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Like a heat wave

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Start. Quit. Start. Quit. Start. Quit!

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Healthcare Inequality: Why Everyone Should Care

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Turn That Frown Upside-Down

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The Social-Validation Feedback Loop

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Norfolk State University Holds First Annual Student Health Literacy Symposium

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What Experts Say About Improving Health Literacy: What Works & Why

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Like a heat wave

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Start. Quit. Start. Quit. Start. Quit!

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Healthcare Inequality: Why Everyone Should Care

Newsletters

Turn That Frown Upside-Down

Health Literacy

The Social-Validation Feedback Loop

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Norfolk State University Holds First Annual Student Health Literacy Symposium

Health Literacy

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Like a heat wave

(This is an example of the weekly newsletters that go out to all users of The EdLogics Platform, a gamified space that improves employee engagement and health literacy. Contact us to learn how to get access for your organization.)

It's been hot.

Hot enough that 90 degrees feels easy and breezy by comparison. Hot enough that I feel like I’m melting into an oozy puddle as I flop on the floor in front of my laughably inadequate portable AC unit, battling 115-degree temps and large, south-facing windows.

Outside, the plants and trees are scorched by direct sunlight and baked by the heat rising from the pavement. And not just the plants — in some parts of the country, the pavement and sidewalks are so hot they’re causing serious burns in people and pets.

It gets worse. Last year, more than 2,300 people in the US died from heat-related illnesses, the most in 45 years. This year is shaping up to be even hotter — and summer’s only half over.

Experts warn that extreme heat is the most dangerous of all weather-related conditions — worse than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined.

So take the scorching temps seriously. Here are some tips that can help you protect yourself and your loved ones:

  • Stay cool. Don’t rely just on fans — they stir the air around, but they won’t lower your temperature or keep you from getting sick. If you don’t have air conditioning, get to a place that does, like a library or shopping mall. Many cities now have special cooling centers, so see if there’s one near you. Cool baths and showers help, too.
  • Stay hydrated. Make it a point to drink more than you usually do, no matter how active you are. Water and sports drinks are best. Skip sugary drinks and alcohol — they can make you lose fluids.
  • Adjust your exercise routine. Don’t try to tough out a hot workout. If you normally go for a lunchtime walk or run, switch to early morning instead. Gyms can heat up, too, so plan accordingly. Indoors or out, wear gear made from breathable fabrics that wick away sweat.
  • Mind your meds. Some medicines — especially those for high blood pressure, heart conditions, allergies, and certain mental health problems — can raise your risk for heat exhaustion and heat stroke. Talk to your doctor if you take any of these medicines and need to be out in the heat.
  • Watch out for kids and older people. They’re especially vulnerable to high heat. Dress babies and young children in light clothing and stay somewhere cool on hot days as much as you can. Check in on older neighbors and family often.
  • Protect your pets. Make sure they have plenty of shade and water when they’re outside. Avoid hot sidewalks when you walk your dog. And NEVER leave pets — or anyone else — in a closed car on a warm day.
  • Know when to get help. If you’re feeling sick, drink fluids and try to cool down. If you don’t feel better in about 30 minutes, go to the ER. Heat stroke is serious and needs to be treated quickly.

Log in now. Learn ways to stay safe from extreme heat and other threats.

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Beat the Heat — Then Beat the Clock!

Newsletters

Start. Quit. Start. Quit. Start. Quit!

(This is an example of the weekly newsletters that go out to all users of The EdLogics Platform, a gamified space that improves employee engagement and health literacy. Contact us to learn how to get access for your organization.)

Smokin'

I quit smoking. For good now.

It’s an odd feeling. This has happened a few times:

“I thought you quit?” my friend would say as I reached, again, for my NYC-priced Camel Blues (at that time, $15 a pack 😱).

“Sure,” I’d say. “I quit lots of times.”

Undermining, of course, the whole notion of quitting. That’s the nature of bad habits.

You know smoking’s not good for you. It hurts others. It’s expensive. And that’s nothing compared to the cancer, COPD, asthma, or heart disease you’ll almost certainly get. Diseases you can easily avoid by not smoking.

But you do it anyway.

Believe me. I feel for you. More than once, I’ve decided, triumphantly, to finally quit smoking — and then reached for the next one within the same 30-second span.

It’s humbling. And it’s made it easier to empathize with, rather than judge, those who suffer from addiction.

