Invisible Illness Week starts Monday morning! I hope you will join me!
This is an online radio talk show/seminar presentation. You listen
online, but you can call in with questions via your phone!

Where to log on:
http://www.invisibleillnessconference.com (There is a time converter
on this page)

Here is Monday's schedule:

-- 9 a.m. pacific - Kick of with Lisa Copen of Rest Ministries and
Christine Miseradino of butyoudontlooksick.com
-- 12-noon pacific - Dealing with Hurt Feeing and Mixed Up
Relationships - Leslie Vernick
-- 3 p.m. pacific - Stress-Busters that Work: Faithful and Fun Ways to
Lessen Stress and Encourage Hope and Health - Maureen Pratt
-- 5:30 p.m. pacific - Secrets of Paying for Medical Care - Jacqueline
L. Jones

How it works:
http://invisibleillness.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/how-the-seminars-will-work-inst\
ructions-for-invisible-illness-week/

Other day's schedules:
http://www.restministries.org/invisibleillness/schedule.htm

Daily updates:
http://www.invisibleillnessblog.com


Lisa Copen
Rest Ministries, Director
HopeKeepers Magazine, Editor
National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week
Founder & Coordinator
 
"HOPE CAN GROW FROM THE SOIL OF ILLNESS!"
This is the theme of 2008's National Invisible
Chronic Illness Awareness Week in September.
Drop by and find out ways to encourage a
friend, be encouraged yourself, and spread the word.
http://www.InvisibleIllness.com and our blog
http://www.InvisibleIllness.Wordpress.com
 
************************************************

Hi Sandra

I am also from a small rural church in North Central,IA
Theresa


--- In ParishNurse@yahoogroups.com, Sandra Allen <sandraallenrn@...>
wrote:
>
> Hello, I'm Sandra Allen.  I'm a new parish nurse.  My church is tiny
and in rural East Central Alabama (Lineville).  I'm looking forward to
getting new ideas and learning from others here on this email list.
Sandra Allen, RN
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile.
Try it now.
>

You have it. Prayers work Miracles. I know, My husband coded this year and is
fine


--- EPLTR@... wrote:
> > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> > >
>
> > > > Prayer request Joe with a high PSA.  Thanks,
> K
>
>
> Start the year off right.  Easy ways to stay in shape in the new year.
> >
> >
>
> > > > > > > #ygrp-mkp{
>   border: 1px solid #d8d8d8;
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> -->
> > > > > > #ygrp-sponsor #ygrp-lc{
>   font-family: Arial;
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> #ygrp-sponsor #ygrp-lc #hd{
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>   margin-bottom: 10px;
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> > > > > > #ygrp-mlmsg {font-size:13px; font-family:
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> #ygrp-mlmsg table {font-size:inherit;font:100%;}
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> > #ygrp-vital{
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> #ygrp-vital #vithd{
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> #ygrp-vital a{
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> #ygrp-sponsor #ov{
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>  font-size: 100%;
>  line-height: 122%;
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> #ygrp-sponsor .ad a:hover{
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> #ygrp-sponsor .ad p{
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> o{font-size: 0; }
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> #ygrp-text tt{
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> blockquote{margin: 0 0 0 4px;}
> .replbq{margin:4}
> -->
> > > > > >

Hello Roger,
I was wondering if this group was still around.  It was so full of
solicitations that I have not visited in some time.

Prayers are needed for Mona, a fellow parish nurse in Wadena, MN, who is
hospitalized with cancer that she has been battling for the past 2 years.
Keep her husband and grown daughter in your prayers as well.

Judy Lightowler, Parish Nurse
Perham UMC
223 4th Ave. SE
Perham, MN 56573 

Hellooooooo out there in cyberspace!!!  Is anyone there...????

Well, I hope that everyone has had some awesome holidays!  I hope
those that wanted a white Christmas got one.  After 20 years down with
Palm trees, I still have not gotten used to a green, warm Christmas!
oh well!

I have also noted that there has been no activity for some time.
Doesn't anyone have something to offer??


What are people reading?

What has God placed on your heart for this new year?

How can someone else help?

Prayer requests and praise reports.

How is God moving in your ministry?

Let us encourage one another and utilize this tool that we have been
given!


In the Love of Yeshua!

Roger Gauthier, RN, M.Div.

This week's American Medical News discusses the growing interest in travelling outside of the US to receive medical treatments. Dubbed "Medical Tourism" the industry offers not only alternatives to surgery and treatment locations, but is generating income for many other businesses that would normally be left out of the healthcare loop.

The medical tourism industry earned revenue of $20 billion in 2005 and that figure is expected to double to $40 billion by 2010, according to a recent report by Frost and Sullivan, an U.S. business research firm.

