Keith Parrott has been elected to the position of president and chief executive officer of Baptist Health Systems (BHS).
Parrott most recently served as executive vice president and chief operating officer for BHS, with oversight of the System’s four hospitals. He joined BHS in February 2008 as president of Princeton Baptist Medical Center. Prior to that, he spent 17 years with Memorial Hermann Healthcare System in Houston, Texas, holding several management positions.
Parrott graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Arts degree and received his master’s degree in health care administration from the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL). He is board certified in health care management and is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. Parrott was an American Hospital Association/Health Forum “Creating Healthier Communities” Fellow in 2002 and has served as adjunct faculty for the Healthcare Administration Program at UAB. He was honored in 2003 as the Outstanding Alumnus of the UHCL Health Care Administration Program, and was recognized in 2007 as a Distinguished Alumnus of UHCL.
Parrott’s community activities include membership in the 2010 class of Leadership Birmingham; Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama Hospital Advisory Committee; Alabama Hospital Association (AlaHA) State Regulatory Committee Member; Secretary, Birmingham Regional Council of AlaHA; Kiwanis of Birmingham; Deacon, Mountain Brook Baptist Church; and Advisory Council Member for the Junior League of Birmingham (2008-2010).
UAB Launches Undiagnosed Diseases Program
UAB has created a new program aimed at solving some of the most perplexing medical mysteries. The new Undiagnosed Diseases Program will tackle cases where a diagnosis has not been made despite extensive efforts by the referring physician.
The UDP team, led by Bruce Korf, MD, professor and chair of the UAB Department of Genetics, Maria Descartes, MD, professor of genetics, and Gustavo Heudebert, MD, professor of internal medicine, includes a certified genetic counselor and a clinical nurse coordinator. Physicians from various subspecialties will serve as consultants.
The UAB program is modeled on a similar program at the National Institutes of Health.
Korf served as chair of the advisory board for the NIH initiative. UAB’s program is one of the first at an academic medical center and part of AMC21, the UAB strategic plan for the 21st century.
Patients must be referred to the UAB UDP by their primary care physician or a physician providing ongoing care for the condition under evaluation. The condition should have been present for at least six months.
Those enrolled into the program will undergo sequencing of their genome as part of the evaluation process. Genetic testing will be available to family members when appropriate, along with genetic counseling.
The program expects to see no more than 40 to 50 cases per year, and not every patient is guaranteed to receive a diagnosis or treatment plan; in those circumstances, patients will be referred to appropriate UAB specialists for symptom management.
The number of patients admitted into the program will be kept small so that resources can be devoted to cases most likely to lead to new medical discoveries. Those answers could potentially benefit countless people beyond the few that the panel of experts will see.
“This is a concentrated effort to uncover a diagnosis and bring about effective treatment,” said Korf. “Insights gained during evaluation of a single patient may benefit those presently affected by such conditions and have the potential to benefit future generations of patients, while advancing medical and scientific knowledge as a whole.”
Princeton BMC Breast Care Center Accredited by National Accreditation
The Breast Care Center at Princeton Baptist Medical Center has been granted a three-year/full accreditation designation by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC), a program administered by the American College of Surgeons.
Accreditation by the NAPBC is only given to those centers that have committed to provide the highest level of quality breast care and that undergo a rigorous evaluation process.
The Princeton Breast Care Center is committed to quality care and that is why we pursued this accreditation,” said Terri Lamons, Princeton BMC executive director of Diagnostic Imaging. “Achieving this accreditation means that our patients are best managed in a complex environment through multidisciplinary coordination.”
The NAPBC is a consortium of professional organizations dedicated to the improvement of the quality of care and monitoring of outcomes of patients with breast disease.
Receiving care at a NAPBC-accredited center ensures that a patient will have access to:
• Comprehensive care, including a full range of state-of-the-art services
• A multidisciplinary team approach to coordinate the best treatment options
• Information about ongoing clinical trials and new treatment options
• Quality breast care close to home.
