Partners in Care: The screening season

Dear Partner in Care,

Somehow, it is almost already June – and you know what that means for us here in South Louisiana. It marks the start of another Atlantic hurricane season. That means all of us will have at least one eye on the tropics for the next six months.

But June also brings Men’s Health Month, a time set aside to heighten awareness of preventable health problems for men and boys, and to encourage health screenings in the interest of early detection.

So, what do the two have in common?

In both cases, now is the time to go through the annual exercise of preparing for the possibility of unwelcome news and best positioning ourselves to weather whatever storms may come.

I applaud our colleagues at the GastroGroup and Endocenter for taking the lead locally on men’s health as the presenting sponsor of St. Tammany Health System’s second annual Man Up! screening event at the Covington Beer Garden.

Not only is it a fun event, but it gets right to the heart of what it means to be a community physician: to care for our neighbors when they fall ill – but also to give them access to the tools and education necessary to prevent problems from cropping up to begin with.

That’s something of a theme in this latest installment of STQN’s Quality Insights newsletter, which, among other things, includes information on the latest guidance regarding colonoscopies, congestive heart failure treatment and tobacco cessation.

I hope you will find it as insightful as I did, and I thank you all for the role you play in keeping our Northshore community the healthiest it can be.

Gratefully,

Joan M. Coffman, FACHE

President and CEO, St. Tammany Health System

Partners in Care is a message for STQN member-physicians from St. Tammany Health System President and CEO Joan Coffman for STQN's monthly Quality Insights newsletter. You can find the current issue of Quality Insights, as well as back issues, at STQN.org/newsletter.