Medical West recently began a $15 million capital plan for renovations and upgrades to the existing facility.
The plan includes renovations, equipment, infrastructure, and information systems upgrades for the current facility and Medical West satellite health centers aimed at providing a more comfortable environment for patients.
“We want to make our facility as comfortable and convenient as possible,” said Keith Pennington, CEO and President of Medical West. “All of our renovation plans were made with our patients and visitors in mind.”
New imaging equipment, such as a state of the art nuclear medicine camera and echocardiogram machine will enhance the services we provide to our patients. This follows several 2012 imaging upgrades, such as a 64-slice CT scanner and digital mammography.
Each aspect of the renovation and expansion plan will enhance the comfort and high quality of care for patients as well as provide opportunity for future growth and expansion to meet the needs of our community.
Dugas Honored as Visiting Professor at Duke
Dugas shared his expertise with medical students, residents, fellows, therapists and attending physicians at the Sports Medicine division of Duke Orthopaedics.
Dugas received his medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine in 1994. He completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. Dugas completed a fellowship in sports medicine at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, under the direction of James Andrews, MD, and William Clancy, Jr., MD.
Dugas serves on the Board of Trustees at the American Baseball Foundation and Alabama Sports Medicine Institute. Dugas is also the medical director for USA Cheer, the national governing body for cheerleading, and he is on the National Concussion Task Force for the prevention of concussions in youth sports.
Locally, Dugas serves as a team physician for Troy University, Vestavia Hills High School, Hoover High School, Calera High School, Cordova High School and Bessemer Academy. He also provides sports medicine assistance for the Birmingham Barons and the Alabama Ballet.
Jablonski, Day Elected to Nursing Academy
UAB School of Nursing associate professors Rita Jablonski, PhD, RN, and Sara Day, PhD, RN, have been selected for induction as fellows into the American Academy of Nursing (AAN).
The academy comprises more than 2,000 nurse leaders in education, management, practice, and research. Selection criteria include evidence of significant contributions to nursing and health care and sponsorship by two current academy fellows. Applicants are reviewed by a panel comprised of elected and appointed fellows.
MagMutual Creates OURCell Captive, P.C.C.
MagMutual Insurance Company has announced the formation of OURCell Captive, P.C.C. A wholly owned subsidiary of MagMutual, OURCell Captive provides physician practices and hospital systems that desire to actively participate in the retention and management of their liability exposure with an alternative solution for risk financing.
“We are pleased to offer OURCell Captive as an alternative type of risk financing,” said Neil Morrell, president and chief operating officer of MagMutual. “We are frequently approached by healthcare providers with increasingly sophisticated requirements as they’re looking for alternatives to more traditional forms of medical professional liability insurance coverage. We’ve added OURCell Captive to our portfolio of options in response to the evolving demands of the marketplace.”
“Healthcare is constantly changing and physicians and healthcare executives are seeking innovative solutions that will help them achieve their business objectives even as they deliver excellent care,” added Joseph S. Wilson, Jr., MD, MagMutual’s chairman of the board and chief executive officer. “OURCell Captive will be instrumental in helping many clients achieve those duel objectives.”
DCH Home Health Care Agency Named to the Top 500
DCH Home Health Care Agency has been named in the top five percent of the home health agencies in the United States by the HomeCare Elite, a national health care information company.
The award is sponsored by OCS HomeCare by National Research Corporation, the leading provider of products for home health metrics and analytics, and DecisionHealth, publisher of the most respected independent newsletter in the home care profession, Home Health Line.
Marcia Bailey, director of DCH Home Health Care Agency, said, “We’ve ranked in the top 25 percent in the nation since the study began in 2006, and this is the sixth time we’ve been named in the top 100 or 500 home health agencies in the nation. Our patient satisfaction scores have also been among the highest in the country for several years.”
UAB does Virtual Surgery with VIPAAR and Google Glass
A UAB surgical team has performed one of the first surgeries using a virtual augmented reality technology from VIPAAR in conjunction with Google Glass, a wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display. The combination of the two technologies could be an important step toward the development of practical telemedicine.
VIPAAR, which stands for Virtual Interactive Presence in Augmented Reality, is commercializing a UAB-developed technology that provides real-time, two-way, interactive video conferencing.
Brent Ponce, MD performed a shoulder replacement surgery at UAB Highlands Hospital in Birmingham while Phani Dantuluri, MD interacted with Ponce via the VIPAAR technology from Dantuluri’s office in Atlanta.
