From Executive Director John P. Rupp · first steps toward regulating electronic cigarettes, making...
Transcript of From Executive Director John P. Rupp · first steps toward regulating electronic cigarettes, making...
From Executive Director John P. Rupp:
I am proud to announce that Breathe Pennsylvania has been named as a recipient of the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations' Standards for Excellence® accreditation program. This accreditation illustrates our commitment to upholding the principles and practices of the Standards for Excellence®: an Ethics and Accountability Code for the Nonprofit Sector, which evaluates honesty, integrity, fairness, respect, trust, responsibility, and accountability in nonprofit program operations, governance, human resources, financial management, and fundraising. For nearly two years, Breathe Pennsylvania’s Board of Directors and staff worked tirelessly to achieve this accreditation. The Standards for Excellence® seal represents our organizations’ diligence and commitment to transparency and accountability to our community and donors. For over a century, we have been providing our community with critical lung disease education and services. We work every day to help Western Pennsylvanians breathe better and live healthier. We want our donors, as well as the community-at-large, to understand our commitment to our mission and the level of integrity at which we operate.
This accreditation is what we hope will be the first of many big announcements in the year ahead. Our staff has been planning for the last few months to create new and innova-tive educational opportunities for patients and the healthcare community. Inside you will find information on our new School Asthma In-Service being offered this fall. This issue of Fresh Air also serves as our annual thank you to our donors. Without them, we could not have provided the critical assistance and support to patients this past year. To date, we have provided more than $76,000 in financial patient assistance, and served more than730 individuals through our educational programs. Looking ahead, the 2016-17 fundraising theme is “Assistance where needed, education always”. Our Annual Fund goal is to raise $50,000 by June 30, 2017. Donations starting at $25 can help a patient attend or extend their time at pulmonary rehabilitation, and $50 can provide medication for a lung disease patient. Please know that whatever you give, it makes a difference. Every dollar donated to us is reinvested directly back into our community. Please help someone breathe better this year!
Asthma Management Tips for Early Learning
Practitioners: Parent/Teacher Communication
By: Jeannie Simms, Senior Director of Asthma and Education
Programs
What does asthma feel like? To better understand what a pre-
schooler is experiencing when having an asthma attack at your
center, try this demonstration: Take a drinking straw, place it in
your mouth, pinch your nose shut and breathe through the straw
for 60 seconds.
If a child is experiencing an asthma attack, the first step of action is
to use a rescue albuterol inhaler or nebulizer. However, parents
sometimes don’t provide the medication, which can be trouble-
some once an asthma attack occurs.
Lack of medication is one of the many barriers that can interfere
with an early learning practitioner’s ability to properly handle a
child’s asthma attack. Others include:
Inability to contact parents
Need for asthma education for staff
Lack of an asthma action plan that addresses exercise/activity
Lack of proper equipment such as a nebulizer, adequate
tubing, and inhalers with spacers
The best place to start is to create a partnership of care with your
student’s family. Work with them to ensure that basic asthma edu-
cation; support for teaching the child self-management skills; or
referrals to outside agencies for education, materials, and other
resources are available to them.
If you are looking for an educational program that addresses
asthma in the classroom, Breathe Pennsylvania offers a two- to
three-hour asthma training for early learning practitioners. For
more information, contact me at [email protected].
Over the next couple of months, we wil l be outlining
asthma management tips and strategies to help early
learning practitioners better serve preschool -aged
children.
School Nurse Asthma Training Alert!
Breathe Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing are collaborating to present a pediatric asthma training: Current Asthma Classifications/Treatment Guidelines and Breath Sounds Training.
Participants successfully completing this training will be awarded a maximum of three (3) continuing nursing education contact hours. The University of Pittsburgh is accredited as a provider of continuing nursing education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation (ANCC Pro-vider Number 0229).
Breathe Pennsylvania recognizes how difficult it sometimes is for all school nurses within a district to attend this type of training. With this in mind, Jessica Schuman, RN, BSN and Jeannie Simms, Senior Director of Asthma and Education, will arrange to come to you, making it possible for all nurses within a district to have an opportunity to attend and receive the CEUs.
The cost for this three-hour CEU training is $10.00 per nurse. The training will help to define asthma best practice in school procedure and policy. The program objectives are:
Explain the four asthma classifications and which medications are used for each classification.
Describe Aerosol Drug Delivery Systems, the difference between rescue and controlling medications, and demon-strate proper technique using a spacer.
Identify and interpret four abnormal breath sounds and how to respond.
Demonstrate how to use a peak flow meter and how to establish green/yellow/red zones for proper asthma management.
Please contact Jessica Schuman at [email protected] for further details. Space is limited so set up your training today!
Classroom Clean-up
for Students With Asthma
By: Jessica Schuman, RN, BSN, Director of Asthma Education
and Programs
Back-to-school season is here again!
While the first day of school can be so exciting, classrooms
that sat closed up for months might provoke an asthma
attack. When focusing on classroom clean up and set up,
please keep students with allergies and asthma in mind.
These simple tips can keep your classroom healthier for
students with asthma:
1. Keep the classroom free of clutter, which can accumulate
dust and dust mites.
2. Make sure air supply vents are properly working and are
not blocked.
3. Don’t cover up smells. The scents from oil wall plugins,
room deodorizers and candles can trigger asthma very
quickly. If there is a smell in the room, figure out where it is
coming from.
4. Contact the custodian for stained ceilings or walls. It might
indicate that there is a water leak, increasing the chance for
the presence of mold or mildew.
5. Limit the use of area rugs. If you have some, make sure
they are cleaned weekly.
6. Store any supplies in clear plastic containers and avoid
using cardboard boxes. Cardboard can be an invitation for
pests to build a home.
