Media Zone
Healthy Support for the CDNA
Health to Hand, a new ethically-driven service designed as a ‘one-stop-shop’, bringing healthcare information to both the public and healthcare professionals, has been invited to support the Community and District Nursing Association for their forthcoming CDNA Live 2009 Conference & Gala Dinner on the 29th-30th April. This year’s event is a particularly special one, seeing in their 150th anniversary and as a result, they are taking the Conference back to the origins of District Nursing in Liverpool. ‘We are very proud to have been invited to be involved with this important event. The snergy couldn’t be better with the forthcoming launch of our new Community Nursing medi-bag, supporting health practitioners that assist patients at the forefront of homecare delivery’, commented Nichole Davies, Managing Director.
Health to Hand delivers complimentary medi-bags containing educational resources sourced from the experts, to healthcare professionals for use with patients and to further develop their own knowledge base. With healthcare professionals seeing an average of 114 patients a week, Health to Hand provides a platform for health communications to a massive potential audience reach. They conducted their national pilot launch in November 2008 within 500 of the UK’s largest healthcare centres and they were overwhelmed with the level of response. ‘We partnered with organisations conducting excellent work in the field of healthcare education, such as the National Association of Premenstral Syndrome and Alpro Soya to bring these resources straight into the hands of healthcare professionals, helping them in their daily work with patients. Over 70% of the practices have since signed up to receive our service on a regular basis, which goes to show that these professionals desperately need access to such programmes’. It may be a surprise to many to learn that Kidney Disease was voted the number one disease area that healthcare professionals want covered in the service. This was closely followed by Weight Management, Food & Nutrition and Asthma & Allergies.
The idea behind Health to Hand came from the personal experience of being faced with life changing news on health, and the ensuing task of trying to gather information from the internet, which was a frightening thing to go through. Websites offer conflicting advice from countries all over the world and added to the questionable currency of information, you can end up being more confused than you were when you started. ‘The clinical setting provides the perfect environment to educate patients with the guidance of a trusted medical expert who knows the individuals’ health history. Patients can ask questions and take resources home to share with their family and friends. It gets people talking about health, breaks down barriers and builds essential relationships’ continued Davies. ‘What has surprised us most is how many medics also want training incorporated for their own professional development. This dedicated workforce simply does not have the time to source suitable materials. That’s what we’re here to help with.’ Health to Hand has a fantastic online information resource where healthcare professionals can login to access education resources from early June. The site also has health topics covered for the general public and you can subscribe to receive their complimentary monthly newsletter packed full of interesting health articles and regular features like smoothie of the month and body zone of the month. Look out for patient blogs arriving soon in their Community section.
Click onto www.healthtohand.com to start living healthier.
