Krames StayWell Blog

High blood pressure education saves lives

Hypertension is literally killing America. High blood pressure was a primary or contributing cause to more than 348,000 American deaths in 2009.¹ It’s a major risk factor for other diseases, including heart disease, heart failure, stroke and kidney disease. There is no cure for hypertension, but it can be prevented and controlled. The key is education.

As High Blood Pressure Education Month, May is the perfect month to ramp up your efforts. Provide a wide range of education to help patients and consumers keep their blood pressure in a healthy range.

Motivate healthy lifestyle changes with health promotion education.

There are a number of health promotion topics, in addition to reducing sodium, that can help people prevent or manage hypertension, including:

• Weight management

• Exercise and physical activity

• Nutrition

• Smoking cessation

Teach people how to manage their blood pressure.

Less than half (47%) of people with high blood pressure have their condition under control.² That’s why it’s vital to increase medication compliance, promote behavior change and drive self-monitoring. Education is vital to all three.

As you prepare your efforts, www.kramesstore.com is a great place to search for education materials and ideas.  With a wide selection of education resources in print, digital and video formats, you’ll find everything you need to fit your prevention and management initiatives. But don’t delay, because complications from high blood pressure can strike at any moment.         

^1. Roger VL, Go AS, Lloyd-Jones DM, Benjamin EJ, Berry JD, Borden WB, et al. Heart disease and stroke statistics—2012 update: a report from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2012;125(1):e2–220.

^2. CDC. Vital signs: prevalence, treatment, and control of hypertension—United States, 1999-2002 and 2005-2008. MMWR. 2011;60(4):103-8.

 

A day-by-day health education guide

National Public Health Week: April 1–7, 2013

Each year, National Public Health Week focuses its effort on a different theme. This year’s theme, "Public Health is ROI: Save Lives, Save Money," was developed to highlight the value of prevention and the importance of well-supported public health systems in preventing disease, saving lives and curbing health care spending.

Each weekday also has its own theme that fits within the larger campaign. Here’s a quick breakdown to help you plan your health education and awareness activities.

MONDAY: Ensuring a safe, healthy home for your family

Promoting steps individuals and families can take to build a healthy home can lead to significant savings in lives and health care costs. Consider the minor costs of a booklet such as A Guide to Preventing Falls against these statistics:

Falls are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among people ages 65 and older. Each year, one out of every three adults ages 65 and older experiences a fall. In 2010, falls resulted in $30 billion in direct medical costs.¹

TUESDAY: Providing a safe environment for children at school

Within this theme alone, there are several opportunities to combat some of the most prevalent pediatric public health challenges today. For instance, obesity prevalence among children and teens has nearly tripled since 1980.² Use resources such as Helping Your Child Eat Healthy for Life and Watch Out for TV Zombies and Soda Monsters to promote activity and teach healthy eating habits to children and their parents.

And provide education such as No Smoking, Lungs at Work to help prevent smoking. Every day, nearly 4,000 young people try their first cigarette and about 1,000 will become daily smokers.³

WEDNESDAY: Creating a healthy workplace

The cost of obesity among full-time employees tops $73 billion, which includes the total value of lost productivity and medical costs.⁴ And research finds that medical costs fall by about $3.27 for every dollar invested in workplace wellness programs.⁵

Promote healthy eating, exercise and other wellness topics with engaging education. A few suggested titles include Eating Smart for Life, Exercise for Busy People, Weight Management Personal Action Guide and A Guide to Managing Stress.

THURSDAY: Protecting you while you’re on the move                                                  

Motor vehicle-related injuries are the leading cause of death among U.S. children.⁶ However, child safety seats reduce the risk of death by 71 percent for infants and by 54 percent for children ages 1 to 4 years old.⁷

The key to car seat safety is education. Teach parents how to select and properly use the car seats they'll need as their child grows with Safety: Car Seats for Infants and Toddlers on DVD.

FRIDAY: Empowering a healthy community                                              

Engage and empower communities with the tools and resources to lead the movement for a healthier America. Here is just one example of the difference you can make with education materials like Walking for Fitness, Walking for Better Health at Any Age and Managing Your Weight DVD.                            

If 10 percent of adults began regularly walking, $5.6 billion in heart disease costs could be averted. Also, a sustained 10 percent weight loss could reduce an overweight person's lifetime medical costs by up to $5,300 by lowering the costs linked to hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and high cholesterol.⁸

Start planning your efforts today. And keep them going even after this observance ends to extend ROI throughout the year!

