PHA Achieves Educational Breakthrough With New Interactive CD-ROM
Imagine an interactive, virtual diagnostic assessment of a patient with pulmonary arterial hypertension reconstructed for you step by step with every essential aspect covered, from history and physical, including heart tones, to echocardiograms, x-rays, lung scans, and catheterization. It is animated, contains videos, and allows you to interact with the diagnostic assessment to determine your next move. All captured on a CD-ROM by the world's leading experts in diagnosing pulmonary hypertension. Better yet, all you need do to obtain this CD-ROM is request a complimentary copy via a Web site, as indicated on page 5.
For most of this year the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA) has been developing this dynamic multimedia project on the diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension through the support of a $25,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Leading cardiologists and pulmonologists have posted their insights and findings of diagnostic assessments on a Web site established specifically to create the information on the CD-ROM. This project was recently completed, enabling PHA to offer the only CD-ROM of its kind to guide physicians through the myriad situations arising in clinical practice, exactly as presented by a patient suspected of having pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Working with multimedia specialists David Criley and John Criley of Blaufuss Medical Multimedia, San Francisco, a PHA committee has contributed a wealth of information from real-life scenarios. Complete with real-time videos and allowing the viewer to interact, even at the level of moving a stethoscope's chestpiece on screen to elicit different heart tones, the CD-ROM is part of a growing resource of educational materials available to physicians and patients at no charge from PHA. For example, free copies are available of the new American College of Chest Physicians PAH Practice Guidelines. Six programs this fall, entitled Shedding Light on Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: The Journey Toward a Brighter Future, will be held at regional locations around the country, with Continuing Medical Education credit offered.
The newly published Pulmonary Hypertension: A Patient's Survival Guide may be obtained through the PHA Web site, www.phassociation.org/Store/, or call (301) 565–3004. It is a 280-page guide for patients and medical professionals. And from September 30 to October 1, the 2005 PH Resource Network Symposium will be held in Bethesda, Maryland. For more information and registration please access www.phassociation.org/PHRN/Symposium.
On behalf of PHA and its Scientific Leadership Council, I urge you to take advantage of the growing network and library of educational offerings as we work together toward a cure for pulmonary hypertension.