Anatomy and Physiology Online Course

There are schools that offer courses which could be a part of a degree or certificate program. The Anatomy and Physiology course is required for a healthcare profession degree. The online course offers an interactive learning system that allows the students to learn the subject using the internet. The course may include several subjects such as chemistry, skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine systems as well as the study of the tissues. The course may take several weeks or months.

anatomy-physiologyThis online course will be based on the student’s availability but will follow a certain timeline of course to make the program as formal as possible. Students with little or no preceding knowledge of anatomy & physiology are welcome. The content of the course is presented according to body systems. The students will learn through a series of multiple drills, games, puzzles and tests to strengthen learning and check their knowledge of anatomy & physiology.

At the end of the course, the students will be able to distinguish terms related to the human body’s anatomy and demonstrate the anatomical position of the components of a cell as well as explain each function. They will also learn to explain the anatomic terms, the major cavities of the body and the major constituents in the blood and lymph systems, the digestive system and relate them to the aspects of digestion.

When the student completes the course, they will receive a certificate of completion for 9.5 Continuing Education Units (CEUs). Whatever online course you take, make sure that it is authorized by the International Association of Continuing Education and Training. They must be following its guidelines. This will ensure the quality of the course even when it’s done online.

LPN Training

The LPN or the Licensed Practical Nurse works under the supervision of a physician and/or a registered nurse. They take care of the sick, injured, recovering and disabled in a variety of health care settings. The LPN’s job includes measuring and recording of the patient’s weight, blood pressure, height, pulse, rate of respiration, and temperature as they enter the hospital. These data is needed by the physician to have an accurate diagnosis of the patient’s diseases or illness and to know the right medication for them.

LPNThere are states that allow LPNs to prescribe medication, operate devices and conduct basic laboratory tests. The direct care provided by LPNs is supervised by doctors, registered nurses and advanced practice nurses. The student can either take the LPN preparation program in a hospital, community college or vocational-technical school. When the students fully satisfy the required training, they are then eligible to take the license examination as an LPN. They are immediately allowed to apply and work in a hospital.

It’s quite easy to get the LPN certification, but it requires much effort when it comes to the work requirement. Most of them are required to work a 40-hour week, but in graveyard shifts or sometimes in weekends and holidays.  They sometimes need to work standing and moving, to assist fully the patients who need care and monitoring. This job requires physical fitness for the LPN in order to fulfill the job requirements.

The LPNs can either continue with their studies or remain in the same position. The work requires patience to deal with a stressful workplace just like any other healthcare job. If you want to be an LPN, make sure you have the passion for patient care for you to last long with the job.

History of the Advance Placement Programs

The Advance Placement Program has become the leading educational excellence in the secondary schools in the United States. The program offers rough curricula and assessment to high school students. The AP result will be the basis for college courses, if you fail the courses you prefer, you will end up taking the course that don’t require a higher grade. This year alone, almost 2 million students have taken the exam, showing how necessary it is for college hopefuls.

The program started in 1955, its original intent was to provide students the opportunity to take college-level coursework and earn college credit while still in high school. Originally, AP was used almost exclusively for purposes of college credit and placement, as different from admissions.

There is a wide gap between secondary and higher education in the early part of the twentieth century. In two studies supported by the Ford Foundation, educators endorsed that secondary schools and colleges should work together to elude repetition in course work at the high school and college levels. The recommendation aims to motivate students to work at the height of their capabilities and to advance their skills as quickly as possible.

In the 1960s, the College Board activated a long-term pledge to teacher development. There was a good result as secondary school teachers had improved through the program. The number of schools that included AP to their advanced academic offerings had increased between 1970 and 1980. Over the years, the access to AP was expanded by the College Board by introducing Pre-AP Initiatives and AP Vertical Teams to aid students, targeting more the students in mid grade. The preparation for the AP at the moment has been advanced and has been in an utmost importance in most schools. Learning the history of the advance placement programs could make you understand its importance.

 

Why Choose Nursing Education?

When you are pursuing college, you will have many options on what career you will take. You could become an engineer, a chef, an attorney, a photographer etc., depending on what field you most likely see yourself in the future. But if you want to have a career in the health care field, then you could enter a field that has become desperate for candidates: nursing.

Nursing is an excellent choice for any students who are interested in health care. Opportunities are growing for nurses faster than qualified individuals can fill the openings, which virtually ensure your employment once you graduate. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, nursing is the fastest growing profession in the economy. There is also a projected shortage for nurses, currently and in the years to come. The estimates of the U.S. Healthcare Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) state that the country will need several hundred thousand more nurses by year 2020. This shows how important nurses will be and how large the opportunity is for them.

