HERO O
November 2011
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comfort. reassure. console. empathize. analyze. inspire. lead. give.
And now they receive. We always knew our nurses were extraordinary. Now it’s official. Yale-New Haven Hospital has received one of the medical field’s most prestigious awards. The Magnet Award for Nursing Excellence. Only 6% of all hospitals in the country have been so honored. The award recognizes the quality of our nursing staff and the collaborative role they play in patient care. It attests to the fact that nurses not only help patient outcomes. They can make a hospital better too.
www.ynhh.org
Heroes in a Changing World
November 2011 Publisher Mitchell Young Editor Michael C. Bingham Art Director Terry Wells Advertising Manager Mary W. Beard Senior Publisher’s Representative Roberta Harris Contributors Felicia Hunter John Mordecai Melissa Nicefaro Priscilla Searles Karen Singer Tom Violante Business New Haven is a publication of Second Wind Media, Ltd., with offices at 20 Grand Avenue, New Haven, CT 06513. Telephone (203) 781-3480. Fax (203) 7813482. Subscriptions: $32 annually. Send name, address and ZIP code with payment. Second Wind Media, Ltd., d/b/a Business New Haven, shall not be liable for failure to publish an ad or for typographical errors or errors in publication. email: news@conntact.com
B
oth locally and nationally, the health care industry continues to evolve at a nearly revolutionary pace. Earlier this year New Haven’s two major teaching hospitals — Yale-New Haven and the Hospital of Saint Raphael — reached an historic agreement to effect a merger. Elsewhere in New Haven County. Waterbury Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital forged a similar deal. In both cases the deals were hailed as landmark compacts that would buoy the two financially struggling Catholic hospitals, streamline service delivery in the Elm and Brass Cities, respectively, and eliminate costly duplication of services. In both cases, the rubber will truly meet the road for the first time in 2012, and the business and health-care communities will be observing with a keen eye. In the Silver City (Meriden), officials at Protein Sciences say they are mere months from successfully completing trials on its game-changing flu vaccine. Closer to home, Quinnipiac University made great strides toward the opening of Connecticut fifth school of medicine, which hopes to welcome its first class in autumn 2013. At a dynamic and exciting time in health care, Business New Haven and New Haven magazine celebrate the very best that the industry has to offer — from physicians and nurses to researchers and educators to administrators and volunteers. All of them have devoted their lives to caring for others in need. They are an extraordinary group of individuals and organizations, with extraordinary stories to tell. We hope you enjoy their stories as much as we have enjoyed bringing them to you.
Michael C. Bingham Editor \end of file\Editor
4 November 2011
Every clothing designer dreams of the day their line takes off. When it happened to me, I found myself running a small empire and in need of a health benefits plan for myself and my employees. We did some research and selected an Oxford plan from UnitedHealthcare with options to add vision, dental, life and disability. Months later, my business partner, Michael, was diagnosed with diabetes and in need of support. “I know how to design beautiful clothing,” he said. “But I don’t know how to design a treatment program for my diabetes.” We quickly realized the value of our Oxford health benefits plan. It came in the form of Anne, a compassionate nurse, who guided Michael to the best course of care. To fi nd out more about our Oxford products, contact your broker or visit oxfordhealth.com/growhealthy.
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Insurance coverage provided by or through: UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company or their affiliates. Oxford Health Plans LLC. Oxford HMO products are underwritten by Oxford Health Plans (NJ), Inc. and Oxford Health Plans (CT), Inc. Oxford insurance products are underwritten by Oxford Health Insurance, Inc. ©2011 United HealthCare Services, Inc. Copyright © 2011 Oxford Health Plans LLC. All rights reserved. MS-11-989 Healthcare Heroes 5 UHCCT550970-000
ORGANIZATION Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center New Haven
T
he need for quality health care in New Haven’s underserved neighborhoods was dire in 1968, when the Hill Health Center opened as a much-needed community resource. More than four decades later it’s just as vital to the city, if not more so, say administrators. The facility — renamed the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center two years ago in honor of its longtime director — provides services for lowincome populations that otherwise might not receive medical care. “I don’t know how some folks would manage without the health center,” says Andrea Jackson-Brooks, president of the center’s board of directors. “It’s an unbelievable resource. Our emphasis has always been access to quality health care. We don’t turn anyone away.” Established as one of the first community health centers in the country, CSHHC provides comprehensive, quality health care at a sliding-fee cost. “We are not a free clinic but we are required to have programs for the less
PHOTO: PRISCILLA SEARLES
L-r: Thomas J. McNamee Jr., chief medical officer, human resources head Andrea Lobo and CSHHC CEO Jamina Henderson.
