Community Hospital is pleased to introduce a new television service for patients called The Patient Channel. The Patient Channel provides topical, network-quality health-care oriented programming delivered to hospital patient rooms, meeting rooms and waiting rooms.

It helps educate patients by bringing information about common illnesses, medical conditions and treatments to the bedside. The new subscription service will be broadcast on all Community Hospital cable TVs on Channel 14.

Programming schedules are available at the nurses stations for patients to request if desired. Nurses are asked to make the patients aware of the service and to encourage them to watch the educational programs. Patients will also receive a flier about the service in their admission packet and posters will be placed in the patient rooms. The service is provided at no charge for our patients.

“The Patient Channel offer a wide variety of health topics 24 hours a day,” said Monica Wacker, Education Coordinator. “We are excited to offer this new service to help increase patient understanding and involvement in their own care.”

Programming on The Patient Channel covers a wide spectrum of health and wellness topics, ranging from heart disease, baby care, asthma, managing chronic pain, cancer and diabetes to smoking cessation, nutrition and exercise. Real patients and their doctors share their stories to help others understand not just the “what” and “why” of a medical condition, but also “how” they can deal with it in a positive manner.

Included on The Patient Channel are a series of educational programs for new parents called “Baby Talk.” These include Baby Talk: Caring for Your baby, The First Few Days, The First Few Weeks and Understanding Their World. For the first quarter of the year, each of these programs is offered 21 times throughout the week. Grandparenting: Enriching Lives is offered three times on Fridays. These programs will become the education standard for new parents and take the place of educational videos that were shown to the new OB patients in the past.

New healthcare topics planned for 2005 on The Patient Channel include “Preventing Colon Cancer” and “Healthy Aging,” as well as an updated program called “Irregular heartbeats: Restoring the Rhythm.”