December 2015 Health | NorthBay biz
NorthBay biz

December 2015 Health

  • Norman Rosinski

    • CNA Training in the North Bay

    The North Bay CNA training program was founded in January 2015 by Cindy Carver, a licensed nurse (pictured here with an elderly patient). “We prepare students to take the California state test to receive their certified nursing assistant certificate,” she explains. “ This certification lets them work in a hospital, skilled nursing facility, home care or hospice care.”
     
    To help as many potential students as she can join the growing field, the program offers 12 full-time sessions per year, six part-time sessions and four weekend sessions. There can be as many as 20 students per session, per state regulations. Class size varies from month to month, and the schedule is intense, but flexible. Students are required to have 50 hours of theory and 100 hours of clinical experience before taking the exam.
     
    The program serves a wide area, including Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, Rohnert Park, Marin, Petaluma, Cloverdale, Ukiah, Sebastopol, San Francisco and the East Bay, with theory and lab classes taking place in Rohnert Park. Carver details, “The clinical portion of the program rotates, depending on the month, through several skilled nursing facilities, including Healdsburg Senior Living Skilled Nursing Facility, as well as Emeritus Skilled Nursing Facility and Summerfield Health Center in Santa Rosa.
     
    “We have a 100 percent pass rate with our program, and a 99 percent pass rate with the state,” says Carver. “We’re so proud of our students, and they’re proud to call themselves certified nursing assistants, making a difference in people’s lives, as well as their own.”
     
     

    New Services at MCC

    The Marin Community Clinic has begun offering radiology services at its Kerner Boulevard Clinic in San Rafael. So far, Marin Community Clinics is the only clinic in the Redwood Community Health Coalition to provide this service onsite. To start, radiology will be offered four hours per day and three days per week. Hours will be expanded as volume gradually increases. This service will also be available at the Novato clinic when the expansion at that site is completed in 2016.
     
    Services include general x-rays for adults and children. Additional services such as ultrasounds are being explored for the future. The equipment produces digital rather than film x-rays. The clinic also has a bilingual radiology technologist and local radiologists to read the x-rays.
     
    Having onsite radiation equipment will not only serve to improve patient satisfaction but will be able to provide higher quality care at less cost. Even with three days per week scheduled, the clinic estimates it will be able to see 180 patients per month.
     

    Sit Up!

    For most Americans, the workweek is around 47 hours. The majority of those hours are spent sitting hunched over a computer. But when we slouch at our desks or on our way to work, we put strain on multiple muscles in our bodies. This can result in back pain, poor circulation, difficulty breathing and even headaches.
     
    UpRight is a new wearable technology that lets the body maintain better posture. This device is small, lightweight and effective, working to keep your posture perfect by lightly vibrating whenever you slouch.
     
    The UpRight mobile app is easy to use and can be personalized to create a training program that’s right for you. It generates real time feedback with posture analytics and statistics, which makes tracking your progress simple and more intuitive.

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