Part of the mission of the Adult Sickle Cell Clinical Program is to ensure adult Arkansans with sickle cell disease receive standardized, comprehensive health care services. To meet that objective, primary care physicians in Arkansas caring for adult patients with sickle cell disease are offered education and support through:
- Collaboration and education regarding best care practices and provider support to keep the patients in their community for care whenever appropriate.
- Telephone consults available 24/7 where the physician can call the Sickle Cell hotline at 1-855-Sic-Cell, and the nurse in the call center will connect them with a physician on the Sickle Cell team. The Call Center nurse will then facilitate any recommendations that a physician needs assistance, hospital transfer, appointment in the sickle cell clinic, or assistance with a copy of the treatment guidelines.
- Evidence-based treatment guidelines on best practices to assist providers in their efforts to care for their patients in their local healthcare facilities.
- Educational presentations, including case presentations, difficult cases and lectures on demand are given to increase awareness regarding best case practices for medical management of these patients. The UAMS
- Center for Distance Health provides the opportunity for participation in Connecting Across Professions (CAP), a statewide means of provider teleconferencing. The CAP teleconferences are given quarterly regarding various aspects of sickle cell disease and treatment. These presentations are available to providers across the state for live viewing and on-demand viewing. Providers can earn CEUs for education provided at these teleconferences.
The team provides educational lectures to groups at UAMS, including medical residents in emergency and family medicine. The team attends and presents at professional meetings and conferences. The team continues to reach out to healthcare providers around the state through professional conferences providing disease-specific education and working to identify a core group of providers across the state to engage in collaborative primary care for this population. Outreach is also provided through exhibit booths at statewide conferences.
Patient Education Modules
The Sickle Cell team, with instructional development specialists at the Center for Distance Health, has developed a set of interactive learning modules for our sickle cell patients. These modules are found at uamspatientslearn.org, provide the patient with information about their disease and appropriate ways to manage their illness. To encourage the use of the education modules, patients are assisted in using tablets to access the modules during their clinic wait time.
The patient education modules include the following titles:
- Genetics of Sickle Cell Disease
- Nutrition to Fight Sickle Cell Disease
- Respect for Opiates Used to Treat Sickle Cell Disease
- Response to Painful Crises in Sickle Cell Disease
- Medications used in Sickle Cell Disease
- Organs Affected by Sickle Cell Disease
- Coping with Sickle Cell Disease
- Procedures & Treatments for Sickle Cell Disease
- Pregnancy and Sickle Cell Disease
- Transition from Pediatric to Adult Care with Sickle Cell Disease
- Preventive Health for SickleCell Disease