Virginia Team Brings Home National Championship.

Pictured from Left; Linda Cochran, RRT; Chase Poulson, RRT; Jeffrey Bobbitt, RRT; not pictured, Linda Stone, RRT

A team from Virginia brought home a coveted national championship in December. The field of competition was not athletics, it was health care. The team of four respiratory therapists representing the Jefferson College of Health Sciences (JCHS), Carilion Clinic and Northern Virginia Community College won the 30^th Annual “Sputum Bowl” competition at the American Association of Respiratory Care (AARC) Annual meeting on December 4^th in Orlando.

While the name is intended to be humorous (sputum is defined as stuff you cough up – the trophy is a giant golden spittoon) the 30-year-old competition itself is quite serious. Respiratory therapists help people breathe, and are critically important health care providers. The competition focuses on improving clinical knowledge and decision-making skills.

“The questions that they ask you are very technical, its not trivia, there is a lot of application,” said Chase Poulson, who is a Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT) on the JCHS faculty. JCHS faculty member Linda Cochran, RRT, called the win “one of the biggest rushes of my professional career, above my degrees and getting my diploma.” The four person team also included Jeffrey Bobbit RRT, a respiratory therapist with Roanoke’s Carilion Clinic, and Linda Stone, RRT, an instructor at Northern Virginia Community College.

The road to the Sputum Bowl begins with state and regional competitions which culminate in the annual “Final Four” matches at the AARC national convention. The competition uses “Jeopardy-style” questions that would likely challenge the best Jeopardy players. This year’s finalists had to identify a picture of Amedeo Avogadro, the Italian physicist who developed Avogadro’s Law, which relates to the number of molecules contained in equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure. They also were asked to describe the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation (pH = pKa + log [base]/[acid]) which is used to measure acidity (pH) in biological and chemical systems. All of this to take home a replica of the giant golden spittoon (aka, The Sputum Bowl) and the bragging rights of a national champion.

“This is huge in the respiratory field,” said Bobbitt. “It really means a lot to us, we are national champs for one whole year.”

Recent News Media Coverage

In case you missed it, Carilion was in the news on WDBJ-TV this week. Click on the video below to watch:

Healthcheck story on Carilion Clinic Pediatric Emergency Department. (Sorry about the video distortion at the beginning - bad tape) 12/13



Coverage and Reaction to Governor Kaine's announcement about higher education funding, that includes $59 million for construction of the joint medical school planned by Carilion Clinic and Virginia Tech. 12/13



Coverage on the ongoing construction on the Riverside Development at the Jefferson and Reserve site. 12/12



A Cancer Survivor comes back to Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital to release balloons and bring a message of hope to patients.

Media Advisory - Potential Stories

During the holidays, it can be difficult to find non-holiday stories. Here are some possibilities. If you are interested, email me to arrange an interview.

Protect Yourself From Head Injuries.
Whether you're into roller blades, skateboards, extreme sports or just driving down the interstate, an accident can change your life forever if you sustain a serious head injury.
A surgeon with Carilion Neurosurgical Care is available to talk about protecting yourself to avoid serious disability.












In addition, Carilion neurosurgeons can discuss

• Sports-related head injuries, when to get back into the game after a concussion
• Breakthroughs in brain tumor treatment
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Spinal fractures and spinal cord injury (when is surgery useful to treat pain from back injuries?)
• Surgical treatment for Epilepsy and Parkinson's Disease
  

High profile medication overdose in California could boost the use of medication bar code systems.

Actor Dennis Quaid and his wife recently filed a lawsuit related to a mix-up that caused their twins to receive a medication overdose. Apparently a pharmacy tech placed vials containing 10 units and 10,000 units of the medication in the same drawer.
Bedside bar code technology, used by Carilion hospitals for the past few years, can prevent such accidents.

Hospital Emergency Rooms unprepared for children.

A study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that most hospital ER's are not well prepared to treat children. Only 6% of the hospitals who responded to the survey had all the recommended medicine and equipment. Fortunately here in Western Virginia, the Carilion Clinic Children's Hospital features a Pediatric Emergency Department. Our specialist in pediatric emergency medicine, Lisa Uherick, MD, can talk about our focus on peds emergency care. She could also talk about holiday and post-holiday injury prevention.

Peanut Allergies Striking Younger Children

A Duke University study finds that children are being exposed to peanuts at a much younger age, and are having allergic reactions much earlier as well.

This despite recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics that children avoid peanuts until age 3. Contact me to arrange an interview with a Pediatric Allergy Specialists.









Carilion Clinic Rehabilitation Using Christopher Reeve Exercise Cycle
One of the challenges people with spinal cord injuries face is maintaining muscle tone, in hopes that one day researchers will find a way to repair the injury. Following his accident, Christopher Reeve used the ERGYS 2. Carilion Rehabilitation Services now has an ERGYS 2 that is being used by area patients. We can arrange an interview with a rehabilitation specialist and a patient currently using the machine. Check out video from the ERGYS 2 site here.






