WNC Wellness review: incision-free surgery for heartburn; local Red Cross 100 years old

• Asheville-Mountain Area Chapter of the American Red Cross celebrates 100 years:

“The Asheville-Mountain Area Chapter of the American Red Cross touched countless lives over the last 100 years. As it embarks on its next centennial, executive director Patrick Fitzsimmons challenges community members to ask themselves, what has the Red Cross done in your lives?” – [Asheville Citizen-Times] 

• Certificate-of-Need law hampers Asheville breast cancer hospital:

“A women’s breast cancer hospital in Asheville has resorted to “begging” for a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, thanks to a law called ‘certificate of need’. […] Hope petitioned the council to adjust the 2008 plan to show need for an MRI machine in Buncombe County, but the council refused. ” – [Carolina Journal Online]

• North Carolina among states selected for Medicare/Medicaid demo project:

“North Carolina is among eight states selected to participate in a demonstration project designed to ‘evaluate the effectiveness of doctors and other health care professionals across the care system working in a more integrated fashion and receiving more coordinated payment from Medicare, Medicaid, and private health plans.’ ” – [North Carolina Medical Society]

• Daytime activities, diet can counteract depression linked to shorter days:

“As the days grow shorter and the calendar advances toward the holidays, many Western North Carolinians will experience an annual tradition that doesn’t fit in with yuletide cheer: seasonal affective disorder.” – [Asheville Citizen-Times] 

• Pardee therapist receives aquatics certification:

“Karen Winch, an aquatic therapist at the Pardee Rehab and Wellness Center, recently became certified in aquatic therapeutic exercise. Winch is the only aquatic therapist in Western North Carolina and one of only 17 in the entire state to have received this certification. ” – [Pardee Blog]

• Asheville-area hospitals aim to lower region’s high rate of C-sections:

“When Dr. Ryckman Caplan started practicing medicine in the 1970s, only about 2 percent of all babies he delivered were by cesarean section. Today, 38 percent of babies born in Mitchell County, where Caplan now practices, are delivered by surgery. ‘That’s where we’ve gone in 37 years,’ Caplan said.” – [Asheville Citizen-Times]

• New surgery without incisions now available for chronic heartburn and reflux:

“Daniel Timmerman, D.O., a local surgeon, has performed North Carolina’s first Transoral Incisionless Fundoplication procedure, or TIF, at Pardee Hospital.” – [Pardee Blog]

• Park Ridge Hospital to host ‘Love and Logic’ parenting class December 6 & 13:

“This workshop will use hands-on-learning to help you gain practical skills in the Love and Logic method. Love and Logic uses humor, hope, and empathy to build healthy adult-child relationships. ” – [Park Ridge Health]

Please follow us on Twitter and submit WNC health & wellness info with the hashtag: #avlhealth or by email: mxhealth@mountainx.com