Outfitting Your New Office (Part I)

Exam Table

Congratulations! You’ve made the career-altering decision to open your own practice. With this significant change comes countless new responsibilities; one of the most pressing concerns is the purchase or lease of an office and the furnishing and setup of said office for optimal workflow, patient comfort, and staff efficiency. With a dizzying array of options in every area of office arrangement and organization – furniture! equipment! supplies! filing! – the process may seem insurmountable. Our guide to setting up your office is designed to help you find exactly what you need to suit your individual needs, preferences, tastes, and budget.

Mobility with Style

For thousands of years, people with disabilities were viewed as inferior, damaged, even evil. The ancient Greeks believed that those with physical imperfections were substandard, corroborated by Plato’s philosophy that the “deformed” ought to have been put away in “mysterious unknown places.” Later, theologians Martin Luther and John Calvin asserted that people with mental and physical limitations were possessed by evil spirits that necessitated painful and cruel exorcisms. As time went on, tolerance for disabilities did not increase; rather, Darwinists and similar evolutionists lobbied against aid for people with impairments, rationalizing that the continuity of an “inferior species” would interfere with survival of the fittest and a superior race. In a similar vein, Hitler and his Nazi party sought to eliminate all people with disabilities, claiming that their very existence tainted their pure-blooded nation. Historically, people with physical, emotional, and/or mental challenges have not been treated well and remained stigmatized until fairly recently.

Today, people with impairments are more fortunate than they ever have been. They are protected by laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, which ensure that they are awarded equal rights in the workforce and educational systems and are granted accessibility to public places. They are not only tolerated, however; people with disabilities are fully accepted and embraced as being just like everyone else. This is evidenced in countless respects: in the sports world, with the Paralympics, International Wheelchair Basketball Federation, and organized wheelchair-bound participants in dance competitions; in popular culture, demonstrated by actors such as Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox and stage and film presence of people with dwarfism and other conditions – in typical roles, not as “freaks” in carnival sideshows as they were in years past – and musicians like Itzhak Perlman and Stevie Wonder; and in the academic world, where students of all abilities are admitted to schools and people like Stephen Hawking are celebrated rather than shunned. Humankind has made great strides in our attitude toward those with differing abilities.

The Silent Killer

It may sound like the title of a horror movie, but the condition dubbed “the silent killer” is all too real. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, accounts for an astonishing 40.6% of all cardiovascular disease-related deaths, more than smoking, poor diet, insufficient activity, and abnormal glucose levels, according to the American Heart Association. Being that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention asserts that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States – killing approximately 600,000 men and women of all ethnicities annually – hypertension is indeed a cause for tremendous concern and action. It affects roughly 76.4 million Americans over age twenty; put simply, one in every three United States residents has high blood pressure.

Hypertension is known as the silent killer due to the fact that it often goes undetected until it manifests itself in other serious health conditions. Left untreated, hypertension can and frequently does lead to stroke, heart attack, angina, heart and/or kidney failure, and peripheral artery disease, among other life-threatening illnesses. While it is regularly – and often correctly – blamed on and linked to a range of factors such as stress, anxiety, obesity, smoking, drinking, and family history, essential (or primary) hypertension most often occurs without a clear cause. Secondary hypertension, which is far less common than its primary counterpart, is directly linked to various medications and ailments such as kidney disease, diabetes, pregnancy (when it is known as preeclampsia), endocrine disease, and cancer.

Reduce This Common Infection to Reduce Costs

There is an infection of epidemic proportions afflicting our healthcare system. It accounts for more than a staggering 30% of all healthcare-associated infections reported by acute care hospitals[1], making it the most prevalent infection in hospitals, assisted living and skilled nursing facilities, and homebound patients, according to the Centers of Disease Control (CDC). Over 600,000 patients develop the infection yearly[2]; in an acute care setting, the daily risk of becoming infected is between 3% and 7%[3]. The condition may lead to more serious complications such as secondary bloodstream infections, prolonged hospital stays resulting increased costs and pain, and even death. 

