PHS - Portable Health Solutions

"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them." - FDR

We give thanks this Memorial Day for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

🤔 Food for thought!

Depression in older adults is widely recognized as a serious societal problem with inevitable health consequences including accelerated cognitive decline, increased risk of chronic disease complications, and weakened immune systems. As Mental Health Awareness Month continues, we recognize the steps being taken to address this, e.g. senior community centers, respite care, talk therapy options, & the growing field of geriatric specialists, but also one that could benefit the entire community: intergenerational connection.

Up-and-coming generations - with their own mental health & identity struggles - have as much to gain from communal interaction as the older generations in search of a renewed sense of identity & purpose. Some schools have begun structuring visits at centers, assisted livings, etc., & perhaps this can be expanded upon. It's easy for those of us in the thick of the goings-on of adulthood (work, raising kids, mortgages, appointments, caring for older adults, and did we mention work?) to forget how magical a simple game of cards or a conversation can be when "identity" and "purpose" aren't so easily assigned to a career or caretaking responsibility. Can you remember?

I remember my History class meeting with WW2 & Korean War veterans at a diner long ago; the vets were delighted to tell their tales. These men have since left us, but the pride, identity, respect and responsibility to take great care with what they fought for remains in us. We brightened their day while we in turn established a deep connection with veterans who'd defended our community 70 years prior & shaped it in the years since. This was a wonderful morning for them and a lifelong imprint for us, and at its foundation, it was a simple matter of waffles and conversation.

The efficacy of intergenerational connection is real, and we owe it to the older adults who seek a renewed sense of identity and purpose as well as our children who are just beginning the search for their own to forge these bonds.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month; there is, at this point, no shortage of information that elucidates the complexity and gravity of what we face. With that, it is on us as a society to determine how to improve the lives of our coworkers, neighbors, friends, relatives, and ourselves. What we create to better support and aid those we know extends to those we don't, which means societal and economic enrichment. This as opposed to societal, cultural, and economic deterioration, insecurity, anxiety, and darkness. Let's first highlight, thanks to the work of NIMH, the gigantic gap in actual treatment. Only 50.6% receive treatment. What about the other half - approximately 30 million people - who didn't receive treatment, due to lack of funds, insurance coverage, available options, lack of education on recognizing what they're contending with, stigma, fear of cultural shame, etc.? What of the severely low treatment rates among men and multiple ethnicities? How do we improve this moving forward?

We see the Power of Nurses daily in patient advocacy, communication and coordination of care with the broader ancillary team (including portable diagnostics!). Thank you for everything you do.

Today is National Teacher Day, and we'd like to celebrate the wonderful instructors who prepared our team members for careers in radiography and sonography! How you molded our radiologic technologists and sonographers in image quality, patient care, knowledge, and professional focus in turn molds our industry-leading approach to portable imaging, and we cannot thank you enough.

Happy Star Wars Day!

To celebrate and the impact of how ideas can be communicated through books, this quote from Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" seems especially poignant - and prophetic - thirty years later:

"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
..We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements - transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting - profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces."

Wow! What are you reading to celebrate World Book Day?

Did you know? The first Earth Day in 1970 drew 20 million Americans into the streets in protest of environmental degradation, which became the catalyst for the Endangered Species, Clean Water, and Clean Air Acts, as well as the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). It is now the largest singular global civic event across 192 countries. What do you do to make every day Earth Day?

We like to pause for a moment on April 19th of every year to celebrate the legacy of our founder, Lala K. Davis, RT, who carried PHS through those first difficult years as the little portable imaging provider that could. She put patients and employees first, completely different from the mega corps. Her example carries on today, and that has made all the difference.