Serious lung disease is 4^th leading killer in US

Kanabec Hospital is joining the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s (NHLBI’s) COPD Learn More Breathe Better campaign in observing COPD Awareness Month by bringing awareness to this serious topic in our community.  COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) is a serious lung disease that makes breathing difficult.  It is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, and is expected to be the third leading cause of death by 2020. 

NHLBI launched the COPD Learn More Breathe Better campaign in January of 2007 to promote awareness of COPD, to educate Americans about its risk factors, and to encourage early diagnosis.  COPD is most often characterized by shortness of breath and a persistent cough. Those over the age of 40 with a history of smoking are particularly at risk, however 1 in 6 people with COPD have never smoked.

“There are 12 million Americans diagnosed with COPD, and we estimate that another 12 million people have the disease and don’t even know it,” says James Kiley, PhD., Director, Division of Lung Diseases, NHLBI.  “COPD Awareness Month is a great opportunity for advocates and health care professionals to educate the public and their patients about the disease.”

Kanabec Hospital is located at the junction of Highways 65 and 23 in Mora.  The main telephone numbers are 320-679-1212, 320-629-9993 and 800-245-5671. 

Ahhh February, it is the month that is all about “Affairs of the Heart”. Sure Valentine’s Day with its sweet cards and lovely flowers often gets all the attention, but February is about more than romance, it provides us with an excellent opportunity to talk about the heart that really matters- your internal cardiac system.

At Kanabec Hospital, we are here to help you obtain heart health. From the emergency room to the Cardiac Rehabilitation department, Kanabec Hospital has you covered. Ultimately we are a small rural facility and this allows many advantages for our patients. We know each and every one of our patients as an individual. Often our patients know each other. This environment provides a supportive system which helps our patients achieve a healthy heart. We are able to provide individualized education and one-on-one support.

Our emergency department is specially equipped to deal with our cardiac patients. If you are having a heart attack, call 911. The emergency department here at the Hospital has processes in place that can deal with all levels of cardiac events. If needed, you will be sent to a specialized heart center, and, because every moment counts, Kanabec Hospital has a process in place to ensure that you will receive the care you need quickly and safely.

Listen, heart disease is scary! It’s great to know that at Kanabec Hospital you have everything from an emergency department that is equipped and prepared to save your life to a Cardiac Rehabilitation department that ensures you receive the highest quality of therapeutic care. 

For more information on heart disease and the services provided at Kanabec Hospital, contact your primary care provider.

By your friendly neighborhood Cardiac Rehabilitation staff,

Kris, Kathy and Michele

P.S. Check out our video featuring cardiac patient: Don Kaddatz!

We talk a lot about our engagement with and commitment to our community. We are constantly striving to achieve the highest levels of patient care and satisfaction.  The hospital spends countless hours dedicated to the study of how to make patient care better for you…. In all this effort we sometimes forget to ask, what would you like to see?

Everything that we try to accomplish is for the purpose of improving patient care. Many of our initiatives are dedicated to improving clinical outcomes, many more are dedicated to education, prevention, general health and wellness and overall community health.

We have pre-natal classes, post-natal classes; support groups for everything from heart disease and diabetes to care-giving and bariatric support. We hold community health events and educational events; we host speakers on a variety of topics, and we do this all for the benefit of our community.

So we want to know…. What would you like to see? Please respond in the comments section and we will try to implement as many of your suggestions as we can. Thanks for your feedback!

There has been a lot of talk over the months about the H1N1 virus. Here in Kanabec County the primary resource for information will be our public health office. There is a hotline where they can be reached at 320-679-6464. With that is mind, there are a few things to be aware of: 

• Parents are the first line of defense in protecting children from the flu.
• Keep children out of school when they have flu symptoms
• Be alert for flu-like symptoms in your children – they can’t always tell you when something is wrong.
• Flu symptoms for novel H1N1 flu are generally the same as the symptoms for regular “seasonal” flu:
  • fever
  • cough
  • sore throat
  • runny or stuffy nose
  • body aches
  • headache
  • chills
  • fatigue.
• In some cases, symptoms of novel H1N1 can also include vomiting and diarrhea – which are not typically present with seasonal flu.
• Be sure to tell your school why you are keeping your child home – so they know flu may be circulating in the school.
• Sick children shouldn’t go back to school until 24 hours after their fever goes away – without the help of fever-reducing drugs like Tylenol or Motrin.
• Do not give aspirin to children with flu symptoms – it can cause complications.
• Usually, children with flu symptoms need to stay home for 5 to 7 days.
• While they’re home with flu symptoms, children should generally be kept away from other people – except to get medical care.
• Plan ahead for child care and other arrangements in case you do have to keep your child home with possible flu symptoms during the school year.
• Teach your children how to avoid getting or spreading the flu virus.
  • Teach your children to clean their hands thoroughly and often – using soap and water or an alcohol-based hand rub.
    • Some schools are already making plans to make sure they have an ample supply of hand-cleaning supplies – and encourage children to use them.
    • Consider giving your child a small container of alcohol hand-rub to take to school.
    • If you do encourage your child to use hand rub, be sure they know how. It only works if your hands are not visibly soiled.
  • Teach your children to cover their coughs and sneezes – with a tissue if they have one, or by coughing or sneezing into an arm or an elbow.
  • Teach your children not to share personal items that could transmit the flu virus – like drinks, water bottles, food, or eating utensils.
• It is especially important this year for parents to get their children vaccinated against the flu.
• It’s not too early to get a seasonal flu vaccination.

