gahn winter 2012 newsletter

8/3/2019 GAHN Winter 2012 Newsletter

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February 2012 VOL. 1 ISSUE 2

Greater Alabama Health NetworkFirst Steps for a Healthy Pregnancy

921 Professional Plaza Suite 108 Tuscaloosa, Al. 35401 205.345.1905 205.345.2909 fax

If your doctor has just told you that you have gestational

diabetes, you may not know how concerned you should

be. On one hand, you know that diabetes is a serious con-

dition, and that may worry you. On the other, youve been

told that this type of diabetes goes away after you deliver

your baby, so you may think that you dont have to do

anything about it.

Whats a myth and whats a fact?

Myth:You get gestational diabetes from gaining too much

weight during your pregnancy.

Fact: Medical experts dont know exactly what causes gestational

diabetes, but they have some clues. The same hormones from the

placenta that help the baby develop also block the action of the

mothers insulin in her body. This is called insulin resistance, and it

makes it hard for the mother's body to use insulin. She may need upto three times as much insulin, but her body may not be able to

make and use that much, which is when gestational diabetes

begins.

Myth: Gestational diabetes can cause birth defects.

Fact: Gestational diabetes affects the mother in late pregnancy,

when the babys body has already been formed. Because of this, it

doesnt cause the kinds of birth defects sometimes seen in babies

whose mothers had diabetes before pregnancy.

Myth:You can ignore gestational diabetes, since it will go

away after delivery anyway.

Fact: Untreated or poorly controlled gestational diabetes can hurt

your baby. When you have this condition, you cant produce

enough insulin to lower your blood glucose levels. That extra blood

glucose goes through the placenta, giving the baby high blood glu-

cose levels, which prompts the baby's pancreas to make extra insu-

lin. Since the baby is getting more energy than it needs to grow and

develop, the extra energy is stored as fat. Continued next page

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greater-Alabama-Health-Network/235699153144753

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Patient Engagement is the Holy

Grail of Healthcare

by Steve Wilkins, MPH

For health care professionals, patient engagement is the holy grail

of healthcare. It is the key to patient adherence a prerequisite

to achieving better outcomes, fewer ER visits and hospitaliza-

tions and more satisfied patients. It is easy to recognize an en-

gaged patient they do what their health care providers recom-

mends what their healthcare team knows what is right for

them.

But doesnt engagement depend upon your perspective?

In a earlier life I spent a lot of time looking at health behav-

ior. Among the many things I learned were the following:We all define health within the context of our own lives and in

our own way.

We all are satisfied with different levels of health. Admittedly

there are patterns of health behavior or archetypes which can be

used to segment health populations. One such archetype is char-

acterized as, 1) placing a high priority on achieving a high level

of personal health, 2) being very proactive in terms of achieving

and maintaining their above average health, and 3) having a mod-

erate to high distrust of the medical professionals.

Not surprisingly, people who shared this pattern of health-related

thinking demonstrated lower levels of physician visits, fewer

hospital and ER visits, lower health care costs. They were also

the healthiest when compared to all other patterns of health think-

ing and behavior. Because of their trust issues with their provid-

ers, these patients were mavericks doing their own thing when

it came to staying healthy. In other words they were not very

compliant and would be considered unengaged from the perspec-

tive of health care professionals as defined above.

People can be engaged in their own health and never see a doctor,

visit a hospital, or take a prescription medication.

Continued next page

March of Dimes Walk for BabiesJoin us April 28, 2012

Every day, thousands of babies are born too soon, too small andoften very sick. Team GAHN is walking inMarch for Babies

because we want to do something about this. I know you care,too, so if you want to join us or for more info, visit our teamweb page at www.marchforbabies.org/team/t1526918, click thejoin this team button. If you can't walk with us, please help by

donating to our team. You can do so right on the web page.Thank you for helping us give all babies a healthy start! Themission of March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by

preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality.

Courtesy of March of Dimes

Continued from Pg. 1

This can lead to a fat baby, ormacrosomia. Having a big

baby can make a vaginal delivery difficult, and can damage the

babys shoulders during birth. Newborns of mothers with gesta-

tional diabetes may have very low blood glucose levels at birth

and are also at higher risk for breathing problems. And babies

with excess insulin become children who are at risk for obesity

and adults who are at risk for type 2 diabetes.

Myth: After you deliver your baby, gestational diabetes is

gone and you dont have to worry about it again.

Fact: Once you've had gestational diabetes, your chances are 2

in 3 that it will return in future pregnancies. And many women

who have gestational diabetes go on to develop type 2 diabetes

years later.

