UAB Creates Medical Emergency Team
UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Hospital has created a Medical Emergency Team (MET) to bring critical care to the bedside in the event an urgent, life-threatening situation arises in a non-critical care area of the hospital. The team consists of a physician and two registered nurses specially trained in providing urgent critical care to patients in need.
“The MET is a highly trained team prepared to respond at a moment’s notice at the first sign that a patient may be experiencing an unanticipated crisis,” said Mike Moran, RN, MSN, manager of the new UAB Hospital Department of Resuscitation. “The team can initiate resuscitation efforts and stabilize the situation with the goal of preventing a patient from developing full cardiac arrest.”
The MET will respond to standard hospital units if monitored vital signs or a nurse’s observation indicates an acute change in a patient’s condition.
Starting last month, the team will operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Physicians on the team will be drawn from the departments of emergency medicine and anesthesiology and the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine.
The Department of Resuscitation will provide training for team members as well as offer continuing medical education classes for health care professionals.
Trinity Medical Center’s Walling Chairs Psychiatric Constituency Section
Ty Walling, director of behavioral health at Trinity Medical Center, has been selected to chair the Psychiatric Constituency Section of the Alabama Hospital Association. The group serves as a forum for hospitals in Alabama that provide psychiatric services to share information and resources.
Brookwood Medical Center Receives Quality Award
At the 2007 Award of Excellence and Collaborative Outcomes Congress, hosted by the Alabama Quality Assurance Foundation (AQAF), Brookwood Medical Center received the Gold Award for Surgical Care Improvement for large hospitals, which comprised all Alabama hospitals with 100 or more beds. As a 586-bed facility, Brookwood was by far the largest hospital in the state to receive recognition in this category.
“We are very pleased and honored to have received this recognition,” states Sue Esleck, Vice President of Quality and Resource Management for Brookwood. “This award represents a hospital-wide focus on daily attention to details by all of our staff. Our hospital performs over 30,000 surgical procedures each year, so constant improvement in surgical care is obviously a top priority for us. I congratulate all the patient care employees who worked so hard to make this award possible.”
Faircloth Appointed to Clinical Nurse Managers Work Team
Karen Faircloth, director of emergency services at Trinity Medical Center, has been appointed to the Clinical Nurse Managers Work Team for the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA). She will be participating with a dynamic group of dedicated professionals to address national issues related to emergency nursing practice, emergency care and matters of the Association. This group will participate in a comprehensive review of the issues and proposals the Association will be addressing throughout the year.
Faircloth received her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Samford University and her master’s degree in nursing from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. She has been employed by Trinity Medical Center (formerly Montclair Baptist) since 1979 serving in various positions. In 2004, she was named director of the emergency department.
She is a member of the Emergency Nurses Association, the Birmingham Regional Organization of Nurse Executives and the Birmingham Stroke Task Force.
UAB Researchers Find Potenial Treatment for RSV
Sadis Matalon, PhD, professor of anesthesiology at UAB, recently discovered that a drug commonly used for the treatment of arthritis can also be used to treat Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), the most common cause of lower respiratory tract infection in infants and children worldwide. The study is published in the June issue of the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology.
Matalon says this research highlights the collaborative efforts among different departments at UAB. The findings would not have been possible without the contributions of Wayne Sullender, MD, professor of pediatrics at UAB and RSV virologist; Ian Davis, co-inventor on the patent who earned his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Pathology at UAB in 2000 and received a special training grant from the NIH on this topic; and numerous others who contributed to the research and design of the study.
We all work as a team,” Matalon said. “This work was made possible by valuable contributions from my collaborators.”
UAB Researchers Find New Pathway to Twart Antibiotic Resistance
Researchers at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) have new information on the structure of a key enzyme in bacteria that could lead to improved antibiotics and less antibiotic resistance. The research team describe the differences in an enzyme called RNA polymerase in bacterial cells as opposed to human cells. These differences provide potential new targets for drug design.
“RNA polymerase is the key enzyme regulating the transfer of genetic information from DNA to RNA,” said Dmitry Vassylyev, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics and lead author of both papers. “All living organisms use this enzyme to transmit the instructions stored in genes (DNA) to messenger RNA (mRNA), which in turn communicates those instructions to the cells.”
Specifically, Vassylyev’s team traced the similarities and differences between human RNA polymerase and bacteria RNA polymerase, painting a more complete picture of the structure of this essential enzyme.
Vassylyev said that not only does this present a pathway for new antibiotics, it also should allow for existing drugs to be improved. Some antibiotics are very good at killing bacteria, for instance, but have a difficult time penetrating the cell membrane, rendering them fairly ineffective.
Children’s Hospital Names New Community Action Coordinator
Laura Caudell of Toccoa, Ga., has joined the office of community development at Children’s Health System as community action coordinator. In her new role, Caudell will coordinate community forums, events, receptions and other statewide initiatives to raise awareness and support of the Children’s Hospital mission while working with government and business leaders and other group and individual supporters.
Caudell comes to Children’s from Washington, D.C., where she served as press secretary for U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, deputy press secretary for former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige and deputy director of communications for the 2004 G8 Summit. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in history from Presbyterian College in Clinton, S.C., and a master of education degree from Vanderbilt University.
Baptist Health System Names New Senior Vice President and CFO
Pringle Ramsey, CPA, FHFMA, has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Baptist Health System (BHS) of Alabama. Ramsey, currently Vice President for Financial Planning of Valley Baptist Health System in Texas, will begin his new position July 23.
Prior to his position with Valley Baptist Health System, Ramsey held senior leadership roles with Harpeth Health Corporation in Nashville, Tenn., Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Houston, Texas, Cain Brothers & Company, LLC, and St. David’s Health Care System.
Ramsey holds a BBA in accounting from the University of North Texas and is a Healthcare Financial Management Association Fellow.Walling received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in secondary education from the University of Alabama, and his master’s in rehabilitation counseling and educational specialist degree in community counseling from UAB. He has been employed by Trinity since 1984 and has served as director for behavioral services since 2001.
July 2007