Nursing is a noble profession and it positively affects individuals in the community. When you are a nurse, you have the opportunity to provide care for infants, children, adults and elders to avoid or prevent diseases or to help patients recover from their illnesses. Nurses actually compose most of the healthcare work force and have diverse work settings.

Nurses can either work on hospitals, heath clinics, care facilities, home health agencies, or schools. Advancing your studies is possible in nursing. You can pursue nursing education at the graduate levels to advance your skills and earn more knowledge. Salaries are not an issue for nurses. Due to the accuracy and the efforts offered by nurses, they need proper compensation. The growing need for nurses also helps in the increase of nurses’ salary. But, for nurses who work for the love of the services they rendered, salary is just a bonus.

Patient Care Technician

There are many exciting opportunities right now in the healthcare field. More and more healthcare professionals are needed every year due to an increasing aged population that need care, the number of retirees from the healthcare profession, and the upgrade of the healthcare industry which requires more professionals with specific training. One of the most exciting professions is the patient care technician, which is in high demand right now. It is a well-respected profession and can lead you to a great career path.

There are specific responsibilities a PCT plays, and help patients in so many different ways. One of their main roles is to aid patients in performing activities that they are not able to do on their own. These regular activities will include tasks such as bathing, dressing, motion exercises, etc. It is indeed very stressful to visit a hospital, both on the patient and their family. It is the job of the Patient Care Technician to ease the stress by assisting them the best they can.

The training for PCTs includes many different activities that occur in medical services. This includes checking the vital signs of the patients and collecting specimens. The PCTs are also well oriented with the use of diagnostic equipment. Like nurses, they will be managing the patient’s medical records and charts. During the physical exam, the patient care technician will be assisting the physician.

It takes a lot of determination, of course to be a PCT, like any other healthcare profession. To be able to get a job in this field, you need to find patient care technician schools to complete your required course. You will learn about the duties of a health care technician in a more detailed manner. You will be more oriented in how to deal with your patient and how to have great patience. Proper communication will be learned during the course, which will be very helpful in the future.

Healthcare Management vs. Healthcare Administration

Healthcare institutions require managers with the skills, knowledge, and practical experience necessary to keep with the ever growing needs for healthcare and maintenance. Healthcare today is among the largest and fastest-growing industries in the United States. The Healthcare Management concentration develops the managerial skills needed to work in today’s synchronized, complex healthcare field.

Definitions of healthcare management and healthcare administration can be easily confused. Many people, of course, cannot help but use the two phrases interchangeably. Mainly, the difference between administration and management is much similar to the difference between sales and marketing. In sales and marketing, they are used to generate revenue for a company, but they achieve that task in two different ways. It’s is the same with healthcare management and administration. The sales is the face of a company that has the personal contact with clients and marketing attempts to expand the corporate client base through advertising and other physical means. While marketing is much more involved in demographics than sales would be, the sales department is much more focused in increasing the revenue numbers than marketing.

Likewise, healthcare administration is responsible in running the healthcare organization. Administration deals more with functionality of a facility, while healthcare management deals more with staffing and direct patient care.

 

Respiratory Therapists on Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency Detection Training

A new study finds that the respiratory therapists can help improve the detection rate of people with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency. The year-long study aimed at detecting people with Alpha-1 referred for testing by RTs and the genotype distribution of referred people found to have Alpha-1. The study authors hypothesized that trained RTs could promote Alpha-1 testing, and in doing so, improve detection of those affected in the course of their routine practices.

The study also considered that RTs can be at the front line of care for patients in pulmonary laboratories, rehabilitation, and post-acute settings, where they are in a position to see and recommend testing for at-risk patients. They reasoned that because many patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) see healthcare providers other than pulmonologists and RTs have been shown to effectively participate in diagnosing patients with Alpha-1, the RTs could help identify previously unrecognized patients with Alpha-1-related COPD.

Coupled with the availability of free, confidential, at-home testing for Alpha-1 through the Alpha-1 Coded Testing (ACT) Study,  there was an opportunity to assess whether trained RTs referred COPD patients for Alpha-1 testing and determine the yield of identification by RTs of those who are severely alpha-1 antitrypsin deficient. Outcome measures include the number of trained RTs and the rate at which trained RTs recommended Alpha-1 testing to their patients, as well as the rate at which such tested patients were found to have Alpha-1.

