai incident, my husband, Peter, put on his tool belt. He had worked for years as a carpenter before he became a psychotherapist, and our shed needed some new siding. He was wearing an old white shirt and some jeans a skidge on the short side. His tool belt had suspenders.

Dont you have a regular tool belt? I asked in a tone more horrified than Id intended.

Excerpt from:
Remodeling will tear us apart

HACKENSACK, N.J. When it comes to renovation projects, contractors say homeowners often don't (pardon the pun) think outside the box.

Want a closet? You can steal some space from a neighboring room. Want a room? You can re-purpose that little-used closet into something more practical. When your contractor takes a peek behind your walls, you might be surprised to find you have usable space you never knew existed.

A savvy contractor can often come up with an innovative solution for home design and construction problems.

"People sort of get tunnel vision," says Richard Graniere, owner of Wayne, N.J.-based Advantage Contracting. "They work in the existing space instead of working within the outside perimeters of the house. They get blinded by the walls."

One of the easiest ways to re-purpose space is to take down nonload-bearing walls, which are most walls in your home, Graniere says. Even a load-bearing wall can be removed, but it requires support beams to be erected in its place.

Dominic Mangiarelli recalls a woman who asked him about four years ago to renovate a bathroom, but also talked about how much she wanted more closet space for her five-bedroom colonial in Livingston, N.J.

Mangiarelli had to take down a wall between the bathroom and the hallway. In the middle, he discovered a cavity between a chimney and the hallway wall.

"It was small, only about 18 inches by 18 inches, but to her it was a gold mine," he says. Mangiarelli carved out the space for a linen closet in that cavity.

A custom door for such a small size would be very expensive, but Mangiarelli came up with a novel idea: He used one panel of a bi-fold door. A little paint and Spackle and a carpet remnant completed the job.

"She was just as excited about that closet as she was about the weeks of work I put into the bathroom," Mangiarelli says with a laugh.

Read the rest here:
Renovations that tap into your hidden space

Northern Virginia (PRWEB) June 30, 2012

A finished basement holds the potential to be transformed into a dream room. Whether a homeowner desires to build a bedroom, office, play room or entertainment area, the basement offers lots of possibilities.

It is best to consult a professional when thinking about a basement remodel; they can give you advice on what can realistically be built in your space. Basement projects often require, structural alterations, along with plumbing and wiring modifications, said Tim Gatling, Owner of Tims Quality Construction. He shares foundational advice before turning a dream into reality.

Eliminate basement moisture. A homeowner must take care of any water or moisture problems before getting started on a basement remodel. A drain and sump pump system can resolve most basement moisture problems. Normal dehumidifiers, will not always do the trick, make sure the dehumidifier is basement rated, said Tim. Basement pipes should be checked to make sure they are not leaking. Pipes could require sealing, also insulating pipes can reduce moisture that is caused by condensation, added Tim.

Most often, a moisture problem can be traced back to the floor, so chose flooring carefully. Concrete flooring is porous and can emit moisture from the ground surface below. Installing a good subfloor can help with moisture problems and provide extra insulation and warmth, if a homeowner is installing carpet, laminate or vinyl, said Tim. Tile is another option. If a homeowner has an unfortunate problem with flooding, tile is easy to clean. Installing radiant flooring can help provide warmth to the floor, if a hard surfaced floor is installed.

Effective planning is crucial to the success of any project, said Tim.

For more information about this company please call (571) 237-5833, or visit their website at http://www.timsqualityconstruction.com

About Tims Quality Construction & Restoration

Tims Quality Construction & Restoration is fully licensed and insured. They do any size residential or commercial job. With over 20 years of experience, they have earned a proven track record of excellence in designing, managing and constructing projects around the Northern Virginia area. Their services include; room additions, bathroom and kitchen remodels, basement finishing, new garage construction, installation of flooring, including hardwood and carpet, drywall and framing. They work hard to make sure the job is done correctly, while saving the customer time, money and aggravation. They believe in quality without compromise. Call today to get a project underway.

Visit link:
Fairfax Basement Remodeling Expert Announces Tips for Homeowners Interested in Remodeling Their Basement

28-06-2012 17:11 In the second of a two part series, we demonstrate the beautiful craftsman style remodel of a kitchen and living room.

Read the original:
Schober Remodel - Part II - Video