¹ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Home and Recreational Safety. Available at: www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/falls/adultfalls.html

² Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available at: www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html

³ Gilman SE, Rende R, Boergers J,et al. Parental Smoking and Adolescent Smoking Initiation: An Intergenerational Perspective on Tobacco Control, Pediatrics 2009 Feb;123(2):e274-e281.

⁴ Finkelstein E, daCosta DiBonaventura M, Burgess S, Hale B. The Costs of Obesity in the Workplace. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, October 2010; 52(10):971-976.

⁵ Baicker, K, Cutler D, Song Z. Workplace wellness programs can generate savings. Health Affairs, 2010; 29(2): 304-311. 

⁶ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. Aug. 2, 2010.

⁷ U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Traffic Safety Facts 2008: Children. 2009.

⁸ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Preventing Chronic Diseases: Investing Wisely in Health. Available at: www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/publications/factsheets/prevention/pdf/obesity.pdf

Fresh Perspectives on Education for National Nutrition Month

This year is the 40^th Anniversary of National Nutrition Month. And even after so many campaigns, there remains more to say and do. In fact, every year the American Dietetic Association comes up with a fresh theme. Here’s what they have to say about this year’s theme:

“The National Nutrition Month® 2013 theme, ‘Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day,’ encourages personalized healthy eating styles and recognizes that food preferences, lifestyle, cultural and ethnic traditions and health concerns all impact individual food choices.”

The best efforts will address these concerns and preferences with appropriate, targeted education resources. Here are a few examples.

Providing education in Spanish can help you reach out to the Hispanic community with your nutrition message, especially if it matches not just the language, but also the logic and experience of the intended audience. Examples can be found in our Overstocks section.

People concerned with reducing their risk of heart attack or cardiovascular disease will be more likely to make a positive lifestyle change after receiving a booklet such as Eating for a Healthier Heart than a generic nutrition title.                                                         

Resources that provide options and alternatives, such as the meal-based substitution charts in Choosing Fats, can help meet readers’ food preferences.

Also consider providing education that focuses on specific skills or aspects of nutrition to make change more manageable. For instance, Krames StayWell has a number of resources on topics such as reading food labels, healthy recipes, eating out, avoiding sodium and more.      

Whether this is your 40^th year participating or your first, this awareness campaign is a great opportunity to improve health through behavior change. Visit the National Nutrition Month link in our National Health Observance Calendar to get started.

Patient Education: The perfect accessory to The Red Dress®

The Red Dress is the national symbol for women and heart disease awareness and is promoted during National Wear Red Day® on the first Friday in February each year. People all over the country will show their support by wearing a red dress, shirt, tie or The Red Dress pin.

The goal is to change the misconception that heart disease is a man’s disease. In fact, it’s the #1 killer of women in the country.

These outreach efforts are even more powerful when paired with patient education. By teaching women about their risk factors and ways they can better care for their heart health, you can help turn this awareness into action.

Krames StayWell has several patient education resources in video, electronic and print formats to fit your needs wherever and however you choose to support the cause, including popular American Heart Association titles.

Plus, to help encourage your staff and your patients to participate, we’re offering a free Go Red For Women Toolkit for Healthcare Providers when you order Women, Heart Disease and Stroke.

For more information on patient education to support your efforts, call 800-333-3032 or visit www.kramesstore.com today!

®National Wear Red Day is a registered trademark of HHS and AHA.

Planning resources for 2013 National Health Observances

With the holiday season upon us and 2013 fast approaching, keeping track of awareness efforts can be challenging. To assist in your planning, remember to visit the Krames StayWell Health Observance Calendar. You’ll find information on scheduled awareness topics and product information to support your efforts all year long, starting with these January Health Observances:

• National Birth Defects Prevention Month
• National Glaucoma Awareness Month
• Thyroid Awareness Month

Here’s a few other tips to help make your 2013 awareness efforts a success:

Visit the website of your cause’s sponsoring organization to leverage information, ideas and resources that can help enhance your own efforts. For instance:

• The National Birth Defects Prevention Network website, www.nbdpn.org provides resource materials to promote birth defects awareness and prevention
• The Glaucoma Research Foundation sponsors National Glaucoma Awareness Month and provides a wealth of information on glaucoma screening and additional resources at www.preventblindness.org
• The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) features articles, videos and FAQ on thyroid conditions at www.thyroidawareness.com

The sponsoring organization for each health observance throughout the year can be found on the National Health Information Center’s 2013 National Health Observance Calendar.

