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ACU members receive online access to the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. Click the image to learn more about JHCPU.
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Healthy Choices for Active Living
 Make 2011 the year you focus on encouraging your patients to make small behavior changes that yield big payoffs in terms of their health. The ACU 2011 wall calendar focuses on healthy choices for active living, such as drinking water instead of sweetened beverages, making communities safer for walking and playing, and increasing fruits and vegetables in school lunches. ACU members receive a free copy of the calendar with these messages in English and Spanish and suitable for posting in your workplace. A small number of additional calendars are available for sale; if interested, please contact Kathie Westpheling.
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Prescription for Outdoor Activity In addition to the ACU calendar, this month's Healthy Living Featured Resources include prescription pads for outdoor activity and patient brochures (both available in English and Spanish) from the Children and Nature Initiative of the National Outdoor Environmental Education Foundation. One additional incentive for clinicians to write more prescriptions for outdoor activity: listed below are dates in 2011 when admission to all National Parks across the country will be totally free. · January 15-17 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday weekend) · April 16-24 (National Park Week) · June 21 (First day of summer) · September 24 ( National Public Lands Day) · November 11-13 (Veterans Day weekend) Click Here to find a park near you.
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Members in the News
 Dr. Ellen Beck, a long standing member of ACU, was recognized for an outstanding presentation on health literacy at a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine and UCLA's Anderson School of Management. Beck focused on lessons learned from the UCSD's Student Run Clinic Project and the Fellowship in Underserved Health Care, in particular on empowering community members and the need for training health professionals. "Without health literacy, health access is often false access, not true access," Beck said. "The complexity of application processes, the wording of forms, the almost infinite opportunities for misunderstanding between patient and health professional, the number of medication errors due to limitations in literacy, the jargon that peppers our professions, the fear and uncertainty on the part of patients, all of these demand that health literacy be taught throughout our health care system and to all our health professionals." A copy of Dr. Beck's presentation is available online.  Dr. Virna Little, an ACU board member, published a column on "Transdisciplinary Care: Opportunities and Challenges for Behavioral Health Providers" in the most recent Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. Little, a long time champion for behavioral health care, said, "Transdisciplinary care provides comprehensive patient centered care while recognizing the value and contribution of all providers. For many behavioral health providers, it's their first opportunity to truly collaborate with a care team." A copy of Dr. Little's column is available online. |
Tobacco Causes Immediate Damage Even occasional smoking or secondhand smoke can lead to serious illness or death according to a new report from the U.S. Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin. The report - Benjamin's first Surgeon General's report and the 30th tobacco-related Surgeon General's report issued since 1964 - describes specific pathways by which tobacco smoke damages the human body and leads to disease and death. Copies of the full report, executive summary, and the easy-to-read guide may be downloaded free. You can also order print copies online; click the Publications Catalog link under Tools & Resources.
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Healthy People 2020
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has released Healthy People 2020, the nation's new 10-year goals and objectives for health promotion and disease prevention. Thirteen new topics have been added to Healthy People 2020, including:
- Adolescent health
- Blood disorders and blood safety
- Dementias, including Alzheimer's disease
- Early and middle childhood
- Genomics
- Global health
- Health-related quality of life and well-being
- Healthcare-associated infections
- Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health
- Older adults
- Preparedness
- Sleep health
- Social determinants of health
More information is available on the Healthy People 2020 website. A 90-minute webinar on the social determinants of health goals and objectives will be held Thursday, January 13, at 2pm (ET). Follow this link to access the webinar.
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Framework on Multiple Chronic Conditions
Estimates are that more than a quarter of all Americans - and two out of 3 older Americans - have multiple chronic conditions, and that treatment for these individuals accounts for 66% of the nation's health care expenditures. These numbers are expected to rise as the number of older Americans increases. The Department of Health and Human Services developed The Strategic Framework on Multiple Chronic Conditions to change how chronic illnesses are addressed in the United States-from an approach focused on individual chronic diseases to one that uses a multiple chronic conditions approach.
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Health Reform Guide for Consumers
Understanding Health Reform: A Community Guide for African Americans, is a guide to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc. It is intended to help average people understand the law and to arm readers with knowledge that can help them become more engaged in advocating for health care resources in their communities. Copies are free to download.
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Understanding Medication Labels A new report from Make the Road New York and the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest describes the results of a survey of more than 200 chain pharmacies in New York to determine their capacity to provide language assistance services for limited English proficient consumers filing prescriptions. Rx for Safety: Establishing Standards for Clear and Accessible Prescription Medication can be downloaded for free.
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Fellowships And Scholarships
The National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA) has issued a call for nominations for the NHMA Leadership Fellowship Program Class of 2011. Physicians with five years of professional experience after completion of residency training who are interested in future careers in public service at the national, state or local level are eligible for this one year executive leadership training program. Details are available online. The application deadline is Jan. 31, 2011.
Kaiser Permanente (KP) scholarships are available for ACU members to attend meetings convened by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement(IHI) in 2011. ACU members Vinod Miriyala, DMD, Carmen Chinea, MD (Hudson River Healthcare), and Anna Gard, FNP attended the 22nd Annual IHI National Forum in Orlando, Florida in December. "This meeting helped me focus on key issues facing our organization in these tough economic times," Dr. Miriyala said. "I gained a vast amount of information about successful programs that are expanding and how they make a difference in the bottom line of a health care organization." Learn more about the 2011 KP scholarships for ACU members online.
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Conferences and E-Learning
March 20-22, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI's) 12th Annual International Summit on Improving Patient Care in the Office Practice & the Community will be held in Dallas, Texas. A limited number of scholarships are available to ACU members to attend; for information contact acu@clinicians.org. Key topics this year include: office practice and community-based care, coaching and leadership, access and flow, and health IT. Edward H. Wagner, MD, MPH, FACP, Director, MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation at the Center for Health Studies, Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, is one of the keynote speakers.
March 23-27, the National Association of Community Health Centers hosts its annual Policy and Issues Forum in Washington, DC, on the one-year anniversary of the passage of health reform. With so many new Members of Congress, your presence can help make an impact.
June 22-25, the 2011 National Health Care for the Homeless Conference will be held in Washington, DC. For conference information and registration details are available online.
Ongoing. Parkinson's Disease: Delivering a Diagnosis with a Dose of Hope is an archived free webinar sponsored by the National Parkinson Foundation and the Georgia Statewide AHEC Network Program Office. The program features Dr. Lawrence Elmer and will be available for CME credit until May 15, 2011.
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HRSA HIT And Meaningful Use Workshops
The Health Resources and Services Administration has announces a series of HIT and Meaningful Use Workshops as part of HRSA's ongoing technical assistance efforts. The vendor-neutral workshops will provide insights and tools for successfully negotiating the stages of EHR implementation from planning to post-implementation optimization of use which will qualify users for the CMS Incentive Payment. The workshops will be hosted by several HRSA grantees that have successfully implemented EHR technology. For more information, visit the HRSA website at http://www.hrsa.gov/healthit/workshops.html or click on the link for the workshop nearest to you. January 24-25Texas Association of Community Health Centers Austin, TX Contact: Todd Radloff
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Call for Diabetes Presentations
The American Diabetes Association is calling for presentations on promising practices for the 2011 Annual Disparities Partnership Forum: Overcoming Diabetes: Reducing the Burden of Diabetes Complications. A key feature of the 2011 forum will be the presentation of promising practices that can be applied to community efforts aimed at reducing disparities in the complications of diabetes. The submission deadline is Jan. 14, 2011. |
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