Give your family and medical team the gift of knowing what your healthcare decisions are if you cannot make them on your own.

Facts about an Advanced Directive:

• It’s free!  You don’t need a lawyer or a notary. You can even download the document for free from the Office of the Attorney General.
• An Advance Directive is only for medical, not financial, decisions while you are still alive. It is not a Power of Attorney.
• Be sure to review your Advanced Directive frequently to make sure your preferences haven’t changed.
• Keep the original in a safe place and give copies to your family, doctor, and hospital. Copies are as valid as an original!

If you’d like to pick up an Advance Directive packet or ask questions, HCGH will provide an information table on the following day:

Tuesday, April 26
11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. AND 2:30-4 p.m.
Howard County General Hospital
Pavilion Lobby
5755 Cedar Lane
Columbia, MD

Howard County General also provides monthly Advance Directive classes through the Wellness Center. Leslie Rogers, MSW, LCSW-C, OSW-C, clinical oncology social worker at HCGH and director of the Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center reviews what advance directives are, who needs them, and how to get them, as well as what it means to appoint, or to be appointed, a health care agent. Registration is required for this free event. The next session is scheduled for Thursday, May 12 from 6-7 p.m. Call 410-740-5858 or visit www.hcgh.org for more information.

The HCGH Green Team had a number of other achievements over the past year:

• launching a Farmers’ Market,
• virtually eliminating the use of mercury in the hospital
• replacing all lighting in the hospital with energy-efficient light bulbs
• purchasing environmentally friendly cleaning products
• reducing the hospital’s percentage of red waste (biohazardous).

There’s still a lot of work to do and, as Debra Dennis, HCGH director of Environmental Services and leader of the Green Team noted, “The greening of hospitals isn’t an extra-curricular activity and it doesn’t end with Earth Day. It is a vitally important matter that affects the health and well-being of our patients, employees and fellow residents of Planet Earth. It isn’t just the in thing to do. It’s the right thing.”

To further this goal, on June 27 from 7-8:30 p.m., Dennis is presenting a free program “Going Green: It’s a Personal Thing” at the Wellness Center (10710 Charter Drive, Suite 100, Columbia, MD). The class will explain, from A to Z, how easy it is to be sustainable at home and to emphasize the difference individuals can make by reducing their personal carbon footprints.

For more information call 410-740-7601 or visit hcgh.org. You can be counted by going to earthday.org and registering your personal or group act of green – a commitment to improving the environment on Earth Day and throughout the year.

Breakfast eaters have all the fun, according to recent research.  People who eat breakfast are less likely to be overweight and are more successful at losing and maintaining weight loss.  They have fewer cravings and choose healthier foods throughout the day.  In fact, at the end of the day, breakfast eaters get more fiber, vitamins and minerals.  Not only that, they are late for work less often and perform better at work and school, especially on those memory tasks!   

Breakfast is a great opportunity to start out the day right and get some of those food groups that we typically lack:  fruits, whole grains, and low fat dairy or milk.  However, breakfast can also start your day out wrong!  A deluxe breakfast from your local fast food restaurant can cost you more than half the calories you need for the day as well as your entire limit of fat and saturated fat!   Even a quick latte and muffin from the coffee shop will give you 650 calories, 25 grams of fat, and 8 teaspoons of sugar!   

What makes a great breakfast?  Start with good ingredients.   Choose a whole grain, such as high fiber cereal, oatmeal, or a whole wheat English muffin.  Then add some protein with peanut butter, an egg, fat free milk, yogurt, or lean sausage.   Top it off with fresh, frozen or even canned fruit.  Use healthy fats when cooking, such as canola or olive oil.  A balance of carbohydrates, lean proteins, and fat causes a more gradual release of energy over the entire morning, maintains your blood sugar levels and delays hunger until it’s time for lunch.
  
In a hurry?  Grab a peanut butter sandwich in the morning or microwave an egg and sandwich it in a whole wheat English muffin.  A bowl of cereal with a banana is quick and full of great nutrients.  Or what about last night’s leftover?  Keep healthy breakfast foods at the office for those times you miss breakfast at home.  Individual oatmeal packets or cereal boxes are great, but make sure they’re the low-sugar variety.  You can also keep yogurt and granola on hand to grab when you’ve missed breakfast at home.   And when you are on the road, choose a la carte with an egg or pancake and avoid the deluxe meal!  Egg McMuffins without the cheese, yogurt parfaits and oatmeal are good choices too.

Becky Ramsing, MPH, RD

Becky joined the University of Maryland Extension in September 2009 as a Nutrition, Health and Wellness Educator.  Prior to joining UME, she worked with the Howard County Health Department Bureau of Health Promotion, the HC Nutrition and Physical Activity Coalition and Howard County Head Start.

Through her work and volunteer efforts, she has been actively involved in promoting nutrition and physical activity throughout Howard County, including schools, work sites, and community settings.  Becky is a Registered Dietitian with a Masters in Public Health.

Her experience also includes serving as an academic coordinator and instructor at the UM Medical School, public health researcher, and educator in community, academic and clinical settings.  Additionally, she spent several years working in East Africa teaching nutrition and working with children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

Nursing in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) presents special challenges and opportunities as well as heartwarming rewards. While the majority of newborn infants are born healthy, more intense monitoring and care are sometimes necessary. A NICU features highly sophisticated equipment specially designed to care for critically-ill newborns in an environment that fosters healthy development.