The same study found that Asian countries such as India, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia view medical tourism as important sources of revenue.

Medical Tourism Guide

I thought that this was an interesting article and that it somewhat addresses other earlier posts, but what are your thoughts about a centralized repository of medical records if all issues of HIPAA are addressed satisfactorily?  Will it be a help or a hinderance?, or is it just another way to increase health care costs?

Roger

Microsoft Wants Your Medical Records

Microsoft, the $51 billion computer-software giant, is not satisfied with simply being the major systems provider for most computers in America -- it also wants to hold your personal medical records, and everyone else's in the country.

The Redmond, Wash.-based firm started by Bill Gates sees this as good business, and even plans to offer advertising along with computerized searches of your records.

"Our goal is to become an advertising powerhouse," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer tells Advertising Age. "Today, we're the No. 3 seller of Internet ads. We're determined to allocate the talent, the resources, the money, and the innovation to be the pre-eminent software provider for advertisers, publishers, and agencies. We have all the pieces we need to succeed."

Microsoft says today’s health care recordkeeping is messy and not ready for the digital world. The company plans to do something about it.

But the idea that your most private medical records may be housed by a private company, and accessible to strangers with a few keystrokes, has privacy advocates concerned.

In early October, the software giant introduced HealthVault, an online service that allows people to store their medical records for easy access and retrieval. The service is free to consumers and physicians. Files can be uploaded directly by doctors and patients in a number of formats, and each account has multiple layers of access privileges.

The HealthVault program is part of Microsoft’s goal to become an advertiser-driven business. Ballmer tells Advertising Age that his company hopes that advertising will generate up to 25 percent of its revenues within the next decade.

Microsoft is investing heavily in its advertising capability. In 2007, it spent about $1 billion on research and development in its MSN Internet unit, which includes adCenter, its Internet pay-per-click advertising unit. That compares to $500 million spent in 2005, according to an InfoWorld.com report. In May, Microsoft invested $6 billion to acquire aQuantive, a digital marketing services agency with 2,600 employees that it's banking on to further boost its Internet advertising business.

Microsoft’s money-making plan for HealthVault involves interweaving a health-centric search engine with the document database -- and offering advertising with the searches. The market could be enormous. According to a Harris Interactive poll, 76 percent of adult Americans over age 55 use the Internet to research health conditions.

Just How Safe?

Medical records contain some of the most private sensitive information any person might have. Disclosure of chronic diseases can affect careers, relationships, and even social standing.

So just how safe are these records?

Probably less secure than most people appreciate -- and if Microsoft's HealthVault grows into a national medical records storehouse, they might not be protected at all under federal law.

Under the federal medical privacy law, known as HIPAA, health records can be disclosed by your doctor's office to a few entities without your permission. This includes any company involved in treatment, payment, or health care operations, such as a doctor's office, billing agency, or insurance company.

HealthVault occupies a murky territory somewhere in between.

A Microsoft spokesperson tells eWeek magazine that HealthVault will be covered under "HIPAA considerations," but the extent of actual coverage is unknown, according to Paul Stephens, director of policy and advocacy for Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer-education group.

It probably will require a court challenge before anybody knows for sure, and Stephens thinks it unlikely that Microsoft would go to court to defend any single person's right to privacy.

"It would be prohibitively expensive," Stephens says.

The Perfect Answer

As far as Microsoft sees it, HealthVault is the perfect answer to one of the most pressing problems for American families -- the convoluted health care system. But critics urge caution.

If HealthVault is successful, it will pool an enormous amount of the most sensitive medical information in one place, creating an unprecedented national medical record. Such a record would be vulnerable to hackers and subpoenas alike, not to mention earthquakes and terrorist attacks.

"That poses significant risks," says Stephens. "First of all, as we're seeing with telephone companies, the federal government can obtain information under the guise of national security."

In recent years, telecommunications companies have come under scrutiny for participating in a federal call-monitoring program aimed at detecting terrorist activity. In some cases, domestic phone records were provided to the FBI voluntarily, without subpoenas.

According to Stephens, a national medical record may be just as irresistible to government data-mining operations. "The government feels it can obtain information about potential terrorists by mining billions of pieces of data," he says.

Such a concentration of private medical records may also prove irresistible to lawyers.

"Under the current system, lawyers would have to know all your medical providers and physically go to each place to secure records," Stephens says. "But the likelihood is that if Microsoft receives a subpoena, they're going to fulfill it because it would become prohibitively expensive to contest every subpoena."

And, finally, of course there is the threat posed by a natural disaster, terrorist attack, or computer hacker. If Microsoft's servers were disrupted for any reason, whoever had stored files in HealthVault would lose them. In an emergency, this could be catastrophic.

