Screenings promote healthy lifestyles

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February 5, 2012

CVPH holds free screenings during annual Go Red event

JEFF MEYERS Press-Republican The Press Republican Sun Feb 05, 2012, 02:28 AM EST

PLATTSBURGH — Disease prevention was the focal point of the day during the Heart Healthy Screenings event at West Side Ballroom.

As a precursor to the annual Go Red For Women Dinner, CVPH Medical Center hosted a series of free health screenings for women.

"Our intention is getting people into the mind-set of intervention," Mark Lukens, director of business management for the Medical Center, said during the day-long event. "Collectively, we wanted to look at how we can provide outreach services to the community."

CVPH has developed a preventive-medicine program that focuses on four major areas of health care: cardiovascular, orthopedic, oncology and women and children's health. Management and staff from those four areas worked together to come up with Healthy Heart Screenings.

Services included free cholesterol and glucose screenings, blood-pressure and body-mass index (BMI) screenings and a colorectal-cancer risk assessment.

"CVPH is a place you can go to have problems fixed," said Robin Flint, service-line director for the cardiovascular program. "Our hope is to change the focus to keep people from getting sick to begin with through continuity of care and education."

As of mid-afternoon, about 50 women had taken advantage of the free screenings.

"We've tried to connect today's focus on women's health (with the Go Red For Women event) with these outreach services," Lukens said. "It's an opportunity to stress those risk factors for heart disease.

"This is really just the start," he added. "We want people to learn more about what we have to offer."

Glucose screenings can help identify early warning signs for diabetes. Maintaining healthy cholesterol and blood-pressure levels is important in maintaining a healthy heart. The BMI index is an indicator of body fat determined by a person's height and weight and is used to screen for weight categories that may lead to health problems.

Daytime activities also included several educational displays on the changing health-care field, including the Medical Home program, which emphasizes the combined efforts between hospital, physician and patient in creating healthy lifestyles.

The event included a blood drive by the North Country Regional Blood Center, which provides blood products to five regional hospitals, including CVPH, Adirondack Medical Center and Elizabethtown Community Hospital.

"I received an email (about the drive) an hour ago and came over," said donor Michelle McGrath, who also took part in the cholesterol screening.

"I try to give blood whenever I can."

Email Jeff Meyers at: jmeyers@pressrepublican.com