Local 12’s Liz Bonis explains in today’s Medical Edge.

Just a few months ago, Tom Devine arrived here UC’s emergency room at University Hospital.

Tom Devine, Patient: “I was up on the roof cleaning leaves and fell off onto the driveway, onto the concrete, so when I landed I was busted up pretty good, I couldn’t breath.”

Divine says cutting edge medical care here helped save his life, but when it came time to go home, he discovered he had nothing to wear!

“When you leave for the hospital, and there’s emergency vehicles and helicopters, nobody is thinking they are going to cut off all your clothes when you get there, but that’s exactly what they did.”

Luckily, Peggy Sogar stepped in. Sogar heads up a program here, called Fresh Start. Through private donations, sweat suits, socks, underwear and even, sometimes, footwear are provided for patients, when clothing is bloody or needs to be removed.

Peggy Sogar, Fresh Start Director: “It makes a big difference to a patient, and sometimes we’ll, even from a patient, a five dollar bill and a five dollar bill from a patient saying thank you for sending me home with a fresh sweatshirt to go home in, so it makes a big difference for a patient.”

“What a great detail for a hospital to offer something like that. It was a real nice touch and helped out a lot, trust me, helped out a lot.”

If you’d like to know how you can assist in this program, you can call the social work department at University Hospital at 513-584-4314.
 
UC Health University Hospital
Social Work Department
234 Goodman Street
M.L. 0743
Cincinnati, OH 45219

Cincinnati officials want to join mediation talks on the future of University Hospital and some City Council members believe it is considering a lawsuit to protect its interests.

City officials say a 2003 legal settlement obligates the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati to provide safety net services to urban residents and medical residents to city health clinics. The alliance includes University, Fort Hamilton and Jewish hospitals, the Drake Center and West Chester Medical Center.

When Jewish Hospital completes its $180 million sale to Mercy Health Partners March 1, the Health Alliance is likely to dissolve. Supporters say that will isolate University Hospital and put its safety net and medical care missions at risk.

City Solicitor John Curp said “secret negotiations” earlier this week with officials of the two hospitals aren’t advancing the city’s interests in the high-stakes hospital showdown.

“It should be clear that the Health Alliance has contractual obligations to the city and enforcement of those is my main concern,” Curp said. “Failure to consider our legal interests will probably undermine the outcome of those meetings.”

Lawyers for the Health Alliance hospitals met Monday and Tuesday, with neither side reporting significant progress. Jewish and Mercy have insisted they will close their deal March 1.

A lawsuit by either the city or the University of Cincinnati, which represents University Hospital, would bring the conflict out into the open and potentially prolong any resolution, much as it did during a three-year legal battle when Christ and St. Luke hospitals tried to withdraw from the Health Alliance.

City Council members haggled over a potential lawsuit Tuesday, with some apparently urging a lawsuit and others openly opposing it. Curp would not comment on whether he planned a lawsuit.

“We have no business getting involved in this private affair,” Council member Leslie Ghiz said.

In a letter last week to mediator Niki Schwartz, Curp outlined the city’s demands, including:

Operating University Hospital to provide indigent care to Cincinnatians.

Funding the Center for Closing the Health Gap.

Including the Cincinnati Board of Health in a new primary-care network.

Maintaining medical residents in city health clinics.

“Our appeal is to be sure that University Hospital and members of the Health Alliance do not lose sight of their moral obligation to provide access to health care for all of our community,” Curp wrote in the Jan. 6 letter.

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CINCINNATI — Teaching hospitals are on the front lines when it comes to treating the poor and uninsured – and with proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid funding – they question how they will be able to adequately perform their mission.

The Senate bill, for example, proposes a 75% cut in disproportionate-share payments – or DSH payments – to safety net hospitals like University Hospital in Cincinnati.

Safety net hospitals receive roughly $10 billion per year in DSH payments from Medicare.

“I don’t think the teaching hospitals are going to get a proportionate drop of 75% in the patients that come through our doors,” said Lee Ann Liska, executive director and senior vice president of University Hospital.

Liska suggests that the many clinics the hospital provides throughout the community might have to be cut to adjust for the loss in funding.

“That’s an area where we lose a lot of money and we may have to seriously look at it,” Liska said.

One solution might be the creation of “Medical Homes.”

A medical home, says Liska, offers more preventative care so patients are less likely to need emergency care at a hospital.

Reported by: Jay Warren
Copyright 2009 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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CINCINNATI — As America’s Baby Boomers age there is an ever-increasing need for health care workers.

In an effort to meet that demand and to reach out to young people University Hospital in Cincinnati offers their Medical Explorers program.

“From clinical, to research, to education, it gives them a complete array of exposure that they really aren’t going to get anywhere else,” said Lee Ann Liska, Executive Director and Senior Vice President of University Hospital.