Microsoft believes it has addressed these issues.

At HealthVault's October debut, Peter Neupert, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s health solutions group, said the company was using secure, physically isolated servers; the entire system is encrypted and totally controlled by users; and the company has pledged never to release health-related information to marketing organizations.

"This is about the family health manager, and creating an information system that works for them," Neupert said. "We need to make this information reusable. We need to make it accessible."

Neupert faulted the current health care records system, with its multiple forms and many clipboards, as overwhelming for the average "family health care manager," usually a mother, who is responsible for herself, her children and her husband, and, often, elderly parents as well.

"These women want tools to simplify their interactions with the health delivery system," Neupert says. "They want an information system that puts them at the center, that makes it easy to manage their health. And we can do that."

So far, industry reaction to HealthVault has been cautious. Few health care providers are participating, according to Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and success with the system depends on large-scale involvement.

As for Stephens, he says he won't trust his medical information to Microsoft any time soon.

"My preference is that people maintain their own health information in both paper and electronic forms on a thumb USB drive," he says. "There is a great deal of utility in having medical records in one place, but the question is where do you want to keep it?"

© 2007 Newsmax. All rights reserved

Mary Elizabeth O'Brian has written several books.

Parish Nursing, Prayer in Nursing, and Spirituality in Nursing are some
of her books.

www.nursingeducationofamerica.org has a course for 20 contact hours.
It uses the book Prayer in Nursing.

Hope this helps.

Regina
Longview, TX

I hope that everyone has had a great month or so... Our son's
wedding in Virginia was great! The ministry times in the past month
or so was super! Anyway... It is nice to be home.

For those who do not get Advance for nurses they had in the October
issue a CEU for Spiritual Pain and I thought that I wound send the
link for those who may want to participate.

Has anyone read or is reading a good book on Parish Nursing or
Spirituality? If so, let us know what you are reading and what you
think of it.

A thought for the day or week; Did you know that rain just doesn't
fall to the ground but is pulled to the ground by gravity. (I know
you are thinking - I know that) - But, did you know that that is the
same way with the things of God? You must draw, pull or otherwise
make a demand on His power. Become a participator not just a
spectator. Begin to draw on the wisdom, power, anointing, and
promises of God - today!

Blessings to you and your families!

Roger Gauthier, RN, M.Div.
Risen Son Ministries

Advance for Nurses

http://nursing.advanceweb.com/main.aspx


https://nursing.advanceweb.com/Common/CE/Course.aspx?
CourseID=629&CreditID=1


Spiritual Pain (257)
Craig Lee, 24, is a new paraplegic. As you get him ready to go to
occupational therapy, he blurts out, "What's the use?"
Eileen Thomas, mother of five, is experiencing severe pain. After you
give her a narcotic, Eileen tearfully asks, "Why would God let this
happen to me?"
Whether it is a "why" question, an angry expression of
purposelessness, or another expression of spiritual pain, such
patient disclosures typically leave nurses wondering what to say.
Although nurses often are disconcerted by patients' distress, such
disclosures give nurses an opportunity to support holistic healing.
This article will describe elemental communication skills for
creating a healing response to patients expressing spiritual pain.
The goal of this continuing education offering is to provide nurses
with current information on communicating with patients in spiritual
pain. After reading this article, you will be able to:
1. List three responses that silence rather than help a patient who
expresses spiritual pain.
2. Discuss two skills useful for responding to patients with
spiritual pain.
3. Identify three dimensions of comforting responses.

 This offering expires on September 24, 2009
Read Article: Spiritual Pain
Take Test: Spiritual Pain

 (Grade to pass: 70%, 2 tries)



Skills of Outstanding Leaders
A Powerful Brand of Boldness
by Mac Hammond

Wise King Solomon once said: "The wicked flee when no one is
pursuing, but the righteous are as bold as a lion." Edmond Burke made
a similar observation when he wrote, "The timid soul never attains
greatness. He is doomed to a life of cautious wading in the shallows
of accomplishment."

There is a powerful brand of boldness that only comes from knowing
God. The God-kind of boldness is wise, prudent, and discerning. Those
who possess it will climb to heights of achievement that the timid
and fearful see only in their dreams.

God's winning word for leaders today is "boldness." My question for
you is, "Are you leading timidly or boldly?"

Source: Winner's Way Broadcast produced by Mac Hammond Ministries
(Minneapolis: Mac Hammond Ministries, 2003)
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

- To subscribe to this email newsletter, please click here.

MAC HAMMOND MINISTRIES, 9201 75th Avenue North, Brooklyn Park, MN 55428
Website: www.winnersminute.org

Copyright 2007. Mac Hammond Ministries, All rights reserved.