Purdue Nurse - Summer 2001 - School of Nursing - Purdue University

COMMUNITY
COLLABORATION
Nursing Center Promotes Healthy Employees
Purdue spends
$1 million every week
on health care costs
for its employees.
The Nursing Center
for Family Health is a
positive contributor
to the University’s
efforts to contain
those costs.
Purdue University spends $1 million every week on health
care-related costs for its employees.
“It is certainly in the best interests of the university to do
whatever is possible to contain these costs, and the Nursing Center
for Family Health (NCFH) is a positive contributor to that effort,”
says Kathy Nichols, the Center’s Clinical Coordinator.
One way of containing health care costs is to catch problems
before they become serious, and the Nursing Center for Family
Health does that for the Purdue family through health and
wellness screenings.
This year, health screenings conducted by nursing students
have diagnosed potentially serious problems for several clients.
One of them was 31-year-old creative writing student and
residence hall employee Jamie Richards.
“I had gotten used to being tired a lot, but the extreme fatigue I
often felt after meals seemed excessive,” he says. “In the last six
years, I had told three doctors about my symptoms. Each time they
told me to eat a balanced diet, get moderate exercise and plenty of
sleep.”
When he heard about the Nursing Center’s Health Fairs,
Richards decided to come to a screening. His tests showed an
elevated blood-sugar level. With those results in hand, he went
back to the doctor where additional tests revealed a pre-diabetic
condition.
“I feel so much better now because I understand and can
manage my symptoms,” Richards says. “I really appreciate that
these screenings are available to the univesity community.”
Jamie Richards found out about his pre-diabetic condition
through a Nursing Center for Family Health screening.
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