I haven’t smoked for over 9 years now. Haven’t even wanted to. How’d I do it?

Everyone who quits will do it their own way. In my case, I took up yoga.

For someone who smoked, it was miserable at first. I was gasping for breath, dizzy, and inflexible. But that post-yoga feeling was unlike anything I’d ever experienced — wrung out, calm, happy, at peace — and I didn’t want to trade it for anything.

Not even cigarettes.

That’s the true power of habit — on both sides of the coin. Sure, it’s easy to slip into bad habits, to talk yourself into self-indulgence. But it’s also easy to develop, and stick to, good habits.

Once you get in the habit. 😉

Replace bad habits with good ones.

It doesn’t have to be hot yoga (but try it!) — just anything that gets the monkey off your back. Get your mind off cigarette cravings with a quick walk. Ten push-ups. A game on your phone. A phone call to friends or family. A carrot. A handstand. A song and dance. Whatever it takes 

The sooner you quit, the lower your risk for painful disease, hospital bills, and bitter regrets.

Log in now. Peruse our new slideshow: “What Happens When You Quit Smoking Tobacco.” The health benefits start within minutes — and will last you the rest of your (now longer) life.

Check back soon to see more updates on the Smoking Cessation learning page!

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Valentine's Day Survival Guide

he candlelight flickers. You glance up. Your Valentine is already looking at you with soft eyes. Soft light dances on their face and you smile. Holding hands across the table, caressing thumbs, neither of you says anything. The sounds of a crowded restaurant fade as you’re lost in each other’s gaze. 

Sigh ...

Maybe not this year.

Valentine’s Day can be tough when you’re single. Everywhereyou look, you see couples holding hands, sharing chocolates, sending flowers,whispering sweet nothings. It can make anyone feel left out and lonely.

Why not use this February to nurture the relationships in your life that you care most about? That includes the one you have with yourself! Here are some tips to help you beat the blues and enjoy the day, with a friend or on your own.

Embrace the independence

Being single on Valentine’s Day gives you the opportunity to do what you love and indulge in some much-needed self-care. Spend the day at a spa, go shopping, or treat yourself to dinner out. Remember, you don’t need someone else to make you happy.

Surround yourself with friends

If you don’t want to spend the day alone, gather a group of single friends and celebrate together. Plan a date, exchange gifts, cook, watch movies, and talk about how annoying Valentine’s Day is.

Get creative

If you’re feeling adventurous, try something new. Cook up an exotic new recipe. Go bungee jumping. Sign up for guitar lessons. Go horseback riding. Sing karaoke. Plan a solo adventure, like traveling to a new city or hiking a nearby trail. Attend a concert. Participate in a singles event or speed dating session. Doing something that takes you out of your comfort zone can be a great way to build confidence and fight loneliness. 

Volunteer 

Spending time helping others helps you feel fulfilled and connected to your community. Volunteer at a local charity, visit an elderly care home, or help out at a homeless shelter.

It’s more important than it sounds. Loneliness can hurt your health. Studies have shown that loneliness can lead to depression, anxiety, and even physical health problems like heart disease. That’s why it’s so important to build — and maintain — a strong community of friends and family.

Having a supportive network of people you can turn to for help and encouragement is essential for your well-being. Join a club, take up a sport, or just spend time with your neighbors — connection is everything.

Valentine’s Day is about honoring and tending to the supportive relationships in your life, whether they’re romantic or not. Embrace your independence, surround yourself with friends, get creative, and don’t forget the importance of community.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Log in now. Learn about other ways to stay healthy and add years to your life.

(This is an example of the weekly newsletters that go out to all users of The EdLogics Platform, a gamified space that improves employee engagement and health literacy. Contact us to learn how to get access for your organization.)

Health Literacy

Win-Win: How Healthcare Gamification Helps Companies and Employees

In 2012, Tom Chamberlain, PharmD, founded EdLogics, our gamified health education platform. Recently he shared how he first got the idea from working with patients, and the results so far.

Let’s start with your background. You began your career as a pharmacist, right?

Right. As a PharmD and an entrepreneur, I’ve been involved in starting and growing a number of companies, all of them focused on healthcare education and improving the utilization of healthcare services. My primary objective has always been to improve clinical outcomes and reduce healthcare costs for consumers and payors of healthcare services.

And how did you get the idea for EdLogics?

