PlanetRussell.net | Michael J. Russell

Rural Telehealth and Advanced Technologies Conference

As the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania heads into the 60th day of its marathon state budget impasse, that’s no deterrent to some of the best and brightest minds in healthcare technology, military medicine, rural development and public policy.

They’ll be converging on St. Francis University’s Center of  Excellence for Remote and Medically Underserved Areas (CERMUSA) in Loretto, PA next week for the inaugural  Rural Telehealth and Advanced Technologies Conference.

I plan to attend the conference, and to live-blog and/or live-tweet the proceedings, circumstances permitting, on Friday, September 4th. (More information to come.)

From the official conference website:

The focus of this inaugural conference will be Chronic Care: Model, Solutions, and Technology Applications. With the ever-increasing need to provide efficient, effective chronic care for afflicted individuals, especially in rural and underserved areas, this event will spotlight the Chronic Care Model and the escalating presence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), as well as the causes treatments, and technological advances that encompass healthcare, both in the military and civilian populations.

• Conference Agenda is here.
• Speaker Bios are here.
• Registration info is here.

Continuing Education Opportunities

If you’re a qualifying healthcare professional, you can earn up to 6 hours of continuing education credit/hours, based on your  participation and credentials.  Read more…

Conference Sponsors:

Healthcare: A Blueprint for Transformational Change

While not directly conference related, I’m particularly proud of the video below of my friend and colleague Nick Jacobs, FACHE delivering the Graduate School address at the conference venue, St. Francis University’s 2009 commencement ceremonies.

He’s introduced here by Fr. Gabriel Zeis, OFM, President of St. Francis University, who will be hosting the Rural Telehealth and Advanced Technologies Conference.

Nick’s a singularly unique, outside-the-box kind of guy when it comes to innovative healthcare thinking.  As a hospital CEO,  he was identified as the first ever to have his own blog years ago (I helped just a bit) by the Wall Street Journal and Fortune.

Nick also brought 24-hour visitation, fountains, home-baked bread and strolling violin players into his hospital, flying in the face of all “conventional wisdom.” The result? One of the lowest infection rates of any hospital in the region, among other outstanding health outcomes. I encourage you to listen to what he  has to say. (Full disclosure: I edited the video.)

Tags: Blue Cross, CERMUSA, Chronic Care model, Conference, Disepio Institute, DVBIC, F. Nicholas Jacobs, FACHE, health, Healthcare, HighMark, John Murtha, Loretto, medicine, MedTechIQ, military, nick jacobs, PA, Pennsylvania, PTSB, reform, Rural Telehealth and Advanced Technologies, St. Francis University, TATRC, TBI, telehealth, telemedicine, WRAMC

Meet America’s Most Innovative Hospitals

Fierce Healthcare announces its 2007 Hospital Innovators Awardees. Friend and client healthcare CEO and pioneering blogger Nick Jacobs runs one of the top five. (It’s no coincidence Nick is presently writing a new book entitled Taking the Hell Out of Healthcare.)

Just announced by Anne Zieger and her team at prestigious industry analysts at FierceHealthcare.com:

“We are pleased to announce the release of our first-annual Hospital Innovators Awards —honoring U.S. acute care hospitals that have taken a leadership role on critical industry issues… These awards honor some of the most innovative acute care hospitals that are stepping outside of ‘business as usual’ and getting special things done. Some are strikingly original, and others are just doing a great job of solving common industry problems.”

1.	Memorial Hospital-South Bend	6.	Sisters of Mercy
2.	Licking Memorial Hospital	7.	St. Joseph’s Hospital
3.	University of Pittsburgh Medical Center	8.	Griffin Hospital
4.	Winona Health	9.	Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
5.	Windber Medical Center	10.	Morton Plant Mease Health Care

Number five on Fierce’s top ten list, Windber Medical Center, is managed by none other than President and CEO F. Nicholas (Nick) Jacobs, freshly returned from the healthcare blogging symposium at Consumer Health World in Las Vegas, produced by Transmarx.

Here are some excerpts from FierceHealthcare’s 2007 award page recognizing Windber Medical Center as one of the top five most innovative hospitals in America.

“What they’re doing: Despite its rural location and small scale, there are some things going on at Windber Medical Center that sit on the cutting edge. Windber’s system…is tying together the work being done by its Windber Research Institute with day-to-day clinical practice. This concept is mostly at the idea stage in most institutions, including high-profile, big-bucks academic medical centers, but Windber is making it happen.”

“Under this concept, known as The Model, patient care teams now include not only physicians and nurses, but also a researcher from the Institute whose job it is to apply what they’re learning in the lab. Researchers draw in part on knowledge gained from the Institute’s 40,000-donor tissue bank, which includes attributes such as gender, age, ethnicity and medical history, to predict what patients may need given the experience of similar donors. It’s a noteworthy strategy–especially for a small facility out in the boonies.”

“What’s more, Windber has jumped into the Planetree model with both feet… As CEO Nick Jacobs puts it, the Planetree philosophy offers patients ‘the best of a spa, best of a hotel and best of a hospital,’ complete with integrative health features such as massage, aroma therapy and Reiki, and comfort options like private kitchens, popcorn and bread making machines for patient’s families, double beds in OB, a greenhouse, healing gardens and decorative fountains. On the less touchy-feely side, this model also gives patients complete access to charts during their stay, giving them chance to ask questions as they see fit. While Planetree has its detractors, it’s hard [not] to argue that Windber is making a great go of it.”

This is actually the second time Windber has received accolades for innovation within the last month. FierceHealthcare’s award comes on the heels of the April 17, 2007 issue of Inside Healthcare Computing, covered in my April 24th post over on Trusted.MD in which Nick, others and myself evangelized for the business value of blogging and other web-based social media for healthcare organizations.

You can read excerpts from Inside Healthcare Computing, or download the complete article (as an Adobe Acrobat/Reader document) here.

So, congratulations to Nick and everyone whose creativity, hard work and innovation earned them Fierce Healthcare’s recognition for clinical excellence.

Tags: 2007, acute care, Anne Zieger, Consumer-Driven Healthcare, F. Nicholas Jacobs, fierce, Healthcare, hospitals, most innovative, nick jacobs, Windber Medical Center, Windber Research Institute