Carilion Family Medicine Recognized for Improving Childhood Immunization
The American Association of Family Physicians Foundation and Wyeth Vaccines have given Carilion Family Medicine a 2007 "Most Improved" award for their work to increase the number of children receiving vaccinations. Carilion used data from its electronic medical record to identify children whose vaccines were not current.

"Mr. Smile"

Why is Tom Adams smiling? 6 years ago, the room where he is standing at Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital was an empty shell, and thousands of children in the region who needed dental care were in pain because no dentists accepted Medicaid. In addition, pediatric dentists were nearly impossible to recruit.
Today, Tom stands in the newly-expanded Carilion Dental Care - Pediatrics - having raised $1.5 million for the expansion. Tom would also want us to thank the Virginia Health Care Foundation for its continuing support of the project.
The original Pediatric Dental Clinic was dedicated in April, 2001 with one very busy dentist.
The Clinic now has 3 dentists providing care for children, has doubled in size to 3750 square feet, and treated more than 900 patients last month. Carilion is honoring Tom this week because he is retiring... sort-of, he'll still be working with the Dental Clinic part-time. Thanks Tom!! You've helped put smiles on thousands of tiny faces!




The Roanoke Times had more nice things to say about Tom this article in Wednesday's business section.

Congratulations to Nancy Agee, Chairman-Elect of the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association

Nancy Howell Agee, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Carilion Clinic, was named Chairman-Elect of the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) at the Association’s 81^st Annual Meeting of the Membership.

VHHA formed in 1926 as a trade association of Virginia hospitals with the mission of helping members improve the health status of the communities they serve. VHHA’s activities focus on four areas: representation and advocacy, education, communication and health care data.

Nobody wants to be in the hospital for Thanksgiving - but if you have to, Carilion dietitians and Food Service Partner chefs provide a taste of home

When you sit down to a home-cooked meal of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce, so will hundreds of patients, their families and staff at Carilion Clinic hospitals around the region. Thanks to chefs, dietitians and others working together, it will look and taste a little bit like home. (yes the plate you see above is an actual meal prepared by the folks at Food Service Partners, who operate Carilion Clinic's central kitchen in Roanoke. (FSP operates kitchens in San Francisco, New York and Roanoke)

Because many hospital patients are on restricted diets, the chefs and dietitians have developed recipes that can be safely eaten by just about anyone - without sacrificing taste. For Thanksgiving, it means buying additive & preservative - free turkeys, using low-fat cooking ingredients, sugar substitutes and a special variety of spices that give the food flavor without adding salt (how does it taste? keep reading!) And then ship it out by the truckload! (Food is prepared one day in advance, and shipped out at 5 a.m. each morning, to make sure it arrives fresh)

Roanoke Times reporter Christina Rogers and photographer Justin Cook recently visited our central kitchen for their Thanksgiving article "Cooking for the Masses". We thought you might like to see part of the tour. Many thanks to Executive Chef Jay Brinkley for coordinating a fascinating tour!

How do you roast 800 pounds of turkey? You use a "turkey tank"!

The tank uses hot water - the boneless turkeys are sealed in plastic bags so the water never touches them - they are roasted by the heat. When they're done, the tank circulates super-cooled water around the turkeys taking them from above 140 degrees to below 40 degrees in minutes (this keeps the meat fresh). The turkey is re-heated in a special oven at the hospital.

Here you seen green beans being strained, 50 pounds at a time. You might notice that our kitchen is a lot like yours - pots and pans and utensils - just bigger (ok, you probably don't have a winch and chain)

Rice Pilaf is also on the Thanksgiving menu. Here it is prepared in very large stainless steel bowls and sealed in plastic bags for delivery to the hospital kitchens where it will be re-heated and served. (nothing is frozen, the food is chilled to below 40 degrees, but not frozen to protect quality and flavor - major restaurant chains often use the same technique).

I love the gravy machine! Once the gravy (or soup, etc) is done, the machine extracts it from the pot and stores it in sealed bags for easy delivery




The finished product looks something like this - Its a bit like having an executive chef come to your house, plan your menu, preparing your meal, serve it, and clean your kitchen. But how does it taste?

For an unbiased opinion, we invited Christina and Justin to sample the Thanksgiving menu for themselves - see the results on the video below.

One interesting note - in addition to preparing food for all the Carilion Clinic hospitals each day, the kitchen also prepares daily meals for the patients and staff at the 800 bed INOVA Fairfax hospital. Northern Virginia knows where to come for good food!

Media Note - Thanksgiving Holiday/weekend

When I get home from work today, I strongly suspect my blackberry will be confiscated. If you need assistance with media-related issues between now and Monday, call the media pager number. If you don't have it, call the main Carilion Clinic switchboard at 540-981-7000 and ask them to page media-relations person on call.
Hospitals and news outlets don't close for the holidays, but I hope all of you get to spend at least some time at home with your families and/or loved ones. That said, if something hits the fan and you need information, page me.
Happy Thanksgiving!