Grand Rounds January on Memphis Medical News

Grand Rounds January

UT Medical Group Strengthens Radiology Staff

UT Medical Group, Inc. has added four board-certified radiologists to its medical staff. The doctors also serve on the faculty of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine.

Dr. Johnathan L. Hadley is assistant professor of radiology and specializes in diagnostic radiology, cardiac imaging, and neuroradiology. He is also board-certified in cardiovascular computed tomography.

Dr. Ashok Jayashankar is assistant professor of radiology and specializes in diagnostic and interventional radiology.

Dr. Sridhar Shankar is associate professor of radiology and has an interest in oncoradiology, tumor ablation, diagnostic and interventional radiology, body MRI, and ultrasound.

Dr. Atluri Vignathi is assistant professor of radiology and specializes in chest, diagnostic, and interventional radiology.

Germantown Hospital Administrator Elected to Serve on THA Board

Germantown — William Kenley, chief executive officer for Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital, was re-elected to the Tennessee Hospital Association (THA) board as district representative for the Memphis district for 2010.

THA, founded in 1938, serves as an advocate for hospitals, health systems, home health agencies and other healthcare organizations and the patients they serve.

AACN Launches Free Web-Based Assessment Tool

The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN) recently introduced a free web-based tool to help nurse managers and leaders align hospital unit performance with the AACN Standards for Establishing and Sustaining a Healthy Work Environment (HWE).

AACN's Healthy Work Environment Team Assessment—developed with VitalSmarts, a provider of corporate training and organizational performance products and services based in Provo, Utah—aligns the performance of any clinical environment, from single hospital units to entire healthcare organizations, with the following six HWE standards:

Skilled Communication – equal proficiency in communication and clinical skills.

True Collaboration – relentless pursuit and fostering of true collaboration.

Effective Decision Making – valued and committed partners in making policy, directing and evaluating clinical care and leading organizational operations.

Appropriate Staffing – ensure there's an effective match between patient needs and nurse competencies.

Meaningful Recognition – for the value of work brought to the organization by oneself and others.

Authentic Leadership – fully embrace the HWE imperative and engage others to achieve it.

AACN's Healthy Work Environment Team Assessment reflects data from "Silence Kills," a 2005 VitalSmarts-AACN study that explored avoidable errors and chronic workplace problems. The study prompted healthcare organizations to survey staff, compare performance and develop step-by-step strategies to improve poor performance, patient safety, staff recruitment and retention and healthy workplace cultures.

Using AACN's Healthy Work Environment Team Assessment team members rate online the health of their work environment. The nurse manager or leader receives aggregate scores with recommended actions and resources to improve workplace health and tracking tools to measure progress.

Connie Barden, RN, MSN, CCRN, CCNS, a clinical nurse specialist at Miami's Baptist Health South Florida and the Executive Editor of the AACN Standards for Establishing and Sustaining a Healthy Work Environment, expects the HWE tool to help health professionals identify and curb conditions that cause unhealthy work environments. Barden calls workplace health crucial to patient safety and staff morale.

To access the AACN Healthy Work Environment Team Assessment, visit www.hweteamtool.org.

Join the 5,000 Touches Challenge

The MED Foundation has received a challenge grant to "touch" 5,000 people with its new web site by January 31, 2010. All you have to do is visit http://www.themedfoundation.org between now and January 31, 2010 and $1 will be donated to The MED Foundation!

You can do even more by urging your friends, family and co-workers to touch

The MED Foundation site. Here's what you can do:

Forward an email with a link to themedfoundation.org to everyone you know and ask them to forward it to their contacts
Forward the site to your friends through the Facebook login
Ask anyone you know who has a blog or a web site to mention the challenge
Tell everyone you see to the visit themedfoundation.org
Check back on our progress as our touch meter on the home page changes

Touch everyone you know with the themedfoundation.org.

Dr. Peter W. Carter Joins Family Cancer Center

Dr. Peter W. Carter, an oncologist who has practiced in Tennessee for more than two decades, has joined The Family Cancer Center.

He becomes the seventh physician on staff at the Family Cancer Center.

Dr. Carter will be seeing patients at the Family Cancer Center's facility at St. Francis Hospital in the O'Ryan Building on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays and at the Baptist Hospital office on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Before coming to the Family Cancer Center, Dr. Carter was with the Mid-South Cancer Center in Germantown and the Knoxville Cancer Center.

Dr. Carter is Board Certified in Medical Oncology and Hematology. He completed his Residency in Internal Medicine at Methodist Hospital, in Memphis and his Fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Born in Oklahoma, Dr. Carter graduated with high honors from the University of Tennessee and received his medical degree from the University of Tennessee Center for Health Sciences in 1979.

CHC Asking for Donations of Medicine

The Church Health Center is asking doctors' offices to donate one out of every three sample medications to the Center. The Center will provide containers and pick up the medicines. To sign up for the "1 in 3 for the CHC" initiative call (901) 272-0010, Ext. 1106.

Here is more info from Mike Sturdivant, the CHC's Director of Integrated Health, in case you have the space and envisioned a larger piece:

• 1 out of 3 for the CHC is a plan for recruiting additional medication samples for the patients of the Church Health Center We are asking doctor's offices to donate one out of three samples they receive in their offices. We will provide a container to be placed in their medicine rooms, labeled with Church Health Center and our phone number. The Church Health Center will pick up the container when notified by the doctor 's office. We encourage the office staff managing the donation of samples to make the donation when the samples are first received. If the doctor's office knows they usually will not use 10% or more of a medicine sample, we ask that the sample be donated on the front end rather than waiting until it is near expiration. The Church Health Center cannot use expired medicines.

The Church Health Center provides patients with the majority of their medicines by giving them samples. Our patients are uninsured or underinsured working individuals who would be unable to afford their medicines if we did not have them to give. We are thankful for the doctor's offices currently contributing and look forward to recruiting many new donors with the 1 out of 3 for CHC.

Baptist Centers for Cancer Care

MEMPHIS— Baptist Centers for Cancer Care is partnering with the American Cancer Society to host a prostate cancer support group, Man to Man®.

The group will meet at 6:30 p.m. in the Ann L. and Joseph H. Powell Library, located in the physicians' office building adjacent to the hospital at 6025 Walnut Grove. Monthly support meetings will be held on the third Thursday of each month in the Powell Library at 6:30 p.m. December's meeting will be held December 17.

Designed to help men and their families cope with prostate cancer, Man to Man provides a comfortable setting for discussion, education and support through the recovery process. Spouses and family members are encouraged to attend.

According to ACS, more than 1.8 million men in the United States are prostate cancer survivors. About one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, but only one in 34 men will die from the disease. About 90 percent of prostate cancers are diagnosed by a physician in the early stages – usually before symptoms occur.

Baptist Centers for Cancer Care boasts Memphis' first adult myelosuppression unit– a specialized cancer unit for high-risk patients with compromised immune systems – as well as the first adult cancer genetic counseling and testing program in the area. A 2002 grant from the Baptist Memorial Health Care Foundation provided for an additional genetic counselor and funded a nurse navigator program, designed to guide patients through the cancer journey. This grant also provided Baptist the opportunity to expand its stem cell transplant program to include allogeneic stem cell transplants, the process through which healthy donor cells are transplanted into patients with certain cancers.