What is this rampant infection? one may question. Is it a staph infection? A “superbug” such as MRSA? Pneumonia?

In reality, the dreaded illness is the seemingly humble urinary tract infection. It affects hundreds of thousands of patients annually in our healthcare system. It is easy to dismiss a urinary tract infection with simple antibiotics or a regimen of cranberry juice, but it can lead to a host of secondary infections and illnesses. UTIs affect every part of the urinary system, including the lower urinary tract (manifesting itself as a bladder infection), upper urinary tract (resulting in the more painful kidney infection), urethra, and ureters. Furthermore, a typical UTI may quickly develop into periurethral abscess, epididymitis, cystitis, or the serious and often fatal urosepsis or bacteremia, infections of the bloodstream.

Highly Sought-After Pediatric Positioning Product Unveiled by Wenzelite

Wenzelite Tilt and Recline

For children with moderate to severe physical and neurological disabilities (such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, paralysis, and a host of other conditions), finding a comfortable yet functional seating system can be a daunting task. The seat must provide proper total-body support, access to learning and feeding materials, and safety features. Many seating systems are uncomfortable, prohibitively expensive, rapidly outgrown, or not available in the right size to fit every child.

Wenzelite Rehab, which was recently acquired by Drive Medical, specializes in manufacturing customizable rehabilitation equipment for both children and adults. Since the acquisition, the company has fully upgraded its unique line of products. Their new and improved Pediatric Tilt and Recline Seating System fully secures and supports the child for optimal positioning in all settings and features numerous innovative characteristics that sets it apart from other systems.

With AEDs, Everyone Has the Power to Save a Life

It  kills someone every two minutes in the United States. It strikes in offices, schools, shopping malls, hotels, airports, grocery stores; on the street, the basketball court, the track. It targets victims of all ages, races, sizes, and religions. It can be the stuff of nightmares – a loved one, friend, or perfect stranger clutches his or her chest and collapses without a pulse while others watch, horrified but helpless. Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) accounts for a staggering 325,000 deaths in the United States every year – more than 75% of cardiac-related deaths are attributed to sudden cardiac arrest – with the vast majority occurring outside of a hospital. Unfortunately, less than 32% of victims receive help from bystanders, and less than 8% survive.

When family members, friends, passersby, or spectators witness someone collapse, stricken by sudden cardiac arrest – often due to an unrecognized, underlying heart condition – their first reaction is to call for emergency help. However, the first few minutes after the event, when the victim is mere moments from irreversible damage or death, are the most crucial. For these victims, salvation most often comes in the form of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and defibrillation, administered promptly and properly; rapid intervention can double or triple the chance of survival. When seconds can mean the difference between life and death, the availability of superior equipment can be literally lifesaving. Defibrillators have been responsible for the survival of teenaged athletes, professional runners, and children, men, and women of all ages, many of whom appeared perfectly healthy with no warning signs of what was to come.

Transfer Solutions Inc Creates Translock, a Revolutionary New Product to Help Prevent Transfer Related Falls

The Issue

According to the US Census, approximately 2.8 million people in the United States depend on wheelchairs for mobility assistance. The National Institute of Health reports that 37.9% of wheelchair users experienced a fall at least once in the previous 12 months, and almost half of those who fell suffered fall-related injuries. Studies have shown that adults aged 65 and older are hospitalized for fall-related injuries five times more often than other injuries, and that the average health care cost of a fall injury was $19,440 (not including physician services). Gerontologists have projected the total yearly cost of fall-related expenses to be over $54 billion by the year 2020. Patient transfer accidents can and frequently do result in embarrassment to the patient, psychological trauma to the patient and his family and/or caregivers, serious injuries ranging from concussions to broken bones to internal bleeding, potential caregiver injury, hospital stays, physical and occupational therapy, and prohibitive medical and legal costs. A small percentage of falls are fatal.