PMC Receives PAD Coalition's Award

The Peripheral Arterial Disease (P.A.D.) Coalition presented its annual Stay in Circulation Community Service Award to Parrish Medical Center, Titusville, Fla, at the organization’s seventh annual meeting. The Stay in Circulation Community Service Award recognizes collaborative programs focused on increasing awareness about peripheral arterial disease to high-risk populations, patients and/or the health care community.

Marialice Knight, RN, BSN, Parrish Medical Center cardiovascular community RN and P.A.D. program coordinator accepted the award on the medical center’s behalf.

“Parrish Medical Center is extremely honored to receive this award,” said Knight. “Our P.A.D. community program is a seven-year collaborative effort of our hospital board of directors, administration, foundation, staff members and our P.A.D. physicians. We are dedicated to the continued support of the Coalition’s mission and to continue to identify individuals with P.A.D. and assure they receive the same risk reduction and specific treatment as those with coronary artery disease.”

Peripheral arterial disease occurs when arteries in the legs become narrowed or clogged with fatty deposits, reducing blood flow to the legs. This can result in leg muscle pain when walking, disability, amputation and a poor quality of life. Blocked leg arteries found in people with P.A.D. can be a warning sign that other arteries, including those in the heart and brain, may also be affected—increasing the risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Parrish Medical Center received the P.A.D. Community Service Award for its innovative and comprehensive approach to P.A.D outreach and education. The Center built a local P.A.D. network, a multidisciplinary collaborative that served to educate the health care community and at risk individuals about P.A.D. Since 2005, Parrish Medical Center has coordinated approximately 100 P.A.D. awareness presentations to hospital staff, local clinicians, city employees and a variety of other audiences, and has completed nearly 2,500 P.A.D. screening tests for community members. The center was able to accomplish this with seed money provided by the Jess Parrish Medical Foundation to purchase P.A.D. screening equipment.

Community access to free, year round P.A.D. screenings provides a tool to identify patients at risk for cardiovascular and peripheral arterial disease. PMC has enhanced physician relationships with primary care, cardiology, internal medicine and other subspecialties by assisting them in their efforts to prevent and identify P.A.D. in their patient population. In particular, a targeted partnership with 12 local physician practices has proven to be a successful coordination of education, training and standardization of practice for the detection and treatment of P.A.D. Media efforts have supplemented all activities and successfully worked to further P.A.D. messages within the community.

"On behalf of the P.A.D. Coalition, we are delighted to present the third annual Community Service Award to Parrish Medical Center," said Marge Lovell, RN, Chair, P.A.D. Coalition and clinical trials nurse at the London Health Sciences and Centre in London, Ontario. “Their efforts serve as a model program to reach entire communities with P.A.D. messages to help reduce the devastating consequences of the disease.” For more information about P.A.D., visit www.P.A.D.coalition.org.

The P.A.D. Coalition The Peripheral Arterial Disease (P.A.D.) Coalition is an international alliance of more than 80 North American and European health organizations, professional societies, government agencies and corporations united to improve the health and care of patients with P.A.D. Established in 2004, the P.A.D. Coalition is a division of the Vascular Disease Foundation (www.vdf.org), a national, not-for-profit section 501(c)(3) organization. The P.A.D. Coalition is supported by the following national sponsors: the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership; Cordis Endovascular, a division of Cordis Corporation; Abbott Vascular; AstraZeneca; Bard Peripheral Vascular; BioMedix; Cook, Inc; ev3 Endovascular, Inc.; W.L. Gore & Associates; Hokanson; PADTest; and Summit Doppler.