Volume 6
October, 2006
Contents
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It’s Flu Shot Time Again
We now have vaccine available for the 2006-7 flu season. You
may drop-in on our main floor Lab at our Hartland location, or at our Bonney Lake or Sunrise Medical Campus location for a flu shot anytime
the office is open.
If you are in any of these categories, please come to the office for a
flu shot:
- Over age 50 years old
- Age from 6 months to 60 months old
- Have heart, lung, kidney or other significant illness like diabetes
- Are pregnant or expect to be pregnant during the flu season
- Work in the health care field
- Or if you are in close contact with people in any of the above
categories
If those categories seem to include just about everyone, you are not
far from correct. It’s also recommended that anyone who wishes to reduce
the likelihood of becoming ill with influenza also get a flu shot.
Specifically people in the high-risk groups above, as well as all health
care workers, and others in close contact with young children, older
adults or persons with significant health care problems should be
immunized.
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Each year, influenza occurs in significant numbers within
every community, including our own. The influenza vaccine is a primary
tool we have to avoid this illness. You may think of “the flu” as a
minor illness, but in fact influenza is a dramatic and significant
illness, especially for certain people more at risk for complications.
The Center for Disease Control has an Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices, who have in the last couple years recommended immunizing a
much broader group of people, not just to prevent influenza in those
people, but to protect others at risk.
It is probably no surprise
to mothers that children ages 6 months to 5 years old are a primary
source of influenza infection, but surprisingly the hospitalization rate
for children under 2 years old is similar to the rate for persons over
65 years old. Other people at high risk of severe influenza or
complications from influenza are pregnant women, persons over 50 years
old, people with certain medical conditions including lung, heart,
kidney and liver disease, diabetes, and any immune disorder. Health care
workers, and those in close contact with children, the elderly, or any
of the groups above are recommended for influenza vaccination.
The only reasons to not get a flu shot if you fall within one of these
categories is if you have an allergy to eggs, sensitivity to thimersol,
have an active neurologic disorder, or are quite sick currently with
fever, significant respiratory or other infection.
At Sound
Family Medicine we want to help protect you and those you love and care
for from influenza. Please stop by for a flu shot today.
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How do I access my test results online?
Once you have a lab test, please keep in mind it often takes a few days
to get results back from the lab, and then we need to review the results
and post them to this site. You should expect results for most blood
tests within 2 weeks, and for PAP smear and mammogram results within 3
weeks of the date the test is done.
In order to retrieve your test results online:
Go to our web site, www.soundfamilymedicine.com and click on
Lab Tests
Results found in the top middle of the home page. This will take you
to a page shown below. Here you will find three blank boxes to fill in.
Customer/Client Number: Enter our site number 505326.
Client Login/UID: Your unique ID (UID) is your social security number.
This needs to be just 9 digits, no dashes, no slashes, no spaces.
PIN is your date of birth as month/day/year, in the form: 031460 for
March 14, 1960. (Note just 6 numbers, no dashes, no slashes, no spaces).
This should bring up your test results. If you have difficulty please
recheck the format of your ID number and PIN.
If you would prefer to use the phone to retrieve the results you can
call 1-866-234-6989.
Then enter your UID number and PIN using the touch tone keys, and the
results will be read to you. (same format, just numbers)
Our intent is to allow you quicker, more secure access to your lab
results. When we get the results we will post them to this site, so you
can have quicker access to them. Results sent by this method will remain
archived so you can use this to compare new results to old results.
If you still are having problems please contact our office, 253-845-4059
and we would be glad to walk you through the process over the phone.
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