The main findings show that RT education programs that instruct RTs regarding Alpha-1 diagnosis and management were more widely used in the first year of implementation than those who did not receive such training, and that, despite only a small number of submitted specimens over the years of study, the yield of detecting individuals with severe Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency was 3.2% higher than in many previously reported targeted detection studies. In addition, the yield of detecting MZ individuals was very high, at 24.2%.

The authors behind the study concluded that, to the extent, the rate of detecting severely alpha-1 antitrypsin deficient patients here exceeds that in prior reports of targeted testing, the findings support the idea that respiratory therapists play important roles in improving detection of people with Alpha-1, and that training RTs is an effective measure to enhance Alpha-1 detection.

Senior Care Home Monitoring Technology

Our population has growing needs for healthcare, specially our aging family members. Fortunately, technology continues to advance as well and play an ever growing role in meeting those needs. Technology has the power to help our older adults to be healthier, safer, and age in place independently for as long as possible.

There are many healthcare devices that regularly come out in the market. Some are upgrades of the old ones and some are new and more advanced. Most of these devices are designed for home monitoring. These products are tested well before they offer it to the market and checked well for quality.

Being able to manage the seniors’ health at home will keep them healthier and independent longer.  It also helps to keep their healthcare costs down and perhaps even prevent traumatic events while traveling to the hospital.

Different companies are working to make home monitoring easier for senior care. They integrate the new mobile devices and gadgets with the medical devices to make it more usable. Devices such as smart phones, tablets, and computers can be linked with the medical devices. These devices will examine the patient’s health status and will further link the information and data that is obtained with both family caregivers and the healthcare providers who provide senior care.

Several companies provide personal emergency response monitors that can call an alert response center as needed. When the patient is at risk, the device sends an alert to emergency personnel and first responders. Other medical devices might be provided by an in-home care company can connect a patient directly with nurses, and include vital signs monitoring, blood pressure, weight, blood oxygen saturation, pulse, and blood sugar monitoring. These devices don’t just help monitor the patient’s health status, it allows them to stay at home longer.

About the CLEP Exam

The College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) was developed by the College Board, and is the most widely used credit-by-examination program. It is available at more than 2,900 colleges and universities. After passing any of the 34 CLEP exams, you can accomplish your college and career goals in nursing. The program is very helpful because it requires a smaller amount of money compared to paying the whole college course fees.

There are many organizations that offer courses for preparation of CLEP and DSST exams. They provide helpful online study guides that give you the content to prepare for CLEP test. The content of these guides has been focused and is easy to follow. It assists students to prepare for exams without pressuring them too much. The College Board also publishes study guides containing sample tests for all exams. These sample tests are important because they are in similar form with the actual exam.

There is a specially designed CLEP Testing phase in which one can take 4 course tests in one month with a 100% pass rate. This equals to 24 college credits. The main advantages of CLEP exams for a student are to save money that is approx $21,600 per student and also save time. Taking the necessary preparation is needed to pass the CLEP exam. Make sure you are fully equipped with knowledge and some techniques before the examination.

 

LPN Working Environment

There are many different healthcare facilities where you can work as an LPN, such as in physician offices, public and private hospitals, home healthcare services, and community care facilities for seniors. Some LPNs may even work in laboratories maintaining equipment usability and effectiveness.

An LPN may be able to work as the school nurse but would need to check with the state licensing board first to see if they have completed the qualifications. They could also help formulate a nursing plan for a patient or teach community information classes. They could also work as a home health aide, going to various patients’ homes to help with their daily care, take their vitals, note any complaints, and report such to the patients’ lead general practitioner.

The institution where an LPN works will determine the work schedule. In a hospital setting, they could work any shift, weekends, holidays, and sometimes on call. There are some LPNs who work twelve hour shifts that can be from 7 am to 7 pm, or be odd hours like from 11 am to pm. In some places medical facilities, like hospitals, you may be called a “floater” which means that the LPN would be stationed in a defined area of a hospital, and help out where ever the need arises. And depending on the facility, an LPN might be assigned a certain number of patients each day for which they are accountable.

An LPN may give injections and oral medications to patients. What exactly the duties of an LPN would be, again, depends on medical facility’s choice of duty assignment. They may be on their feet their entire shift apart from breaks and you may also have to help patients if they have fallen, have difficulty getting to their feet after being in the bathroom, etc. This is a job that can be hard on your back and feet so the applicant must need to make sure that they are in good health and with great determination to pursue.