Home Nursing Rancho Santa Fe, CA | Rancho Santa Fe Home Nursing, Call (619) 220-7600

West Bridgewater, Massachusetts (PRWEB) September 14, 2012

GSC Home Study Courses has just released a new continuing education course that provides dentists, dental hygienists and dental assistants with information to help them better identify and manage the oral health needs of pediatric patients with complex medical conditions.

?Children with chronic medical, developmental, and psychosocial conditions experience significantly more oral health problems than children without these conditions,? according to Karen Hallisey, DMD, Dental Planner for GSC Home Study Courses. Providing dental professionals with the foundational knowledge to better care for this growing patient population is the impetus behind Dental Management for Pediatric Patients with Complex Needs, a new continuing education course from GSC Home Study Courses ? a leading Academy of General Dentistry approved continuing education program provider.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? most recent 2009- 2010 National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs, 15.1 percent of US children (11.2 million children ages 0 – 17) have special health care needs, and more than one in five US households with children have at least one child with a special health care need. This translates into almost nine million households nationally. Individuals with special health care needs experience more oral health problems and require a greater level of oral health management than their healthy counterparts. Children with special health care needs are especially vulnerable to the oral effects of systemic diseases.

?This GSC Home Study course is a great example of how the company provides healthcare professionals with the educational information they need to provide exceptional care to all patients, especially those with complex medical conditions,? said Christian Feuer, CEO of SC Publications, parent company of GSC Home Study Courses. ?Our courses allow busy professionals to keep abreast of the issues and challenges they face in their everyday practices.?

About GSC Home Study Courses

The mission of GSC Home Study Courses is to promote public health by providing healthcare practitioners with structured home study continuing education and educational resources for advancing post-graduate knowledge and life-long professional proficiency. For more information, visit http://www.gscce.com.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) August 03, 2012

A new study published in the journal Surgery suggests that laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, a surgical alternative to the well-known gastric bypass procedure for weight-loss surgery, offers fewer complications and maintains the weight loss and other related benefits of bariatric surgery when used in adolescent patients.

The study, led by Children?s National Medical Center surgeon Evan P. Nadler, MD, was the first of its kind in the United States to look at the success of this approach with a particular focus on how well it could work for extremely obese teenagers. The team reviewed the outcomes for 23 patients who underwent sleeve gastrectomy at Children?s National and found on average that patients had lost approximately 40 percent of their excess weight (more than 65 pounds) within one year of the procedure.

?By the time a teenager comes to the Weight-Loss Surgery Program, we know that most conventional methods of weight loss, including diet and exercise, have not significantly helped to improve their health,? said Dr. Nadler, who is also the co-director of the Children?s National Obesity Institute as well as a principal investigator in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation. ?We want to use our surgical experience to identify the safest and most effective surgeries to help these teens find a way to a healthier life, as soon as possible.?

In addition to weight loss, those who underwent laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy saw important reductions in obesity-related complications such as type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea. Prior to surgery, the adolescent patient group had a combination of 64 different complications related to their weight. After one year, the number of weight-related complications had dropped to 22 for the entire study group.

Many studies have shown that the risk of complications from gastric bypass are relatively high, so the weight-loss surgery community continues to seek alternative methods from gastric-banding devices, which are currently not FDA-approved for use in children, to other minimally invasive procedures like sleeve gastrectomy.

To be eligible for consideration as part of the Children?s National Weight-Loss Surgery Program, patients must meet very specific medical requirements that include an extremely high body mass index (BMI), the completion of a six-month medically supervised exercise and diet program, and a psychological evaluation.

Related links

Rockville, Md (PRWEB) May 11, 2012

Several hospitals utilizing DrFirst?s RcopiaAC medication history and discharge electronic prescribing have been named among the top 100 hospitals in the country by Thomson Reuters in its 19th annual study of overall organizational performance. Since 1993 the Thomson Reuters (formerly Solucient, LLC) study evaluates performance in 10 categories including mortality, medical complications, patient safety, average patient stay, expenses, profitability, patient satisfaction, adherence to clinical standards of care, post-discharge mortality and readmission rates for acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), heart failure and pneumonia.

?We are proud that so many of our hospital clients have been recognized in the Thomson Reuters top 100 hospitals study,? said G. Cameron Deemer, president of DrFirst. ?This list is comprised of hospitals that are operating efficiently and cost-effectively and seeing high levels of patient safety and satisfaction. We are confident that RcopiaAC is assisting many of the hospitals to achieve these goals.?

RcopiaAC simplifies the often complex medication reconciliation process by providing medication history and discharge e-prescribing. On average it takes 45 minutes to collect medication history from a patient. DrFirst reduces the time it takes to collect this data by providing the richest and most informative home medication list, obtained by querying more data sources than any other solution on the market. Providers can reduce adverse drug events by using the home medication list to verify medications for patients who are unconscious, cannot communicate or cannot remember their home medications.

RcopiaAC?s discharge e-prescribing also allows hospitals to provide a higher level of patient service and safety as well as save time and money. The system performs real-time formulary status checking, displays coverage limits and copays and suggests preferred drug alternatives.

Among the Thomson Reuters Top 100 Hospitals are these users of RcopiaAC:

Centinela Hospital Medical Center, Inglewood, Calif.

Desert Valley Hospital, Victorville, Calif.

Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center, Garden Grove, Calif.

Poudre Valley Hospital, Fort Collins, Colo.