6 November 2010
Helping Those in Greatest Need Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center provides life-giving care to an underserved population able [to pay],” says Rob Rioux, director of community relations and corporate development. If the center did not exist there’d be “substantial” difficulties for various uninsured and underinsured populations, he adds.
Naugatuck. CSHHC is headquartered at 400 Columbus Avenue in New Haven.
From flu clinics to dental care to HIV-related services to help for the homeless, CSHHC aims to detect and fill community needs, says Rioux.
“We’ve had longstanding partnerships with those hospitals,” says Rioux, adding that the collaborations shatter a common myth equating community health centers with inferior care. For example, he says, “You see the same cardiologist [at CSHHC] that practices at Yale, so you see very, very high-quality [care] here.”
The concept of creating federally qualified community health centers to serve disadvantage neighborhoods evolved from the War on Poverty/ Great Society policies of the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration. CSHHC was the first such health-care facility established in Connecticut, the result of a partnership with the Yale School of Medicine. Today, in addition to New Haven, a total of 16 CSHHC facilities serve populations in West Haven, Ansonia, Derby, Seymour, Shelton, Oxford and
Patients who need to be hospitalized are referred to Yale-New Haven Hospital or the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven, or Griffin Hospital in Derby.
Services include internal medicine, OB/ GYN, pediatrics, dentistry, nutrition, social work, psychology and psychiatry, to name some of the medical and healthrelated care options. CSHHC also has several school-based health centers and offers programs that include HIV/ AIDS education and outreach, pregnant teen care, a child and family guidance
clinic, a drug and alcohol detoxification program and a homeless shelter and outreach. “Our goal is to help you become independent,” Rioux says. That remains in line with the goal of the late Cornell Scott, the first CEO of CSHHC. Scott served in the position for 40 years before his death in 2008. Jamesina Henderson is now the center’s CEO. “[Scott] was totally centered on the concept of a community health center,” says Jackson-Brooks. “He was responsible for situating it in the middle of the community. He was on the ground running with this. At the time, there were virtually no affordable, quality health services to a large segment of New Haven.”
funding sources. Coupled with this development is the fact that health-care costs continue to be outside the means of a substantial number of New Haven-area residents. “We are in a terrible state as far as health care is concerned,” says JacksonBrooks. An expensive medical treatment “can wipe you out — if you’re fortunate enough to be able to pay for it. I think the situation is getting worse instead of better.” In light of the precarious economic horizon, CSHHC probably will be looking to direct more of its efforts to fundraising, notes Rioux.
“We need to develop an annual appeal and let people know what’s happening here,” says Rioux. He notes that the number of people Scott began to helm CSHHC seeking health-care services the same year he earned a at CSHHC has risen over master’s degree in public the years, especially among health from the Yale School the working poor and those of Medicine — a testament to who have dropped out of his commitment, according to what used to be considered Jackson-Brooks. something of a middle-class “That’s how dedicated he was,” safety net. she says. Scott “had his finger Despite the economic climate, on the pulse of everything CSHHC continues to press going on with health care.” forward in its mission to In 1997 CSHHC won serve the community, says the Johnson & Johnson Rioux. He notes that plans Community Health Care are in place to open a new Crystal Award, presented Hamden facility in early 2012 each year for organizational that will center on primary excellence in meeting care and family counseling. community health-care needs And structural and aesthetic of the underserved. Some improvements at existing 33,000 patients (210,000 facilities are ongoing, he says. encounters) are served annually by the facility, which “One of the biggest changes we’ve undergone over the last has a staff of 500 caregivers. few years us a rededication CSHHC is funded through to the environment of care,” a combination of federal, he says, citing, for example state and local grants, with recent lighting, walkway and additional revenue from waiting room enhancements. service payments through Medicaid, third-party insurers “We’re really demonstrating and sliding fees charged to the we want this to be a welcoming, warm uninsured. environment for people,” However, the recession is Rioux says. “Even if it’s just taking its toll. This May the simple things — better 30 non-clinical employees signage or a new coat of paint were laid off to help address — that matters as well.” economy-induced threats to — Felicia Hunter
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Healthcare Heroes
7
Nurse of the Year Sherri Hopkins Hospital of Saint Raphael New Haven
Helping the (Heart) Beat Go On An HSR nurse at the forefront of a movement to make lifesaving defibrillators much more widely available
W
orking as a cardiac nurse has given Sherri Hopkins the chance to see a lot of miracles. But there’s also the other end of the spectrum.