If you have gestational diabetes, work with your health care

team to lower your high blood glucose levels. With their help,

you can stop worrying and start enjoying a healthy pregnancy

for you and your baby.

No Myth - Exercise Helps Prevent Gestational Diabetes

Article Courtesy of TypeFreeDiabetes.com


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I was born at Druid City Hospital and grew up in Tuscaloosa,

Alabama. I am married to Kathy Tywann Avery from Jasper,

Alabama, who is the clinical supervisor for the UA Student

Health Center. We have three children and four grand children.

My son is an orthopedic surgery resident in Bethlehem, PA. My

son in law is a general surgery resident at Bethesda Naval Hos-

pital in Washington, DC. I serve as the Chair of Obstetrics &

Gynecology and the Medical Laboratory Director at the Univer-

sity Medical Center. I also serve as the President of the Joint

Medical Staff of DCH Regional Medical Center.

There were no doctors in our family; most everyone in our fam-

ily had been in the railroad business for several generations. I

have wanted to be a doctor as long as I can remember. I washeavily influenced by our family physician growing up. I

worked as an Emergency Medical Technician for an ambulance

service during college. When I applied for medical school the

Dean of Admissions at the University of Alabama School of

Medicine told me not to waste my money applying to medical

school because I would never get in any medical school includ-

ing UASOM.

That was the day I decided to be a doctor, no matter what it took.

During medical school, I worked at the medical examiners of-

fice in Birmingham. One of my classmates convinced me to do

my third and fourth year

at the Tuscaloosa Campus

and I had a great experi-

ence here. After residency

training in pathology, I

completed an OB/GYN

residency in Birmingham,where I practiced for a

few years. After fellow-

ship training, I agreed to

help Dr. Will Lenahan in

Winfield, Alabama.

Winfield was a small

rural town in West Ala-

bama with a new hospital, great facilities and an outstanding

medical staff. I believe that my greatest contribution to medi-

cine has been practicing OB/GYN in rural Alabama.

One Sunday night while laboring two women, the pediatrician

on call and I saw on the Sunday night news that our malpractice

carrier had gone bankrupt. We had no malpractice coverage.

Some time after that the hospital decided to stop delivering ba-

bies. I joined Dr. Dwight E. Hooper at the University Medical

Center in 2003. Teaching medical students, residents and fellows

has been the most exciting thing I have ever done in medicine. I

am excited about going to work every day. I am reminded of a

statement by Dr Bruce Harris the founding chair of OB/GYN

here at the University Medical Center who told me: Treat every

woman as if she was you wife, your mother or your daughter

you will never go wrong. He was right!

921 Professional Plaza Suite 108 Tuscaloosa, Al. 35401 205.345.1905 205.345.2909 fax

Continued from Pg.2

If you were to tell these independently healthy folks that they

were not engaged in their own health they would likely scoff

and say what do you expect the health care industry doesnt

take the time to understand the patients perspective. In truth,

arent people like this doing a better job than the health industrywhen it comes to engagement and staying healthy? The point is

that we as health care professionals need to start looking at things

like the definition of health, health goals, compliance, and out-

comes from the patients perspective. We need to incorporate the

patients perspective into outcome and satisfaction measures.

Only then do we have the right to judge whether a person (aka

patient) is engaged, activated, or empowered. Once the health

industry gets past this paternalistic, we know better than you do

attitude then we can expect to see real change in health behavior

and outcomes.

Article Courtesy of www.kevinmd.com

Photo Courtesy Of UMC

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Dr. Daniel AveryUniversity Medical Center


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QUALITY ASSURANCE BOARDBoard Members: Dr. Daniel Avery, Dr. Sid Smith, Dr. Steve Madden, Mrs. Becky Henderson,

Mrs. Dawn Jackson, Mrs. April Hansford, Mrs. Kristy Kelly and Mrs. Earnestine Tucker.

GAHN Quality Assurance Department has the role of assuring that our agency GAHN, Inc. is in compliancewith guidelines established by the Alabama Medicaid Maternity Program. Those guidelines are specific with

certain expectations that are used to evaluate program effectiveness with defined benchmarks. Internal audits/reviews are done on ongoing basis in house with the intent of identifying and correcting deficiencies beforethe report is submitted to Medicaid.

VOL. 1 ISSUE 2

Contact Us

[email protected]

205.345.1905

Tina West,Editor

[email protected]

Tiffaney Sturdivant,Asst. Editor

[email protected]

921 Professional Plaza Suite 108

Tuscaloosa, Al. 35401

Ph 205.345.1905 FX 205.345.2909

Becky Henderson,Program Director

gahn winter 2012 newsletter

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