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Please join Lowell General Hospital for this FREE training about suicide awareness—provided by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention!

safeTALK helps participants recognize a person with thoughts of suicide and connect them with resources who can help them in choosing to live. Participants don’t need any formal preparation to attend the training—anyone age 15 or older who wants to make a difference can learn the safeTALK steps.

Registration Required!

Call 1-877-LGH-WELL (1-877-544-9355) or visit www.lowellgeneral.org/health.

The next WIHI broadcast — How to Fail Forward (Quickly) on the Road to Population Health — airs on Thursday, June 29, from 2:00 to 3:00 PM ET, and I hope you’ll tune in.

Our guests will include:

• Soma Stout, MD, MS, Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
• Aimee Budnik, Director, Summit County Pathways HUB, Akron Summit Community Action, Inc.
• Kim Fairley, Care Management Supervisor, North Colorado Health Alliance
• Paul Howard, MPA, Director of Community Initiatives, 100 Million Healthier Lives, IHI

Learning from failure is an important part of the quality improvement process in health care. Groups focused on improving the health of communities are equally discovering the value of “failing forward,” as it’s sometimes called — that is, leverage the learning from failure to accelerate progress — especially as many are going about the work in decidedly new ways. We’re going to find out what this looks like in two communities on the June 29 WIHI: How to Fail Forward (Quickly) on the Road to Population Health. We hope you’ll tune in.

Our stories emerge from a boot camp of sorts known as Spreading Community Accelerators through Learning and Evaluation, or SCALE, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and part of the larger 100 Million Healthier Lives initiative. SCALE comprises 24 communities, including the communities in Ohio and Colorado that are our featured WIHI guests, who’ve spent the past 24 months learning new leadership skills and, for the first time, improvement methods to deepen their work on a range of community health issues. SCALE communities are engaged with everything from reducing chronic disease among homeless women and decreasing teen pregnancy, to replacing food deserts with affordable, healthy options, to building greater resiliency among children traumatized by violence. 

On the June 29 WIHI, Kim Fairley from the North Colorado Health Alliance will describe an effort to reach out to high utilizers of 911 for non-emergencies in order to better understand and redirect these individuals’ needs. This work involved multiple agencies that weren’t used to coordinating with one another, so “failing forward” was almost inevitable. The same can be said for Ohio’s Akron Summit Community Action, whose director, Aimee Budnik, will walk us through some of the pitfalls they encountered trying to better match community health workers with pregnant women in need of supports and services.   

Soma Stout and Paul Howard will describe the broader ambitions for SCALE and provide the all-important context within which to understand what’s happening in any particular community. What’s your “fail forward” story? How has that made your work in health care or in the community that much smarter? Please join us for WIHI on June 29.

ENROLL HERE

Join District Attorney Marian Ryan July 13, 2017 at 10:00 AM at the Lowell Senior Center 276 Broadway St, Lowell, MA. 

Have you ever had an operation for which you were prescribed pain medication, such as a hip or knee replacement?  Do you suffer from chronic pain, such as arthritis or osteoporosis?  Chances are you have been prescribed an opioid, even if you were unaware (e.g., Percocet, Vicodin, OxyContin, Fentanyl).

Whether you actively take an opioid or have had a prescription for one in the past, there is important information about which seniors need to be aware.  With the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the midst of an unprecedented public health epidemic, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan has developed a safety program for senior citizens to raise awareness about the opioid crisis, specifically how it directly impacts them.

District Attorney Ryan will discuss the far-reaching effects of this problem as well as offer tips on how to manage prescription medication using the File of Life program.  In addition, she will talk about ways to safeguard medication from theft; how to properly dispose of unused or expired medication; how to identify signs of drug addiction in a loved one, and get them help.  Complimentary File of Life refrigerator magnets and personal wallet cards will be distributed to seniors who attend.

Date: Enter by July 28, 2017

For more information visit:

http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001xK9BnHqnzLkshS_mF3OmH0QPxJAOE1eDpApbifho1i7P6DT3sXY1rXABUAdCUDSzaZyhEm9FfqSFbcs8-1x5rChTkv6D5mX3s10vS–YfvNCKYo_u7e1beKjYUmGovHjBNHQZihZYFLrUlN8dE6GGNAJgPAs4OIHjDCYmKOtqIZQAI0pH99aDVOvd2Ur2Ym4M12ZOHK-zyI=&c=GCFWeYCirDlkJgYMB5YZbIFv3yTuo4u6FZfo8Je0EwxiaeW7mv2PJg==&ch=W2EYW9k4BIF6YQIdjWlP4maAnCJuu5aznDiJ2kRRdG-opnzEOVRNkg==

Date: Saturday, June 24, 2017

Time: 5:00pm-8:00pm

Location: The Center for Hope and Healing, 21 George Street, Suite 400, Lowell, MA

For more information visit:

Youth Pride Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/130684604174173/

2^nd Annual Greater Lowell Pride: https://www.facebook.com/events/1909037529373865/