February is Heart Month

February is a cold and blustery month and if you are like many Canadians, you tend to limit outdoor activity and eat more comfort food. However, February is also “Heart Month”. Did you know that over 5% of adults in Ontario have cardiac disease, and over 30% of deaths in Canada are directly related to cardiovascular disease?

Risk factors for heart disease include smoking, alcohol, lack of exercise, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. Some of these we are born with or have a family history of, but all risk factors can be reduced. Heart Month gives us the opportunity to think about how we can work towards improving our health and decreasing our own risks of heart attack. You cannot control your age, gender or family history, but there are many things you can do to improve you heart health.

If you are a smoker, quitting smoking is the single most important thing you can do not just for your heart but also for many other health issues. Eating a healthy diet based on the Canadian food guide low in fat and salt can decrease the risks of obesity, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Keeping active also decreases your cholesterol and blood pressure, and improves fitness.

Exercise may be one of the simplest strategies. You may have to be creative to plan for exercise in February, and here are a few ideas: indoor walking in the mall or a big box store, attending an exercise class, just climbing the stairs in your home an extra 3 or 4 times a day. The extra efforts will be well worth it. You will feel better and your heart will love you for it.

So now, when you look outside and it is snowing, and the wind is blowing, take stock of how you can improve your heart health!

Our Promise to Breastfeeding Families

In 1991, the World Health Organization and UNICEF launched a world-wide strategy to improve the health of infants and young children called ‘The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative’. This initiative seeks to improve maternity services by focusing on the needs of the newborns and empowering families to provide their infant with the best start in life. The goal: 75% of mothers exclusively breastfeeding (or exclusively feeding human milk).
As part of our commitment to the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance promises our breastfeeding families that:

• We will have a breastfeeding policy that all nurses follow;
• Our staff members have breastfeeding education;
• We will provide skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby right after birth;
• We will teach mothers how to position and latch their babies for breastfeeding;
• We will feed breastfed babies breast milk only;
• We will not separate families from babies unless it is medically necessary;
• We will encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies for as long and as often as the baby needs;
• We will not give breastfed babies soothers or bottles with nipples;
• We will make sure that families are aware of community programs and support for breastfeeding.

The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative seeks to protect, promote and support the continuation of breastfeeding, but it also serves to ensure informed decision making and hospital support for each family’s decisions around their newborn’s care. Hospitals that demonstrate success in doing so are awarded with a Baby Friendly designation. Since the beginning of this initiative, more than 20,000 hospitals in 156 countries have received this designation,Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is striving to be one of them.

From Routine to Innovation

When we question our usual practice, innovation happens. The Hip Fracture Model of Care was created because one Toronto nurse questioned “Why aren’t my patients with dementia and delirium eligible for rehab services?” She challenged the notion that persons with dementia can’t participate in rehabilitation because of their poor memory; she knew patients with acquired brain injury also had trouble with memory and they were deemed appropriate for rehabilitation. As a result, a new model of care was developed for persons who have been living with dementia at home prior to their hip fracture and was implemented by 35 hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area. They demonstrated that persons with dementia were able to return home after rehabilitation avoiding premature institutionalization. Chatham-Kent Health Alliance’s in-patient Rehabilitation and Surgical units have adopted this new model of care for persons with hip fractures and it is further challenging what was believed possible.

What in your practice has become routine?

Christmas Stars

Do you remember the lesson from Joel Barker of the Star Thrower video shown during Chatham-Kent Health Alliance’s (CKHA) Patient and Family-Centre Care education?

“We’ve ALL been gifted
with the ability to make a difference.”

I’ve heard a number of touching stories where our CKHA staff have gone the extra mile to ensure the holidays are special and sacred for the persons they care for….stories of charity, personal sacrifice, and shared prayer.

We know there is no place like home for the holidays; however Joel’s declaration that we are truly gifted to make a difference to those we care for, is so true.

I trust in our staff’s gifts for care and creativity and look forward to hearing this year’s stories of holiday compassion within CKHA where we are, ‘Caring People, Caring for People’.