In this post, we focus on the NICU nurses here at Howard County General Hospital.  We’ve asked a small sampling of them to share their experiences to give you an inside look into caring for our youngest patients.

People tend to want immediate results, and, if they mess up, they give up. It’s more important to focus on the health of your body than the look of your body. It’s really about making lifestyle changes that you can live with. Fad diets usually don’t work in the long run.

Resolutions can be a good thing, but here are some tips on how you can stick to them by setting reasonable goals and expectations you can actually meet:

1. Set reasonable goals and start out slowly.
2. Check with your doctor to be sure you’re healthy enough for exercise.
3. Check with a nutritionist to see what food changes are the best for your body.
4. Walk when you can, park further away from the mall and use the stairs instead of the elevator. Small changes can make a big difference.
5. March in place, weight train or use a good Pilates or Yoga tape at home. You don’t always need a gym.
6. Drink lots of water. A glass before meals can reduce hunger and make you eat less.
7. Don’t always deprive yourself, but eat smaller portions.
8. Know what’s in your food. Read labels, go for low sodium and avoid eating out too much – there are lots of hidden calories and fat in that “healthy” fast food salad!
9. Eat whole grains instead of refined pasta, bread and rice.
10. Fill up with high-fiber fruits and vegetables.

Plan on hitting the gym? Here are some weight-training tips:

• Learn proper exercise and weight-training techniques to avoid injury.
• Remember to breathe properly while exercising.
• Get the right ratio of cardio to weight-training exercise.
• Get the right ratio of power lifting (higher weights with fewer repetitions) to endurance lifting (lower weights with more repetitions).
• Vary your exercise routine. You don’t want to always work the same muscle groups.

As you start on your journey to better health, try using the buddy system. Having someone to motivate you, remind you of your goals and reinforce your successes can really help keep you on track.

To deter shop lifting, theft, breaking and entry and other crimes, the Howard County police will have additional officers patrolling local businesses in cars, on foot and on bicycles through New Year’s Day. They will also be paying special attention to impaired driving, speeding and other driving violations and conducting numerous DUI checkpoints. They advise County residents to be more careful and alert during the holiday season.

Holiday safety tips:

When You’re Shopping

• Shop, during the day if possible, with a group or in pairs.
• Always lock your car and look inside before entering.
• Avoid carrying large amounts of cash.
• Leave one hand free to quickly access keys or phone.
• Park in a highly visible well-lighted space.
• Never leave valuables or packages in sight in your car.
• If you feel uncomfortable when a stranger approaches, walk in another direction or walk backwards towards a store or business.
• Be very aware of your surrounding when using an ATM and try to avoid using them at night.
• Shop only with reputable online retailers that offer secure transactions.
• When the holidays are over, don’t put boxes for electronics or valuables in plain view on recycling day.

When You’re Away from Home

• If you are expecting a delivery, ask a neighbor to bring the packages inside.
• Have a neighbor watch your home.
• Secure doors and windows and turn on lights, a TV or radio so it appears that someone is home.
• Use automatic light timers if you’ll be gone for awhile.
• Don’t display gifts where they can be seen from outside.
• Stop mail and newspaper deliveries.
• Leave an emergency phone number with local police department.

Howard County General Hospital wishes you a very happy and safe holiday season!

Emergency nursing can be one of the most rewarding and one of the most challenging career paths. In this post, we focus on the emergency department nurses here at Howard County General Hospital.  We’ve asked them to share their experiences as a way to give you an inside look into emergency nursing. The nurses surveyed include individuals with a wide range of experience and years of services, from 1 year up to 26 years. A sampling of their responses to our questions is featured below:

Additional resources at HCGH:

Search for Careers at HCGH
Nursing Student PCT Training Program
New Graduate Nurse Orientation Program
RN Fellowship Program

Why is this day so dangerous?

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) notes that particularly heavy traffic, drinking and longer than usual car trips combine to create deadly conditions on the nation’s highways. The rising cost of  holiday airline tickets for a four-day weekend encourages more and more people to drive to their Thanksgiving destinations and often head back home, exhausted, after one day – or several – of over-drinking and over-eating.

The most recent data available (2006) from NHTSA on driving deaths during three- or four-day holidays analyzes  the percentage of fatal crashes caused by intoxication and the estimated number of cars on the road and concludes that congested roads, holiday stress and sleepiness all contribute to the high traffic fatalities.

A reminder from the Howard County Police:

“This holiday season, police will be aggressively enforcing traffic laws with attention to impaired driving, speeding and violations of seat belt and child safety seat laws. To combat holiday drinking and driving, police will be conducting numerous DUI saturation patrols throughout the next month. Police will also be paying special attention to underage drinking, which increases during the holidays when students are on winter break.”

If you have to be on the roads over Thanksgiving – or any other holiday –  remember to wear your seat belt, have a designated driver if you plan to be drinking, obey all traffic and speed laws, and be alert!

Happy Thanksgiving from Howard County General Hospital!