Los Angeles, CA – May 18, 2012: In recognition of Asthma Awareness Month, Health Nuts Media has launched an animated asthma education series titled Huff & Puff: An Asthma Tale. The seven-episode cartoon is already helping national healthcare insurance plans, health literacy partners, and local community organizations teach kids about asthma.

Watch the videos at: Huff & Puff: An Asthma Tale

“With rates of asthma rising among children, doctors and parents need health education that is engaging and fun for kids to watch,” said Tim Jones, CEO, Health Nuts Media. “If Health Nuts Media can get children excited about listening to the Big Bad Wolf talk about asthma, we have the opportunity to make a real impact on asthma, and help improve kids’ quality of life.” (more…)

Health Nuts Media now available to 1,500 more primary care physicians

Los Angeles, CA – May 10, 2012: Health Nuts Media announces that its health literacy animation will now be available to an additional 1,500 U.S. pediatric and family medicine physicians as part of a licensing agreement with healthcare web design firm, Pediatric Web. As part of the agreement, Health Nuts Media animated videos will be offered to Pediatric Web clients on a subscription basis.

“Private practice physicians need medical education that engages and captivates their patients,” says Health Nuts Media CEO, Tim Jones. “Our partnership with Pediatric Web will give even more physicians the story-telling power of animation to better inform children and their families (more…)

Education technology provider collaboration turns focus to building knowledge of environmental triggers, treatment and more for asthma

WOODBURY, N.Y., May 10, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Learn360Awareness, an initiative from Learn360 designed to build awareness of specific topics and link supporting educational content to those topics, in partnership with Health Nuts Media, today announces the launch of its third initiative focusing on asthma.

“Nearly 1 in 10 school-aged children suffer from Asthma, making it the leading cause of absenteeism in the U.S. representing nearly 14 million missed school days annually,” said Chris Sanborn, president of Learn360. “The effects of this disease can be dramatically minimized with easy-to-adopt classroom environmental control practices. (more…)

Kids grow. Geez, that’s not much of a story, huh? It isn’t, but where kids’ bones grow, a special area called the growth plate, is maybe something many people don’t know much about. These growth plates are really important when it comes to broken bones – also known as fractures – in kids. Here’s a little serving on growth plates to help you understand why.

As I mentioned, kids grow, and their bones must grow to help make that happen. But bones – and we’re talking about the long bones here, like leg, arm, and finger bones – grow at a special place near their ends. This place is like a little slice through the bone that is filled with cartilage. (Cartilage is a “connective” tissue in the body, softer than bone, but more firm than muscle. The stiff parts of your ears and the lower part, the wiggly part, of your nose are good examples.) It’s in these cartilage zones where new bone is made that allows long bones to get longer. (more…)

Knocking down barriers between healthcare providers and consumers is generally a good idea, but is there such a thing as too much patient education? Apparently so, at least in some circles.

In the Health News section of UPI.com, a recent story notes just such a situation exists when it comes to children with cancer. More specifically, it exists for parents and adult caregivers of kids with cancer. As noted in the article, “Parents of kids with cancer distrust Web“, researchers at the University of (more…)

Throughout the world, telehealth services have shown their merit. The United States, however, has taken a bit longer to embrace it. Fortunately, telehealth, also referred to as telemedicine, is gaining bigger and stronger footholds in the U.S. The legal obstacles are being ironed out and reimbursement for telehealth services is improving.

One of the primary driving forces for this change is the lack of sufficient access to medical specialists for many people, especially those outside of major metropolitan areas. Specialists often have tremendous waiting lists; it can take months to gain an appointment. Plus, people in rural areas often must drive for hours to reach specialty care centers. (more…)

The United States Department of Health and Human Services released The National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy in 2010. It’s goal? To encourage the healthcare industry to make health information and services easier to understand and use.

“Health literacy is needed to make health reform a reality,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “Without health information that makes sense to them, people can’t access cost effective, safe, and high quality health services. But, HHS can’t do it alone,” she added. “We need payers and providers of health care services to communicate clearly and make the necessary changes to improve their communication with consumers, patients, and beneficiaries.” (more…)

The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions released results of a study showing doctors aren’t doing very well yet engaging patients via health information technology (HIT). There are lots of ways to do this, but pediatric health videos improve patient engagement in a way that is readily received and easily deployed.

According to an article in Healthcare IT News (Feb. 27, 2012), the new Deloitte report, “Physician Perspectives on Health Information Technology,” says no more than 1 in 5 doctors are providing any significant benefits to their patients via information technology (IT). (more…)