UCLA Receives American Heart Association
Award
The UCLA Medical Center received its second straight Get With
the Guidelines Coronary Artery Disease Performance Achievement
Award.
The award recognizes the medical center’s new standard for
cardiac care which improves treatment for patients with coronary
artery disease.
The new program starts patients off on cholesterol-lowering
drugs, cardio-protective medications, and are given dietary and
lifestyle counseling while in the hospital.
The medical center reports that under the new program, repeat
heart attacks and one-year mortality rates were cut in half.
The American Heart Association’s Get With the Guidelines
program, now being used in hospitals around the country, is modeled
in part after UCLA’s Cardiovascular Hospitalization Atherosclerosis
Management Program.
UCLA is one of only three hospitals nationwide to receive this
honor this year. The plaque presented to the medical center will be
placed in the Cardiac Care Unit.
Neuropsychiatric Institute opens new center
The UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital, and the
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences officially
announced the opening of the Nathanson Family Resource Center last
Thursday.
The center will coordinate all family programs offered by the
Neuropsychiatric Hospital, educate families on patient care,
organize public lectures on issues of mental illness and provide
information on existing community services and resources.
One in three children regularly exposed to tobacco
smoke
A joint UCLA and RAND study found environmental second-hand
tobacco smoke threatens one in three American children age 17 and
younger, according to a press release.
It found that 19 million American children age 17 and younger
are exposed to tobacco smoke at home on a daily basis.
Studies have linked children’s exposure to second-hand smoke to
increased rates in bronchitis, asthma, ear infections, and sudden
infant death syndrome.
Researchers also found that nearly 20 percent of families with
children have visitors smoking in their homes on a weekly basis.
Six percent of non-smoking families with children have visitors
smoking in their homes.
Laws such as Healthy People 2010 aim to reduce the proportion of
children exposed to second-hand smoke to 10 percent by 2010.
Briefs compiled from UCLA wire reports and Daily Bruin
staff.