United States Department of Veterans Affairs

VA Black Hills Health Care System

Patient Education

 

The staff at VA Black Hills Health Care System cares about you and your family. Your health is important to us. We want to assist you in learning how to live a healthy lifestyle and to learn ways to self-manage your own health. There are a number of health education resources available to Veterans at no cost.

Outpatient

Clinical staff provide ongoing health education during regularly scheduled outpatient clinic visits. Education will be focused on health promotion, upcoming tests and procedures, medications, diagnosis and treatments. Staff can also tell you about upcoming education classes that are available. During these visits, please ask your clinical staff for further information if your health questions are not answered.

Inpatient

Clinical staff begin the patient education process at the time of admission, during the hospital stay and at discharge. Our goal is to provide a hospital environment where patients continually receive updated health information, they are able to ask questions about their health, and their stay in the hospital is as comfortable as possible.

Information

The VA has a site with a wide range of health tips and information. You can visit it here:
VHA National Center for Health Promotion & Disease Prevention (NCP) 

Below is additional information that may be helpful. These are pdf files. If you are unable to open the document, you can download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader here. 

Chronic Disease Case Management:
Case managers provide educational services and assistance for people with diabetes, heart failure, and COPD.  Based on criteria, patients with those conditions may be eligible for disease specific case management services. 
Click here to see a list of case managers and contact numbers. 

Fall Prevention at Home 

  • Fall Prevention Checklist  arrowdownload 
  • Preventing Falls Outside of Your Home   arrowdownload
  • Preventing Falling on Stairs   arrowdownload

Infection Prevention

The On Call Show

“On Call” airs Thursdays on South Dakota Public Broadcasting-Television at 7 p.m. Central, 6 p.m. Mountain. The South Dakota Cooperative Extension Service produces “On Call,” a weekly program about health.

During the live broadcast, viewers can call 1-888-DrOnCall (1-888-376-6225) with their questions. Viewers also can e-mail their questions in advance of the broadcast by visiting the “On Call” website at this link: http://oncall.sdstate.org/.*

There is also an archive a past topics available on their website.

The South Dakota State Medical Association and the South Dakota Department of Health both endorse “On Call” and its programming. “On Call” is the only show to receive these endorsements.

Plain language Medical Dictionary

Medical terminology can be confusing at times. University of Michigan Taubman Health Sciences Library has developed an online dictionary. You can try it here:

To look up a term, use the drop down arrow. Click on the word or phrase. The answer will appear in the box.

Learn more about the Plain language Medical Dictionary here:
www.lib.umich.edu/plain-language-dictionary *



*PLEASE NOTE that this link will take you outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs Website. VA does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of the linked pages.