“We see things sometimes when it’s too late,” says Hopkins of patients suffering from cardiac arrest who cannot be saved. Hopkins, who works as a registered nurse at the Hospital of Saint Raphael, wants to increase such patients’ chances of surviving heart trauma. She has been on a crusade the past few years, educating patients and the public alike on the life-saving benefits of automatic external defibrillators (AEDs). “For every minute that goes by without CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation]
or the shock of an AED, your chances Immediate access is key, says Hopkins. of survival goes down by ten percent,” “The goal is to get an AED on a person Hopkins explains. “The faster you apply within the first three minutes.” an AED, the better the chance of survival That’s why Hopkins has been advocating is.” She adds that even for survivors, the for installation on AEDs in public longer the time span between the onset places, including offices and schools. A of an attack and eventual resuscitation, cofounder of the Connecticut chapter of the greater the chance that heart and/ the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association or brain damage will occur. “It’s (SCAA), she has testified before the state irreversible — you can’t get that back,” legislature in Hartford about public need says Hopkins. for the devices. An AED is an electronic device that “My inspiration is a 17-year-old I assesses the immediate need of a person met [there] who had been saved by suffering from cardiac arrest and an AED,” says Hopkins. The teen delivers a shock, or a series of shocks, as inspired Hopkins to push even harder required. Instructive prompts guide the in her quest to make AEDs accessible person administering the device on steps in schools. With teens, previously to take in using the device. undetected cardiac problems can become manifest during athletic practices and events, she adds.
PHOTO: PRISCILLA SEARLES
Hopkins also wants to create a formal network of Connecticut-based cardiac arrest survivors, especially those who were resuscitated with AEDs. She believes not only that they can serve as an extended support system, but also help educate the public about the importance of AEDs. Hopkins personally spends a lot of time doing just that. “Now that I’m a nurse, my favorite thing to do is teaching patients. I believe that if patients are educated, that will help them stay out of the hospital,” she says. Though sure about her mission now, Hopkins, 39, didn’t always know she was destined for a career in health care. She jokes that she settled on nursing by process of elimination.
For every minute that elapses following cardiac arrest, says Hopkins, the survival rate declines by ten percent.
“I went to Derby High School. One day my high school guidance counselor said, ‘What do you want to be?’” recalls Hopkins, a Derby native. She perused a list that included choices such as accounting, social work and psychology, as well as nursing. She made a mental note of the careers she did not want (accounting was definitely out) leaving the possibilities, nursing among them. “I always wanted to help people,” she says, “and I enjoy the sciences.”
8 November 2010
After making the decision, Hopkins prepared for a career in health care. She studied nursing at American International College in Springfield, Mass., and decided to specialize in cardiac nursing. “I just find the heart fascinating,” she says, noting that the life-sustaining organ often is taken for granted. “We don’t think about it. We don’t think about how our hearts beat. I’m fascinated by the heart and what it does — the function of its muscles.” She’s been at St. Raphael’s since 1993, working first as a CNA/student nurse. Two years later she joined the staff as an RN. Her dedication over the years has made her the most recent recipient of the hospital’s Nurse of the Year Award. “I love the St. Raphael community,” Hopkins says. “I think they have something special there. It doesn’t feel corporate. It doesn’t have that sterile feel to it.” Hopkins’ supervisor, Sharon Wood, RN, describes Hopkins as a “motivator.
their children, boys aged 12 and ten and nine-yearold twin girls. That brood provides an added incentive for speaking to parent groups about the importance of having AEDs in schools. “Think of the time it could take for 911 to get there,” says Hopkins, adding that not all law-enforcement vehicles are equipped with AEDs in case of an emergency. Hopkins notes that Good Samaritan laws cover AEDs, releasing from liability anyone who might be reluctant to use the device for fear of being sued for inadvertent mishaps. As Hopkins focuses, through SCAA, on enlisting others to discuss how an AED saved their lives, she’s intent on expanding the Connecticut chapter. “We’re searching for survivors and heroes,” she says, “or even if they’ve lost somebody to cardiac arrest. One woman in the chapter was instrumental in getting AEDs in airlines. Her husband died in-flight [after suffering from cardiac arrest]. They had nothing for him and he died. She wants to do something — she feels driven to do something about it.”