Ponce wore Google Glass during the operation. The built-in camera transmitted the image of the surgical field to Dantuluri. The VIPAAR technology allowed Dantuluri to see exactly what Ponce saw in the operating room and introduce his hands or instruments into the virtual surgical field. At the same time, Ponce saw Dantuluri’s hands and instruments in his heads-up display, along with his own field of view, as a merged-reality environment.
“It’s not unlike the line marking a first down that a television broadcast adds to the screen while televising a football game,” Ponce said. “You see the line, although it’s not really on the field. Using VIPAAR, a remote surgeon is able to put his hands into the surgical field and provide collaboration.”
The two surgeons were able to discuss the case in a truly interactive fashion since Dantuluri could watch Ponce perform the surgery and simultaneously introduce his hands or instruments into Ponce’s view as if they were standing next to each other during the case.
UAB physicians say this kind of technology could enhance patient care by allowing a veteran surgeon to remotely provide expertise to less experienced surgeons. VIPAAR owes its origins to UAB neurosurgeon Barton Guthrie, MD who some 10 years ago grew dissatisfied with the current state of telemedicine.
“So-called ‘telemedicine’ was little more than a telephone call between two physicians,” Guthrie said. “A surgeon in a small, regional hospital might call looking for guidance on a difficult procedure. How advantageous to the patient would it be if we could get our hands and instruments virtually into the field of view of a surgeon who has skills and training and lacks only experience?”
BHS CEO Spees Returning to Mississippi
Shane Spees, President and CEO of Baptist Health System (BHS), has accepted the position of President and CEO of North Mississippi Health System in Tupelo. Spees joined Baptist Health System in 2007.
“While we are disappointed to see Shane leave, North Mississippi represents a unique opportunity for him. Shane and his wife Parker were raised in Tupelo and their parents still reside there,” said John Holcomb, Chairman of the BHS Board of Trustees. “Shane has performed superbly since joining Baptist Health System. Baptist is definitely a stronger organization thanks to Shane’s leadership.”
Spees will remain at the helm through mid-December, ensuring a smooth transition of leadership.
Trinity Medical Center Named Top Performer
Trinity Medical Center today was named as one of the nation’s Top Performers on Key Quality Measures® by The Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of U.S. health care organizations. Trinity was recognized for exemplary performance in using evidence-based clinical processes that are shown to improve care for certain conditions. These conditions include heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, surgical care, children’s asthma, stroke and venous thrombo embolism, as well as inpatient psychiatric services.
Trinity is one of 1,099 hospitals earning the distinction of Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® for attaining and sustaining excellence in the following measure sets: heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care. The ratings are based on an aggregation of accountability measure data reported to The Joint Commission during the 2012 calendar year.
This is the second time that Trinity is being recognized as a Top Performer. Previously, Trinity was recognized by The Joint Commission for its achievement on the following measure sets: heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care.
Heudebert elected master by American College of Physicians
Gustavo (Tavo) Heudebert, MD, a professor of Medicine and assistant dean of Graduate Medical Education at the UAB School of Medicine, has been elected by the American College of Physicians to mastership.
Mastership is conferred only on a select number of worthy candidates who are deemed distinguished through the practice of the specialty of internal medicine. Emphasis is placed on service as a mentor, advocacy for quality in internal medicine, commitment to social justice, deep interest in people and the creation of communities of medicine.
“This is a huge honor for me” Heudebert said. “More importantly, it meant the world to know I was nominated by esteemed colleagues who are both current and former UAB faculty.”
Heudebert came to UAB in 1995. A 1982 graduate of Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Peru, Heudebert completed his internship and residency at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and a general internal medicine fellowship at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. His research interest is in the measurement of educational productivity and the possibility of using an outcomes research approach to measure changes in graduate medical education on both educational and patient outcomes.
He was named assistant dean for Graduate Medical Education in 2006. He is also a co-leader of the new Undiagnosed Diseases Program at UAB.
DCH Named Top Performer
DCH Regional Medical Center and Northport Medical Center have been named Top Performers on Key Quality Measures® by The Joint Commission, the leading accrediting organization for health care organizations in America.
The Joint Commission recognized the Regional Medical Center and Northport Medical Center for what it called “exemplary performance” in using evidence-based clinical processes that are shown to improve care for heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care.
Kuhlmann Receives AMA Award
The American Medical Association recently presented Cary J. Kuhlmann, executive director of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, with the Medical Executive Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is given by the AMA to honor a medical association executive who has contributed substantially to the goals and ideals of the medical profession.
