Posts Tagged ‘Ivy Tech Community College’

Managed Health Services and Ivy Tech Community College are partnering this summer to offer free glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure screenings at community health fairs throughout the state.

Nearly 25 technician and medical assisting externs from Ivy Tech’s central Indiana campus will be performing the screenings. Judy Ward, a program director at Ivy Tech’s School of Health Sciences, says the experience that the externs will gain from performing the screenings at MHS events will be invaluable. “To gain actual experience in dealing with many different types of patients in a health screening setting is the type of real-life situation and scenarios that cannot be reproduced in the classroom.”

The free screenings are being offered at a great time. According to the Indiana State Department of Health, more than 8 percent of the adult population has been diagnosed with diabetes compared to the national average of 7.5 percent. Indiana is also burdened with a rising number of children diagnosed with obesity and diabetes. This chronic disease was the sixth leading cause of death in Indiana in 2005, ranking fourth for African Americans, seventh for Caucasians and sixth for Hispanics/Latinos.

MHS currently has heightened diabetes awareness campaigns designed to educate its members about the importance of preventing the onset of diabetes and identify those in need of treatment in several communities, including Muncie, Elkhart, Gary and Bloomington.