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to manage my own patients during my doctor of pharmacy program and residency training. Having firsthand experience treating patients with chronic conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and COPD, I knew the challenges of educating and engaging patients in the self-management of their conditions. Traditional educational strategies such as pamphlets and printouts weren’t effective in teaching patients what they needed to know to improve their conditions.

For people with diabetes, testing blood sugar is a routine part of managing their condition. If you’re injecting insulin or using a pump, you may have to test several times a day. Without accurate blood sugar tests, you might not get the right amount of insulin at the right times.

If you can’t measure your blood sugar, you can’t control it. And if you can’t control your blood sugar, you raise your risk of amputations, heart attacks, blindness, erectile dysfunction, and many other problems. One immediate risk is diabetic ketoacidosis, which comes on quickly and can be fatal. Even if you survive, your ER trip will cost thousands of dollars. And it all can be avoided with appropriate education.

Many patients seem to understand how to check their blood sugar once someone shows them. But it was clear to me that most of my patients had forgotten what they’d learned by their next visit. They still weren’t retaining the information needed to manage their diabetes.

This happened over and over again – and similar scenarios occurred with a number of patients with various chronic conditions. I realized we’d never be able to help our patients if we couldn’t find a better way to teach them what to do.

Is that where health literacy comes in?

Yes, but a lot of people aren’t familiar with the term. Here’s one definition:

“Health literacy is the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.”

Or to put it more simply:

“Health literacy means you can find and understand the information you need to make good decisions about your health.”

Low health literacy is now recognized as a critical barrier to effective and efficient healthcare. It’s an enormous problem, and the consequences are far-reaching. For instance, did you know that compared to patients with adequate health literacy, patients with low health literacy have:

  • 40% higher risk of going to the emergency room
  • 55% higher risk of hospitalization from asthma
  • 3 times more heart failure hospitalizations
  • and 3 times greater odds of 30-day readmission for patients over age 64

In fact, the cost of low health literacy in the US is somewhere between $106 billion and $238 billion per year. It’s unreal!

If we want to improve health outcomes and lower healthcare costs, we need a way to reach consumers – a way that works for them long term.

So how does EdLogics help?

Since I started working in the healthcare industry, the concept of health literacy has matured into an academic discipline. Institutions like Vanderbilt University have devoted teams of talented experts and researchers—like Russell Rothman, MD, MPP, arguably one of the top health literacy experts in the world—to help healthcare providers, employers, payors, and the public understand the implications of low health literacy—and develop effective solutions to address this major healthcare issue.

At EdLogics, we’ve teamed up with many leading academic medical centers and Centers of Excellence (CoE), as well as industry thought leaders like Dr. Rothman and former US Secretary of Health and Human Services Governor Tommy Thompson, to identify specific ways to improve health literacy.

The first step is to make learning fun and engaging. To do this, we employ and work with experienced clinicians, developers, designers, and gamification experts to create stimulating, engaging games that educate users on important health topics, from diabetes to the Zika virus, all developed with the low health literate user in mind.

To keep users coming back, we’ve developed innovative gamification and unique incentive strategies where users earn rewards by playing games and completing educational activities.

Employers can purchase a customized version of the platform, enabling employees and their families to play, learn, and win. And the cost is minimal: roughly $20 a year per family.

What have you seen so far?

I’m very proud of our platform. It’s a product that educates consumers about chronic diseases, common medical conditions, general health, well-being, medications, and how to navigate the healthcare system. We’ve heard inspiring testimonials from employers and employees, and we have impressive statistics on knowledge improvement and consumer engagement. In fact, 100% of users improve their knowledge of a given condition after completing our learning activities, and 79% of users say they will change their behavior based on what they learned.

We’re continuously making enhancements, all with a focus on improving consumer engagement. That’s the key to being able to influence positive behavior change and deliver the most important, lifesaving knowledge. Not to mention the opportunity to reduce pain and suffering – both physical and financial.

A version of this article was originally published on 2/22/2017.

Newsletters

Turn That Frown Upside-Down

Events

Norfolk State University Holds First Annual Student Health Literacy Symposium

Newsletters

Valentine's Day Survival Guide

Health Literacy

Win-Win: How Healthcare Gamification Helps Companies and Employees

Health Literacy

What Experts Say About Improving Health Literacy: What Works & Why

Newsletters

Healthcare Inequality: Why Everyone Should Care

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