Another helpful strategy is to look for patient education solutions that help support health observance initiatives, as in these examples from Krames StayWell:

• Understanding Glaucoma provides a thorough explanation of open- and closed-angle glaucoma, from diagnosis through lifelong management
• For National Birth Defects Prevention month, Pregnancy and Having a Baby offer easy-to-understand information, advice and tips on nutrition, exercise and healthy lifestyles to promote good prenatal care
• Finally, during Thyroid Awareness month, provide a helpful guide to how the thyroid works, various treatment options for thyroid problems and answers to common questions with the The Thyroid Book

For detailed information on these patient education titles and many more, call 800-333-3032 or visit www.kramesstore.com today!

Improve outcomes all year long with Patient Education

Unfortunately, people usually only think about their health when there is a problem. This reactive approach drives up health care costs and reduces the chances of positive outcomes. Health care reform and the emergence of accountable care organizations are two of the larger initiatives working to address this challenge. But among the easiest and most proven effective tactics are health awareness and education.

The National Health Observance Calendar, published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides opportunities throughout the year to increase awareness of important health issues, teach individuals strategies to minimize their risks, and encourage screenings that can lead to early detection of emerging problems. Patient education is the perfect tool for promoting behavior change and improving outcomes by engaging patients in their own care.

While these observances and events have been around for a number of years, today there are more ways to leverage patient education in your awareness efforts than ever before. In addition to booklets and brochures, you can drive visitors to dynamic web sites and health portals, integrate health education into social media campaigns, show engaging videos across settings, and much more.

Even if you don’t participate in formal events, you’ll likely see more educational opportunities during these dedicated months, weeks and days, as patients seek out answers and advice.

Whatever the case, the first step is to plan ahead. Check out the Krames StayWell Health Observance Calendar and start planning now for 2013.

Infobutton, Blue Button, & OpenNotes, Oh My! Driving toward Patient Engagement

  Oh my, indeed! A few months back, I suggested that a tipping point in patient engagement could be at hand. And thankfully the momentum continues. This summer, I had the privilege to attend the 2012 Health Forum and AHA Leadership Summit in San Francisco. The theme was Healthcare’s Second Curve and the transition from volume-based care to value-based care. The activities I see going on among provider groups as they adopt population health management strategies and start to truly embrace new patient engagement strategies have me more excited than I’ve been in a long time. The potential is phenomenal, but there is a lot of work to be done.

With the release of Stage 2 Meaningful Use Rules, we see CMS really committing to the Patient and Family Engagement pillar of the program. Despite the fact that the final ruling eased the requirements a bit to show that at least 5% of patients had gone online to view, download or transmit information about a recent discharge or encounter, one should not underestimate the huge paradigm shift this represents by codifying the need for patients to really start accessing their data. Herein lies the best opportunity to create the killer app in health care.

From a technology and policy standpoint, the stars are starting to align. The Infobutton Standard has been around for a while. But the Stage 2 Meaningful Use Criteria are requiring that Infobutton be the standard used by the certified EHR to suggest patient education resources based on data from the problem list, medication list, or lab test results. The beauty of this Standard is that, although not required, the logic can easily be used to deliver the data to the Patient Portal which most agree is the most logical place to provide a patient access to view, download or transmit information about a recent encounter.

This past month, the press has covered the government’s intention to leverage the Blue Button® to a much greater degree beyond what has been made available to Veterans via the MyHealtheVet PHR. The Blue Button promises one click, quick access to the patient’s medical record. And in the trade press, ACP’s Annals of Internal Medicine report on the OpenNotes project lets us know that providing patients online access to their doctor’s notes is a win-win situation:

• Patients appreciate the access and read the notes
• Patients are more likely to adhere to treatment plans
• Physicians reported no downside in terms of increased demands on their time.

As the current election year rhetoric has highlighted, our current health care system is unsustainable. The good news is that systematic change, supported by policy and health IT, is afoot. New payment models have a better chance at success because they are provider centric (accountable care organizations, patient-centered medical homes) as opposed to payer centric (HMOs). However, their success will hinge in large part upon successful patient engagement. And there are a few important caveats to take into account:

