Photo By Douglas Stutz | The Naval Hospital Bremerton Respiratory Therapy team of Jill Levin, Registered...... read more read more
Patients can breathe a sigh of relief at Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB) due to the Respiratory Therapy Clinic.
Respiratory Therapists assigned at NHB are adept at handling the ‘A, B, Cs’ - Asthma, bronchitis and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) – along with any other breathing concern in the alphabet for patients in need.
NHB’s Respiratory Therapy Clinic team offers a variety of services to educate, treat and evaluate any patient. The clinic is located on NHB’s Sixth Floor and is open Mon. through Fri., 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Providing education is considered a top priority. Sharing insight on such concerns as respiratory medications, proper use of a metered dose inhaler with spacer, and discussing proper symptom control and actions plans for Asthma/COPD is imperative to assisting a patient with respiratory issues.
“If there is a patient with a diagnosis of Asthma or COPD and their providers feels he/she would benefit from education, they can put in a consult for our clinic just as they would for a pulmonary function test evaluation or sleep study. Our hope is that with proper education we can help improve quality of life for chronic patients and decrease exacerbations,” said Jill Levin, Registered Respiratory Therapist, noting that consults should include such specifics as what education should be provided and any possible medications to include in the overall treatment plan.
Some of the services and support offered by the Respiratory Therapy team of Levin, and respiratory therapy technicians Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Aaron Hamblin, Hospital Corpsmen 3rd Class Jacob Maosi and Irvin Jones include pulmonology function testing such as basic spirometry, lung diffusion and volumes Methacholine Challenge testing (test to rule out Asthma) and unattended sleep studies where “The patient is able to take the sleep study equipment home to get a more accurate study because the patient is sleeping in their ‘natural environment,’” explained Levin.
The team also coordinates breathing therapy with Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP), a common treatment for obstructive sleep apnea.
“We want to make our patients better educated and better informed which leads them to being better compliant in following action plans and also potentially making it less likely they end up in the Urgent Care Clinic or an Emergency Room,” said Levin.
The Respiratory Therapy Clinic is making a concerted effort to increase awareness of all their offered services, especially the educational services to providers for their patients.
“We can go over Asthma and COPD action plans as well as provide education on their respiratory medications. The goal of action plans is to help the patient better manage their chronic disease and hopefully increase the patient's quality of life and also decrease exacerbations and emergency room and urgent care clinics visits and admissions. We always need a referral/consult for any of the services we provide,” Levin stated.
The patients seen at the Respiratory Therapy Clinic range the full gambit of the broad spectrum of demographics from Sailors, Marines, their families, retirees, and all others they are entrusted with providing care.
“We literally can see a patient as young as newborn to a patient that is in their 80's or 90's within the same hour and from all backgrounds, which is one of the coolest things about working here. If a provider has a patient with a new diagnosis of COPD or Asthma or if they are not well controlled and are having multiple trips to the doctor’s office or UCC, they would benefit from coming to us for education or possibly testing,” said Levin.
As part of the Puget Sound Military Health System, NHB’s Respiratory Therapy Clinic corpsmen provide support to Madigan Army Medical Center once a week in a collaborative relationship at least until late summer 2016.
Levin attests that the rewarding aspect about working in the Respiratory Therapy Clinic is making bonding relationships with all the different patients.
“Making personal connections from the little kids we see to the older veterans is very gratifying and HM2 Hamblin states that he likes seeing the immediate clinical improvement in patients after therapy. I would certainly agree with that,” Levin said.
The Respiratory Therapy Clinic team also responds to all code blues/purples - cardiac or respiratory arrest - and provides needed respiratory support assisting with intubations in NHB’s Multi-Service inpatient ward and Urgent Care Clinic.
| Date Taken: | 06.01.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 06.03.2016 14:17 |
| Story ID: | 199884 |
| Location: | BREMERTON , WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 348 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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