Proper classroom clean up and set up will eliminate allergy
and asthma triggers, allowing all students to have a great
first day—and a great school year.
Let’s Talk About The Weather & COPD! By: Marianne Drevna, BS, LRCP, Direct of Adult Lung Health and Programs
Most people with chronic lung diseases know that extremes in temperature, meaning below freezing or above 90 degrees, can trigger exacerbations. Three factors can impact your ability to breathe in the summer—heat, sunlight and humidity.
When it’s hot, your body overworks as it tries to stay cool. You sweat more, which can cause dehydration and shortness of breath as a result.
Sunlight creates certain chemical reactions with pollutants in the air that cause an increase in ozone. This can result in difficulty breathing, irritation to your nose and throat, coughing, and wheezing.
High humidity levels can make it even harder to catch your breath. Warm air holds more moisture than cold air, reducing the amount of oxygen present. As humidity increases, the denser air is much more difficult to breathe if you have chronic lung issues.
It can be frustrating, but there’s plenty that you can do to help alleviate your symptoms during hot summer days:
Avoid the heat. Stay in an air conditioned place as much as possible.
Stay out of the sun, especially from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. when it’s the hottest.
Reduce strenuous activity. This does NOT mean you can skip your pulmonary rehab, though. Rehab will help, even during hot days.
Drink cold water and avoid alcohol because it can cause dehydration.
Eat normally, but separate meals into smaller portions, lower your salt intake, and try cold foods like fruits and vegetables.
Use a handheld fan or a large fan. Don’t point a large fan directly at your face because they can get very dusty.
Summer is an opportunity to relax, so take it easy when it’s hot and humid out—and stay cool!
Nasal Spray Flu Vaccine No Longer Recommended for the 2016-2017 Flu Season By: Joan McMahon, RN, MPH, TB Service Educator
People who have preferred to use live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV), or more popularly known as the “nasal spray” flu vaccine, might want to think twice about doing so this flu season.
The Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted in June 2016 that LAIV should not be used during the 2016-2017 flu season following the release of preliminary data indicating that among study children ages 2 years through 17 years, LAIV was found to be only 3 percent effective against flu viruses. In comparison, flu shots had a 63 percent effectiveness rate in a same age study population. ACIP continues to recommend annual flu vaccination with either inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) or recombinant influenza vaccine (RIV) for everyone ages 6 months and older.
Both CDC and ACIP had preferentially recommended the nasal vaccine for young children during the 2014-2015 flu season.
Vaccine manufacturers had projected that as many as 171-176 million doses of flu vaccine, in all forms, would be available in the United States during the 2016-2017 season. LAIV is currently the only non-injection flu vaccine available on the market. The ACIP’s June vote may have implications for pediatricians and providers who have already placed vaccine orders, since data from recent seasons suggests that nasal spray flu vaccine has accounted for about one-third of all flu vaccines given to children. The CDC will be working with vaccine manufacturers throughout the summer to assure that there is enough injectable vaccine supply to meet the demand.
CDC regularly conducts vaccine effectiveness studies. This ACIP vote demonstrates the importance of measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of public health interventions and changing public health policy, when necessary, to assure that the population’s health is optimally protected. Before this ACIP recommendation becomes official CDC policy, it must be reviewed and approved by CDC’s director. The final annual recommendations on the prevention and control of influenza will be published in a CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) in late summer or early fall of 2016.
E-Cigarette Regulations: What Do They Mean? By: Carla A. Conrad, MS-RRT-NPS, Program Coordinator & Director of
Tobacco Cessation and Education Programs
On August 8, 2016, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took its
first steps toward regulating electronic cigarettes, making them
subject to extensive review and harder to get into the hands of
minors.
So, why does the FDA have the authority to regulate these products?
In 2009, President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and
Tobacco Control Act into law. Commonly known as the “Tobacco
Control Act”, this law gave the FDA the ability to ban tobacco product
sales to minors, tobacco-brand sponsorships at sports and
entertainment events, and giveaways of sample cigarettes and
promotional items. In early 2016, the FDA extended its authority over
electronic cigarettes and hookahs.
What do these regulations mean?
All vaping products currently on the market will be required to
submit a premarket approval application to stay on the market.
Manufacturers must submit ingredient lists and quantities of
harmful and potentially harmful ingredients. This includes vape
shops that mix their own e-cigarette liquids and modify parts of
e-cigarettes.
Vaping shops must check a photo ID of everyone younger than 27
and sell to only people who are 18 or older.
Products must be labeled with the following statement:
“WARNING: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an
addictive chemical.”
At Breathe Pennsylvania, we are glad that a regulatory body is
stepping in to prevent minors from easily accessing these products.
Last year, 16% of high schoolers used e-cigarettes, up from 1.5% in
2011. We have been working with Pennsylvania state legislators to
encourage the passage of tighter restrictions, and despite our efforts,
the state of Pennsylvania was only one of two states without some
form of regulations before the FDA stepped in.
Thank you to our donors! Annual Donors July 2015-June 2016
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Anonymous
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The Pittsburgh Foundation
Save the Date!
_____________
September 21, 2016
The Pittsburgh Foundation
Day of Giving
Make your annual gift to Breathe Pennsylvania
through the Pittsburgh Gives website. The annual Day
of Giving is a perfect time to take part in a great
event that directly benefits Breathe Pennsylvania.
The minimum donation amount is $25, and all
donations need to be made online through The
Pittsburgh Foundation website.
Questions? Please contact Brittany Zuckerman,
Director of Development at 724.772.1750
Tobacco Cessation
Do you want to help your employees quit smoking?
If you answered yes to this question, you can get
trained in new methods of tobacco cessation by
registering for Breathe Pennsylvania’s Smoke-Free
for Life Facilitator Training program.
More information and 2016 training dates can be
found at www.breathepa.org.