AEDs donated to schools
After 12 year old Orofino resident, Trevor Haag, and his seven month old cousin, Andrew Adams, died from rare congenital heart conditions, Taylor Stifanick, a senior at Orofino High School, decided to take action.  For her Government class project she initiated a program to place Automated External Defibrillators in each school and arrange for their training and use.  Theresa Uptmor presents Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) from St Mary's Hospital for use in local schools to the principals of Highland and Prairie High Schools.
 She joined Trevor’s mom, Annette, and made contact with Nick Albers, EMS LINC, to get the project off the ground.  Interest was slowly building, but when Justin Haag, Trevor’s 16 year old brother, collapsed on the basketball court during a February game in Lewiston the spotlight suddenly focused on her program.  
 AmericanWest Bank donated funds to help purchase two defibrillators and St. Mary’s Hospital, Cottonwood and Clearwater Valley Hospital, Orofino, purchased AEDs for each of the six school districts in their service area.  Two of those districts have two high schools so an extra two were purchased.  They were recently distributed to representatives from school districts serving Orofino, Cottonwood, Kamiah, Kooskia, Nezperce, Grangeville and Craigmont.
 On Wednesday, April 12, Theresa Uptmor, SMH Clinics Coordinator and presented defibrillators to Clair Garrick, Superintendent, Highland School District and Mike Bundy, Principal, Prairie High School.
 “We really appreciate the donation by the hospitals and AmericanWest.  It gave other groups and people the idea that they could help also,” said Stifanick.
 Her project has taken her around the region in a whirlwind of meetings with school principals, EMS representatives, student councils and school boards.  She and fellow students, JZ Savage and Justin Haag, have made power point presentations and recounted their own personal experiences to students at eight area high and junior high schools.  They also helped organize a leadership meeting in Grangeville with representatives from seven of the area schools to brainstorm about regional fundraisers.”
 “I am trying to organize support at each high school so the students will continue the project.  We need program sustainability to make sure new batteries and pads are purchased whenever they’re needed,” said Stifanick.  “I am also hoping they’ll continue fundraising so every school within each district has a defibrillator and to ensure that one is available at each school event, at home and away.”
  EMS LINC is planning on providing training for people in their service area of Lewis, Idaho, Nezperce and Clearwater Counties.  
AEDs have an LED screen on their exterior and an auditory prompt to guide people through their use.  They are programmed to determine when their use is justified and when it is not.
 Stifanick has drawn up a bill to be presented to the Youth Legislature in Boise, April 15-18.  It requires school districts to place an AED in each school.  It also requires an EKG for students during their sports physicals.  
 “I am not sure the bill will be adopted, but sometimes the legislators look at what the Youth Legislature proposes and model bills after theirs,” said Stifanick.
 Area high schools are accepting donations for the purchase of AEDs.  Anyone interested in contributing is encouraged to call their school district office or the
 local high school.  The Highland School District can be reached at 924-5211 and the Cottonwood School District can be reached at 962-3971.

Clinic to have Medline display
The St. Mary’s Hospital Cottonwood Clinic will be hosting a display during April with information about www.MedlinePlus.gov, a website sponsored by the National Institute of Health and the National Library of Medicine.  The display was developed by SMHC, Clearwater Valley Hospital and Clinics, the Prairie River Library District, Clearwater Memorial Public Library and  the Idaho State Library.  
A National Library of Medicine website is featured on a display about using the internet to find reliable health information.It can be seen during regular clinic hours.  
Jeanette Gorman, SMHC Community Relations Coordinator, will present on the topic in an April 27th evening presentation in Kamiah at Ronnie’s Restaurant on April 27.   The public forum is being co-sponsored by the Kamiah Kiwanis Club.  She will talk about using the internet for health research. 
The MedlinePlus database contains over 11 million references to journal articles from 4300 worldwide health science journals cited back to 1966.  It is designed for use by laypersons and also has links to sites for health care professionals.
The display also features information about the Idaho State Library’s databases which provide thousands of full-text articles from magazines, professional journals, newspapers, and reference books.  The service is free to all Idaho residents.  The Libraries Linking Idaho Databases or LiLI-D website, www.lili.org, provides links to Health Source: Consumer Edition, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition and AltHealthWatch with information on alternative medicines.
Both sites have search boxes that allow consumers to type in a disease, condition, medication or other topic.  Over 650 health and wellness topics are listed.  The site then produces a number of articles relating to the search term.  MedlinePlus also features interactive tutorials on 165 topics and provides a link to the NIH Senior Health site and a link for descriptions of prescription medications and over-the-counter drugs.   
The exhibit also features free handouts and informational materials on LiLI-D and MedlinePlus. Other links on the MedlinePlus site include www.clinicaltrials.gov which provides easy access to information on over 5,000 clinical research studies sponsored primarily by the National Institute of Health and www.toxnet.nlm.nih.gov , an extensive collection of bibliographic and full-text information covering the effects of drugs and other chemicals on humans.
The display was developed through an award from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, Pacific Northwest Region. 

Cottonwood, Idaho 83522

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