The students meet monthly. At their November session they learned CPR.

“What I thought would be a good thing to learn is something they can actually do,” said Mary Clare Hill, M.D.

In addition to learning CPR the students, like Walnut Hills Junior Lydia Prophett, promised to teach their friends and family how to perform CPR as well.

“At first it was challenging just figuring it out but after I got the hang of it it was very simple and it’s good to know that it’s very easy to save a life,” said Prophett.

Prophett and the other Explorers each received a white lab coat to wear while they participate.

“It puts a mental model in their head of being a health care professional,” explained Hill.

Currently in the United States there exists a nurshing shortage and a projected shortage of physicians.

Hill suggests that these high school students will soon become the care-givers of the Baby Boomers.

“We have a lot of people going to be older rather than younger and we’re going to need health care so we’ll need nurses, radiologists, doctors, pharmacists respitory therapists. We’ll need people to take care of us,” said Hill.

Copyright 2009 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

• Editorial: Find hospital solution
• Fight isn’t solely about money
• University Hospital serves thousands of poor patients
• Teaching remains a core mission
• Cordray will avoid hospitals’ dispute
• Services like nothing else
• Folks to watch
• University Hospital Q&A
• University Hospital timeline
• University Hospital’s latest challenge

You’ve heard the expression “chill-out”… Well, that’s exactly what a cardiology team at University Hospital helped a local patient do recently, and it saved his life!
Local 12’s Liz Bonis explains how in today’s Medical Edge.

When Thomas Hufford first met up with this team of cardiologists…

Thomas Hufford, UC Health Patient: “Apparently, my heart had stopped beating.”

But Doctor Andrew Berger and Doctor Tarek Helmy also discovered…

Dr. Andrew Berger, UC Health: “With his prolonged cardiac arrest, he had heart failure, he had brain failure, he had damage to his kidneys, because they weren’t profused, and he had some damage to his liver, because that was not profused.”

As you might imagine, that put this team in a difficult dilemma, they needed his body to sort of start restoring it’s function, to perform life-saving heart surgery. So, Hufford had to chill out, literally.

“This is the blanket that is connected to the cold saline, and it’s placed on the patient…”

A blanket of salt water was used to give Hufford hypothermic therapy. It brought his body temperature down to 75 degrees, which slows damage, and sure enough…

“After 24 hours, we saw significant improvement with his heart function and with his brain function.”

Not only did that allow for heart surgery, it also left both Hufford and his team sort of in awe.

“I actually help facilitate the body to recover and the man upstairs took care of the rest.”

What’s more amazing… Hufford has had no residual damage.

“You got some more things to do, apparently. Do you know what those are? No, he’ll let me know.”

From the battlefield to a farmer’s field, night vision goggles are now in the hands of Air Care at University Hospital.

University Hospital took 9News on a flight to show the goggles in action on Wednesday.

“These are the latest generation night vision goggles. They started back probably in the Vietnam era when “tankers” used them basically strapping them on their face,” said Air Care pilot Paul Boland through the ‘com’ system.

A former special operations pilot, Boland is no stranger to the goggles.

“It allows us to see obstacles and go in and out of unprepared landing zones and be able to see obstacles and other things that would be a hazard to us,” said Boland.

Night vision technology magnifies existing light to produce a bright green image that allows the Air Care crew to see almost as though it were during the day.

In addition to Boland, we flew with Air Care’s medical director Bill Hinkley, MD and flight nurse Susan Kuerze.

“We try to take the level one trauma center, heart center, stroke center, pediatric center out to the patient,” said Hinkley explaining Air Care’s mission.

Air Care at University Hospital has flown 28,000 flight missions for 25 years.

“Those things that for so many years we had some difficulty seeing are now very easily seen,” continued Hinkley.

Both Hinkley and Kuerze also use night vision to assist Boland in detecting potential hazards.

“You get to help people and fly around the city,” said Kuerze. “What could be better?”

Kuerze was in nursing school when she decided she wanted to be a flight nurse.

“My father was flown to University Hospital and I thought that was a pretty cool thing and I wanted to do that when I grew up,” Kuerze said with a smile.

“The speed across the ground is about 150 mph,” explained Boland. “It takes us from the time that they call us we get off the ground in about six minutes. So, we can be within anything close-in within literally five to 10 minutes.”

The goggles cost University Hospital $15,000 per pair.

9News is told they’ve already saved a crew from a potential accident.  While responding to a scene, a church parking lot was identified by people on the ground as a safe place to land.  As the helicopter descended the pilot noticed with the help of the goggles a very thin wire above the lot that went unseen by those on the ground.

Copyright 2009 The E.W. Scripps Co. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The Health Alliance, which was once Greater Cincinnati’s largest hospital system, is likely to dissolve if a proposed sale of one of its members, Jewish Hospital, is completed.

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