Newsletter :: November 2006
Monthly Motivator
APPRECIATION
You will forget the kind words you said today but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime!
IN THANKSGIVING!
This is the season and the holiday to reflect on all your blessings and what you feel most thankful for. I know here at DiagnosTEX, we are most thankful for all of you who use DiagnosTEX as your mobile MBSS provider. You make our days so enjoyable; we appreciate all your support and friendships. How can you thank someone for allowing you to do and be successful at what you love to do? I am not sure there are words descriptive enough to express our gratitude. I hope our appreciation shows in the effort we make to meet all your MBSS needs and give you the best that we have to offer. We wish you and your families and very Happy Thanksgiving with many, many blessing to be thankful for.
DiagnosTEX 2007 Holiday Schedule
Please make note of this on your calendars. DiagnosTEX will be closed Thursday November 23rd for Thanksgiving and will run 1-2 vans on Friday the day after Thanksgiving. DiagnosTEX will also be closed the Monday Christmas Day and the Monday of New Years Day. We will operate all 3 vans a ½ day on Christmas Eve. We want to meet all of your MBS needs as we know PO feeding becomes important on many levels to many of patients around the holidays, as well as be fair and accommodating to all of our DiagnosTEX employees and their families as well as our own families (We are so thankful for all of them as well!). Please keep these holiday schedules in mind when scheduling your MBSS at the end of November and December!
Starbuck Cards
We started a program a few years back, as most of you already know…….. If the patient is up and waiting at the front door with vitals and the medical chart when we arrive, you will receive a gift certificate. Having the patient ready helps us stay on schedule and we appreciate this more than you know as well as the people we service! Having to wait for the patient to get out of bed, get vitals taken, and locate that chart can put us 15-20 minutes behind and if that happens at 4 facilities, then we will be running an hour behind as the day goes on. We can not wait longer than 15-20 minutes for a patient to get up as we have a schedule to keep at numerous facilities in a day. This program was designed for the facility SLP’s and not intended for various facility staff getting the patient up. If the patient was being transported to the hospital, they would also have to be up and prepared to go. We are unable to hand out 4-5 cards per facility, essentially $20.00. We appreciate all the SLP’s who do their part to motivate their staff to get the patient up, what you
choose to do with your Starbucks card s completely up to you if you feel one of your facility staff deserves it. Thank you for having those patients up and ready for us. You deserve a warm drink on us as the weather cools off!
Family and Staff education
DiagnosTEX holds education at the highest level of priority. Education is an important part of the POC and safety of the patient! We invite any facility staff, DON, Administrator and of course family members on the van during the MBSS/study, if it is OK with the patient. We will educate all present during and after the study. We do not schedule times during the day to come into the facility to provide direct education to the nursing staff or others involved outside of the MBSS. If the SLP is not at the facility at the time of the MBSS, we will most definitely make face to face contact with the nurse taking care of the patient regarding the results and recommendations of the MBSS. Our physicians will also contact the ordering physician if necessary. If the facility SLP is present, we would expect her/him to educate any other staff in the facility on the results of the MBSS. DiagnosTEX does offer nursing education on request to all facilities using our mobile service, free of charge, but this must be scheduled outside of scheduling the MBSS. Please let us know if your facility is interested in this and we will get something scheduled!!
TSHA CEU’S
All of DiagnosTEX CEU courses are TSHA approved courses. TSHA is an ASHA approved sponsor! There are some new benefits to TSHA CEU’s; there is now a TSHA CE registry! You will be able to view your TSHA continuing education credits online through the TSHA website. When this registry is complete you will be able to view all credits earned since January 2006. So when you attend a DiagnosTEX course or any other TSHA approved course, the hours you earned will be posted on a special page made available for you to print and submit to the State Board if you are audited! TSHA has also added a Job classifieds to a section of the website. Some great new benefits to our TSHA membership. FYI –We have an exciting and highly requested conference coming up after the first of the year here in DFW! Be looking for it in the upcoming newsletters!
ESTIM
If I have heard this once in the past several weeks, I have heard it 20 times! What SLP’s and facilities are being told is that…Vital Stim is the only ASHA certified E-Stim. Our E-Stim CEU’s are also ASHA approved! Please feel free to contact ASHA; I promise you, they take absolutely no stance on any protocol.
Upcoming Handouts! Be looking for the new handout this month on Dysphagia holiday foods and what is classified as puree and Msoft as well as thickened liquids!
Dysphagia Tidbit – Tongue Hold Maneuver
This is often referred to as Masako maneuver. The tongue holding maneuver is holding the front part of the tongue, approximately ¼ inch from the tip, between the teeth, which creates some strain in the upper pharynx during a swallow. The purpose of this exercise is to increase anterior bulging of the pharyngeal wall. The negative effects of this exercise are that it shortens the duration of airway closure, increase pharyngeal delay, and can increase pharyngeal residue. The tongue holding technique should be used as one technique of the ROM exercise but not to be confused with other widely used maneuvers that can improve swallowing physiology immediately upon application such as the Mendelsohn, Supraglottic, and an effortful swallow. At present, no therapy technique is available to improve the contraction of the entire pharyngeal wall. The tongue holding maneuver was designed to exercise a limited portion of the superior pharyngeal constrictor muscle.