Kuhlmann has been MASA’s executive director since 1997. Prior to joining MASA, he served with the Orleans Parish Medical Society for 25 years where he was the executive director. He will retire from MASA at the end of 2013.
Mark Jackson, a 27-year MASA employee, will assume the position of executive director in January 2014. Jackson is a native of Anniston, Ala., and holds a degree in Business Administration/Personnel Management from Auburn University.
UAB Unveils State’s Largest Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility
UAB unveiled has the state’s largest and most advanced nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) facility. The $3.5 million project is the result of a partnership between the National Center for Research Resources, National Cancer Institute, UAB Health Services Foundation, and the offices of the vice president for Research and Economic Development and the deans of the School of Medicine and College of Arts and Sciences. The facility provides state-of-the-art sensitivity and resolution for biomedical research and drug discovery for treatment of diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, HIV-1, Parkinson’s disease, atherosclerosis, hypertension and diabetes, among others.
The facility combines existing instrumentation from UAB’s chemistry, and biochemistry and molecular genetics departments with the facility’s centerpiece, a new Bruker BioSpin Avance III HD 850 MHz NMR spectrometer equipped with a cryoprobe. The facility also includes the Avance II 700 MHz and the Avance III HD 600 MHz, all with cryoprobes, as well as the Avance III HD 500 MHz NMR systems.
“This new facility is going to take biomedical research to the next level, not only with its state-of-the-art instrumentation, but with the collaborative expertise of our researchers, who will better our understanding of disease and disease progression,” said Edward Partridge, M.D., director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.
N. Rama Krishna, PhD, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics and the director of the NMR facility, was essential in helping secure major grant funding for the project.
“This puts UAB in the category of leading institutions that have this kind technology,” Krishna said. “This facility is a unique platform that merges both basic science and translational research — from structural biology of proteins to drug discovery, to NMR-metabolic profiling of biofluids to assess toxicity and physiological changes induced by drugs.”
New Board Members for Shelby MGMA
The Shelby County MGMA has elected its board for 2014; Erin Fisher, practice manager of Shelby Dermatology will serve as president; Cynthia Laken, billing coordinator at Shelby OB/GYN is vice-president; and Myles Walcott, practice manager of Cahaba Valley Surgical Group, is secretary/treasurer.
Baptist Hospitals Earn Top Performer Recognition
For the third consecutive year, three Baptist Health System hospitals were each named a Top Performer on Key Quality Measures® by The Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of health care organizations in America.
Princeton, Shelby, and Walker Baptist were recognized for their performance in using best practices shown to improve care for certain conditions. All three medical centers were recognized for their achievements in four areas: heart attack, heart failure, surgery and pneumonia.
“Safe, effective care is what matters most to our patients. Physicians and staff at our hospitals understand that and strive daily to deliver safe, effective care,” said BHS President and CEO Shane Spees.
According to The Joint Commission, 1,099 hospitals throughout the nation were listed as Top Performers, which is approximately one-
Novel Cancer-Fighting Technology Does Well in Trials
PNP Therapeutics, Inc. — a company based on a gene-therapy technology developed by scientists at Southern Research Institute and UAB — has found an approach that has abolished otherwise unmanageable human cancers in preclinical rodent studies.
PNP has completed the first three cohorts of its Phase I clinical trial and is now recruiting for the fourth cohort. The company is looking ahead to Phase II trials and seeking an appropriate partner in the pharmaceutical industry.
“We are pleased with the progress made by the product thus far,” said William Parker, PhD, senior research fellow at Southern Research Institute. “Many common cancers, such as head and neck cancers, become untreatable despite the best medical intervention. There are compounds that can be used to treat these tumors, but the drugs are typically too toxic. Our technology spares the patient from unnecessary exposure to chemotherapy, and can be used safely because the active agents are confined within a tumor mass.”
In PNP’s Phase I trial, an adenoviral vector is used to deliver E. coli PNP to head and neck tumors followed by intravenous administration of the prodrug fludarabine. The therapy was well-tolerated in the first nine patients, and doctors have detected efficacy.
The technology is based on the notion that solid tumors can be programmed to generate their own chemotherapy. Selectivity of the therapeutic approach is achieved by producing an enzyme called E. coli purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) directly within tumor cells and using the enzyme to generate chemotherapy in the tumor mass itself. The resulting compound works by a unique mechanism of action unlike any drug currently used in cancer treatment, and it destroys replicating and nonreplicating malignant cells while minimizing damage to surrounding cells.
Over the course of its development, PNP has secured grants from the National Institutes of Health of approximately $10 million to support preclinical research at Southern Research Institute and UAB.
