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THE BEAN:
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 Our patient portal gives our patients easy, secure, and instant access to their medical information. It has a wide variety of features to make all aspects of the patient’s experience with our office smooth, efficient, and convenient while conserving resources.
What is available on the portal?
How to access the portal: Once you have provided an email to our office, we activate your patient portal. You should receive an email to finish registration and the set-up process.
If the email linked to the patient’s account does not belong to the patient, we require a Proxy Access form to be filled out and signed by the patient. The App: The Healow app gives limited mobile access to the patient portal for patients on the go. You can find our office by using the code ACHFAA when prompted. The Healow app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store (for iPhones) or the Google Play Store (for Androids). Our team is here to help should you have any questions, concerns, or need assistance accessing your portal. If you haven’t done so already, see our previous post, The Power of the Patient Portal, for additional information here.  In this segment of the Kidney Korner, we will begin to touch on blood pressure, its causes, and how Dr. Munjal can help. This introduction will branch off to include more specific topics regarding blood pressure, its causes, contributing factors, treatments, and more.
What is Blood Pressure? Blood Pressure is the measurement of the circulating blood against the walls of the blood vessels. This is a measurement of the amount of force the body is using to get blood through the arteries. What can contribute to blood pressure raising and lowering?
How Dr. Munjal helps:
Munjal’s Musings: “A small subset of patients may have high blood pressure for a specific cause. Testing can be undertaken to identify and pinpoint the cause to treat it more effectively. We like to do a better job with fewer medications.” Changes in blood pressure can come with a myriad of symptoms. If you are concerned with your blood pressure, please contact our office to schedule a consultation with Dr. Munjal or speak with your care team. Resources: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/17649-blood-pressure https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20373417. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.15006 https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2004/1015/p1542.html https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/expert-answers/blood-pressure/faq-20058254 This website is for informational and educational purposes ONLY. While we strive for accurate, general medical information, this does not replace professional medical advice. Do not rely solely on this information. Please consult with your provider for more information regarding your specific needs. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, please call 9-1-1.  If you have any kidney diseases, it is important to be mindful of your food and fluid intake. While it may be small, candy can have a large impact on the renal diet. Halloween candy can contain phosphorus and potassium which play an integral role in your kidney function. Additionally, if you have diabetes, it is important to consult with your endocrinologist, dietician, and/or primary care physician to determine what is best for your personal health goals. Below are some general tips and guidelines as well as which candies are tricks and which candies are treats.
Guidelines to Halloween Candy:
Treats:
Tricks: Candy can contain higher levels of phosphorus and potassium due to being made with solid chocolate, nuts, dried fruit, coconut, peanut butter, and caramel.
Resources: https://www.kidney.org/content/halloween-fun-kids-kidney-disease Penny Miclat, RN, Director of Nursing, DialySuites Bartram Park Happy Halloween!  October's Book of The Month is The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown.
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown is a guide to wholehearted living and provides guideposts to assist in changing your mindset. These ten guideposts include actionable advice on cultivating joy, gratitude, resilience, authenticity, compassion, creativity, and more. These are all vital components of living a healthy, happy, fulfilling life. DIG Deep: DIG Deep is a tool Brene Brown uses to follow up each guide post to help make her stories, guidance, and wisdom actionable and applicable to our lives. She uses this to give examples and advice for taking action and starting the change we wish to see. Get Deliberate Get Inspired Get Going Guideposts we love: Guidepost #3: Cultivating a Resilient Spirit
How it applies to our patients: Living with chronic illnesses can potentially have a terrible effect on one’s mindset. Feelings of dread, impending doom, and loss of control can begin to numb emotions, both good and bad. The Gifts of Imperfection can begin to guide our patients toward finding happiness and cultivating joy, regardless of what they may face. It can also help our patients to accept and love their authentic selves and begin reversing the numbness to emotion that they may be experiencing. How it has helped our office: The Gifts of Imperfection has had a great impact on mindset within the office. We have been able to recognize the impact of being brave and vulnerable. Being our true, authentic selves has allowed us to gain trust and respect for one another, thus creating a stronger team bond and environment. It has also aided us in gaining compassion for one another and our patients. Our Favorite Quotes: “We cannot selectively numb, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive ones.” “Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.” “...our imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we’re all in this together.” “The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows.” Check in next month to read and grow along with our office! Happy reading!  Our philosophy of empowering through education does not stop with our patients and staff. We work with the University of North Florida to take on Healthcare Administration students seeking internship opportunities for their degree program. We offer a unique opportunity to observe the inner workings of a small, specialty practice. Each of our interns is given the chance to explore every facet of our office and potentially focus on an expressed area of interest.
We encourage our interns to embrace their curiosity and try a variety of projects and tasks to find their passion within their chosen career. This can include front desk operations, office workflow, attending meetings, social media and marketing, research, billing, data analysis, and referral processes and procedures. Our interns also go through HIPAA training to comply with and maintain federal and office privacy policies to protect our patients’ health information. Our Patient Educator, Kayla, was among our first healthcare administration interns during the Spring semester of 2021. “It was the most incredible experience to see how my degree knowledge applied to real-world situations and how it differed. The unique projects allowed me to learn more about my true passions and helped me grow into new positions. My preceptor was patient, inspiring, and pushed me to be the best I could be.” If you are interested in becoming an intern with our practice, please contact your professor for instructions on how to apply. We hope to see our interns excel in their future endeavors! |