UAB Medicine Launches Online Learning for Medical Professionals
UAB Medicine in collaboration with BroadcastMed has launched MD Learning Channel, an online resource that enables medical professionals worldwide to tap into the knowledge and expertise of UAB physicians.
The website at www. learnmd.uabmedicine.org offers free Web-based learning and continuing medical education for physicians and other medical professionals. It includes video presentations from UAB physicians discussing new research findings, new procedures and developments in diagnosis or treatment of disease.
The site primarily focuses on cancer, neurosciences, pulmonary medicine, women and infants services and cardiovascular medicine and will expand to include additional medical specialties in the future.
“UAB physicians and scientists are at the forefront of medicine, scientific research and advancement of treatments and patient-focused care,” said Physician Marketing Manager Whitney McDonald. “This site provides a convenient way for UAB to disseminate its wealth of expertise to medical professionals around the world.”
McDonald says the site’s on-demand service enables physicians to learn as their schedule permits.
“By making the information readily available, we hope to further the mission of the UAB Medicine team, while sharing techniques, procedures and evidence-based care in use here to help others care for their patients,” said McDonald.
DCH Recognized for Quality in Cardiac Care
DCH Regional Medical Center has been recognized by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama as one of the first hospitals in the nation to receive a Blue Distinction Center+SM designation in the area of cardiac care, as part of the Blue Distinction Centers for Specialty Care® program.
Blue Distinction Centers are hospitals shown to deliver quality specialty care based on objective measures for patient safety and health outcomes. This year, the national program has added a new designation level, Blue Distinction Centers+, to recognize hospitals that deliver both quality and cost-efficient specialty care.
To receive a Blue Distinction Center+ for Cardiac CareSM designation, a hospital must demonstrate success in meeting both general quality and safety criteria along with cardiac-specific quality measures. Hospitals must also show better cost efficiency relative to their peers.
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Cardiac procedures are among the most common major medical procedures, with more than one million procedures performed annually.
Research shows that Blue Distinction Centers+ demonstrate better quality and improved outcomes for patients, with lower rates of complications following certain cardiac procedures and lower rates of healthcare associated infections, compared with their peers. Blue Distinction Centers.
Milestone for the New Bruno Cancer Center
On December 19th, the new Bruno Cancer Center celebrated an important milestone with the installation of the final steel beam of the building. To commemorate this milestone, St. Vincent’s invited patients, associates and campaign donors to sign the beam.
The new center will be housed in a 70,000 square-foot, three-story freestanding professional office building on St. Vincent’s Birmingham campus. The new Bruno Cancer Center will include features for improved comfort, easy access and privacy such as private entries for treatment and office visits, automated check-in and expanded space in exam rooms and common areas. The facility will also house the Varian TrueBeam Stx, the latest in radiation technology.
Problem-Child Behavior Could Result From Early Puberty in Girls
A UAB study published in the journal Pediatrics show that adolescent girls who experience their first menstrual cycle prior to age 11 reported more delinquent and physically aggressive behavior.
By age 16, the effect of early puberty on physical aggression disappeared, but these girls still reported more delinquent behavior than those who did not experience early puberty.
“Delinquency and aggression put adolescents at risk for many negative outcomes in the future,” explained the study’s lead author Sylvie Mrug, PhD, associate professor in the UAB Department of Psychology. “Thus it is important to understand how these problem behaviors develop.”
Mrug and colleagues interviewed more than 2,600 girls and parents from a variety of ethnic background between the ages of 11 to16 to examine how early puberty onset and best friends’ problem behavior contributed to delinquency and aggression.
Girls who had a best friend with more problem behavior reported more delinquent and aggressive behavior at age 11, but these effects mostly dissipated by age 16.
The results suggest that early maturing girls are more vulnerable to negative peer influences.
Another result is that early puberty and best friends’ behavior at age 11 do not put girls on trajectories of long-term problem behaviors, according to Mrug. “These influences can be short-lived, and this may give hope to families dealing with such issues,” she said.