When a public health emergency happens, the need for volunteers will be tremendous. Minnesota is looking for people trained in healthcare, public health, and related occupations who are willing to volunteer their skills in the event of an emergency.

We all have a role to play in preparing Minnesota for the challenges of responding to a public health emergency. We need public health and health care professionals, people in allied health, and others. We need everyone who can be part of a health response, regardless of whether they are in a licensed or certified field.

If you work in a health-related discipline, we encourage you to register in Minnesota Responds.

For additional information please visit our list of frequently asked questions.

Kanabec Hospital's latest news is the addition of digital mammography to our women's health services. A particularly timely acquisition given the subject of my previous blog entry. Breast cancer is a  insidious form of cancer that affects one in every eight women and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women. Early detection has been proven again and again to be the most effective method of prevention, and when detected early the chance for successful treatment is very high.

Mammography is the baseline screening that allows for early detection of breast cancer in women. Traditional mammography involved the use of screen-film, while digital mammography uses computers and specially designed digital detectors to produce images that can be displayed on a high-resolution computer monitor. This allows physicians’ greater control over the image and the ability to manipulate the image, which in turn leads to greater accuracy in diagnosing.

Ultimately, an annual mammogram is one of the most important preventative health screenings that a woman can have. Once a woman turns 35, she should consult with her doctor to schedule her baseline mammogram.

I was musing today about the importance of preventative medicine- the importance of our role in our own health. We hear it all the time- watch what you eat; exercise; quit smoking; schedule annual screening exams; floss! Preventative medicine is a popular topic in men’s and women’s magazines, on television, and everywhere we look. It sometimes can reach the point of over-saturation, yet many of us are not as vigilant as we should be when it comes to preventative healthcare measures.

Often we find that, while there are many things we could be doing to improve our overall health and well-being, and no one is more important in ensuring your health then you, we can get distracted by daily life. And let’s face it; the ritual of flossing is not particularly glamorous. Many of us are over-worked, stressed and busy. Who has the time to work out and prepare healthy meals, let alone visit the doctor on an annual basis?

While these factors may be true, the reality is, the cost (both in terms of time and money) of not following preventative healthcare measures are enormous. While it may be difficult to carve time out of each day to work out or prepare a healthy meal, unhealthy choices can significantly cut into life expectancy. Talk about not having enough time! Financial considerations are another deterrent frequently cited as an obstacle in following preventative healthcare measures. This is a real fallacy. Researchers from Harvard Medical School have led the development of a prototype "return on investment calculator" that can measure the value of prevention services, the team found that for the services provided in 2008, this program, in the long run, will return $36 for every dollar invested. (Harvard Medical School: Calculating preventative medicine’s return on investment: http://web.med.harvard.edu/sites/RELEASES/html/060209_oriol.html).

At the end of the day, the costs in both time and money pale beside the benefits that you can receive by practicing good preventative medicine techniques. So remember; floss, quit smoking, work out, eat right and visit your doctor for your annual check up!

Welcome to the first post of the Kanabec Hospital Blog.  The phenomenon of blogging has taken over the web for politics, news and more, and as the leader in health care in our community, we felt that it was time that health care was represented by Kanabec Hospital.  This blog will be my attempt to create a user-friendly place to go to catch up on news, opinions, and general knowledge of the health care industry. My hope is that you will stop back every couple of weeks to learn what our take is on events that are currently happening in the health care field. This is not designed to be a political forum although inevitably policy issues will come up, and it's intended to be free from any biases. It is not intended to be opinion-free! We hope that this blog will open a line of communication, and good communication is always a dialog, not a monologue, so please email me your comments and let me know if they're for public consumption.  We will try to stay abreast of any new developments and be prompt with updates. We hope that this site will provide a great tool for the Hospital and the community.