WellFlorida is reaching its goals for the High Impact Prevention (HIP) project. HIP aims to decrease the spread of HIV and link HIV-infected individuals to services. The program, which is funded by the Florida Department of Health, began in January 2013 and has expanded from three counties to five—now covering Alachua, Columbia, Lake, Marion and […]
Perhaps the most frightening aspects of Big Tobacco, besides the well-documented effects of nicotine addiction, are its emerging tobacco products. At the 6th Annual Rural Tobacco Summit, Barry Hummel, Jr., MD, presented tobacco marketing tactics and product lines that are targeted toward youth. “Tobacco is a gateway drug and a gateway behavior,” said Hummel, co-founder […]
MyHealthStory, the community-level Health Information Exchange supported by WellFlorida, helps healthcare professionals engage patients and satisfy Meaningful Use Stage 2 secure messaging and patient engagement measures. All across the nation, the federal government will be requiring that healthcare professionals have at least 5% of their patients accessing their medical records electronically. This may seem like […]
Cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes are all diseases with known links to smoking cigarettes. Smoking can also greatly inhibit the surgical treatment of these conditions, as discussed by Matthew S. Ellis, MD, at the 6th Annual Rural Tobacco Summit on “Addiction: Tobacco & E-Cigarettes.” Surgical treatment involves a wound healing process that normally includes inflammation, […]
E-cigarettes have been marketed for less than a decade, first prevalent in Japan in 2004 and later exported to the U.S. and Europe. Due to the product’s novelty, little information on its components, usage and effects are readily available from trustworthy sources. Kathy Nichols presented her research on “What We Know and Don’t Know” about […]
The effects of tobacco addiction are inherently different on the adolescent brain as compared to adults. This was the focus of the presentation by Daniel Logan, MD, at the 6th Annual Rural Tobacco Summit on “Addiction: Tobacco & E-Cigarettes.” Logan, an assistant professor at the University of Florida Department of Psychiatry, discussed distinctive mental characteristics […]