1. Be patient centric — If you are assuming a patient isn’t engaged, then chances are your mindset may be off. Stephen Wilkins, author of the Mind the Gap blog, has a great perspective on this. I’m paraphrasing, but he points out that if you consider the time a patient takes to deal with symptoms, to make an appointment to see a provider, get to a doctor’s office, fill out any paper work that’s required, submit his copay, wait, and finally see the doctor — one would say these are the activities of someone who is very engaged in their health care. If you haven’t seen any of his writings, I suggest you check him out.
2. Acknowledge that you are asking for something new — As noted above, people are already engaged in their health care. We’ll be asking them to become engaged in new ways — be it going online to obtain information about a recent visit; exploring treatment alternatives; asking them to understand costs in a way that hasn’t been required before – it’s endless. And we are all busy. We need to be sensitive to people’s willingness and ability to change and work with them as we work together in building a new health care system of SHARED responsibility. Just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come.
3. Make it as easy as possible — and this means keep it simple. I mentioned above that helping providers reach that 5% threshold may be the killer health care app. I believe that if done right, you can get 80% to access their information as easy as you can get 5%. We have an internal challenge called “Drive the 5” to help our clients achieve this goal. We are crowd sourcing this challenge because we believe it requires a fresh approach that can come from anywhere in our organization. I’m not sure what this will look like, but I do believe it will be rooted in mobile, and it will be targeted and simple.

Hold on to your hats, because things are sure to be interesting. I can’t wait.

Education tips for American Diabetes Month

If you saw someone heading into danger, would you shout out a warning? American Diabetes Month gives you the opportunity to do just that.

An estimated 25.8 million people have diabetes, including 7 million who are undiagnosed. And another 79 million people have prediabetes, putting them at risk for developing type 2 diabetes.¹

Education is key to alerting those at risk about the dangers they may face and helping them reduce their risks of future problems. Here are a few tips to help make your efforts a success.

Use a variety of formats to engage as many individuals as possible.
Some people learn best by reading. Others prefer to watch videos or multimedia. Many need the active involvement a workbook can provide. Be sure you have the tools you need to appeal to the people you’re reaching out to.

Gain attention with quick facts, change behaviors with more in-depth education.
Bulleted brochures and tear sheets are perfect for piquing interest in diabetes awareness issues. But be sure you also have more content-rich material for those who want to learn more.

Keep the education going.
While American Diabetes Month runs through November, managing diabetes and its risk factors is a lifelong effort. Be sure to provide education and support throughout the entire year through mailings, your website and one-on-one interactions to keep people engaged and healthy.

If your answer to the question at the top of this post is “yes,” then now is the time to prepare for your diabetes awareness efforts. The people you help will be glad you did.

1 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National diabetes fact sheet: national estimates and general information on diabetes and prediabetes in the United States, 2011. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011.

Healthy Changes come from Patient Education

 

Fall is all about change. The leaves change color. The weather changes from hot and humid to breezy and cool. But perhaps the most important changes result from the season’s National Health Observances, including Health Literacy Month and National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Consider:

50% of US Adults (over 90 million people) have trouble understanding and using health information.¹

Breast cancer remains a huge health problem. Only lung cancer accounts for more cancer deaths in women.²

Effectively designed patient education is the key to changing both of these statistics. The Suitability Assessment of Materials provides a blueprint for increasing patient comprehension and influencing their behavior. It’s what we use as the basis of our content development process.

The impact on outcomes can be significant. For instance, let’s say you provide education that supports health literacy as part of a Breast Cancer Awareness initiative. With a clear understanding of the reasons and recommendations for screening, more women are likely to take action. And that could lead to earlier detection and a better probability of successful treatment.

How do you plan on participating in these upcoming National Health Observances? Share your thoughts here. 

 

¹Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Institute of Medicine, 2004
²American Cancer Society. Breast Cancer Facts & Figures 2011-2012 Atlanta: American Cancer Society, Inc.

Cancer prevention and early detection is key to positive outcomes

For men, women and children, prevention and early detection of cancer can make all the difference. That’s why patient education is imperative. September Health Observances highlight the importance of screenings, practical tips and how early treatment can improve the odds of survival.

Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men. Early detection and treatment is vital to beating the disease.

Screening for Prostate Cancer provides easy-to-understand information about the methods for screening and their pros and cons.

Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month
Early detection and treatment is also critical for surviving ovarian cancer. The American Cancer Society states that the 5-year survival rate jumps to 93% if ovarian cancer is found (and treated) before the cancer has spread outside the ovary.

National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
Over 12,000 children under the age of 21 are diagnosed with cancer every year in the U.S. This health observance raises awareness of the issues that affect theses children and their families.

Support your efforts with How to Prevent and Detect Cancer FastGuide®, an ongoing reference tool filled with practical tips and screening schedules.

These are just a few options to support your specific health promotion campaigns and events. Please feel free to explore the National Health Observance Calendar on kramesstore.com for our full line of patient education related to each topic.