“She just is a doer,” says Wood, who is HSR’s manager of nursing resources. “She Whether in offices, schools was always the one to get or other public places, everybody motivated, so Hopkins plans to continue it didn’t surprise me when getting the word out about she got involved with the how important it is to have school system” to encourage AEDs readily available on AED acquisition. What’s the premises to increase the more, says Wood, “It doesn’t chances of surviving cardiac surprise me she is now getting arrest. this [BNH Healthcare Hero] “It’s the leading cause of honor. Whenever I need death; 300,000 people a year something done, she’s my godie from cardiac arrest,” says to person. She’s wonderful, Hopkins. When [a person and has a lot of energy. She dies from cardiac arrest] inspires me to do more.” there’s a chain reaction. Wood adds that the BNH Somebody’s life will get and other outside honors, changed. When you really along with the hospital’s think about it, people’s own recognition of Hopkins, lives are affected through may well lead to even greater education. responsibility and leadership “I just feel like I have this roles. “Some day she’ll information and I don’t want make a wonderful [hospital] to keep it to myself.” official,” predicts Wood. Hopkins lives in Naugatuck with her husband Peter and
—
Felicia Hunter
Congratulations! Sherri Hopkins, R.N.II Hospital of Saint Raphael Winner of the Business New Haven Magazine Healthcare Heroes 2011 Nurse of the Year Award
Your dedication to patient care has contributed to: •
Increasing awareness about the importance of automated external defibrillators (AEDs)
•
Co-founding the Connecticut Chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association
•
Requiring AEDs at athletic events and in schools
•
Implementing HeartCode at Saint Raphael’s, a computerized CPR certification program
1450 CHAPEL STREET, NEW HAVEN, CT
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SRHS.ORG
Congratulates Greater New Haven’s Healthcare Heroes Physician Edward Ripple MD — — Nurse Sherri Hopkins R.N. Saint Raphaels — — Corporate Achievement DeFibtech — — Advancement of Healthcare Protein Sciences — — Advancement of Healthcare Peter Blume DMS — — Education Physician Assistant Program Quinnipiac University — — Community Service Dr. Linda Strong & Sacred Heart University — — Volunteer Jennifer Connolly. Griffin Hospital — — Healthcare professional Sue Fitzsimmons, RN, PhD, Chief Nursing Officer Yale-New Haven Hospital. — — Person of Merit Harry Penner — — Institution or Program Cornell Scott Hill Health Center Healthcare Heroes
9
COMMUNITY SERVICE Linda Strong, Director, RN to BSN Program, Assistant Professor Sacred Heart University Department of Nursing, College of Health Professions.
L
inda Lee Strong defines herself, first and foremost, as a public health nurse — a “street nurse” in her own words — and has been since her graduation with a BSN from the University of Bridgeport College of Nursing in 1976. She went on to earn her MSN from the Catholic University of America, Community Health School of Nursing in 1980, and an Ed.D. degree in nursing education from Columbia University Teachers College in 1996.
“I fell in love with nursing in my senior year in college and have had a passionate love affair with public health nursing all my life,” says Strong. “Public health nursing cuts across all segments of society, whether it’s underserved populations or the man down the street. We protect the population’s health, work to prevent illness, premature death and promote healthy lifestyles.”
’Street Nurse’ Blazes a Trail Helping those in greatest makes Strong true to her name
To that end, she founded and co-directed “Wherever the people are is where we go to provide nursing — whether it’s the Sacred Heart University/St. Charles Health & Wellness Clinic in 2000, which in the home, at a grocery store or in a community clinic,” says Strong. “You has moved to a new location near the talk to people to learn their perception old one and operates today in the Hall Neighborhood House. The no-cost clinic, of what is going on with their health. It’s all about communication.” renamed the Center for Community Health and Wellness, serves thousands And with that communication comes a of patients from a diverse population of reward for her students that’s not part of older residents as well as ethnic groups the curriculum taught in the classroom, including Irish, Polish, Asian, Latino and Strong explains. African-American people. It serves as a training ground for learning, clinical “They get to talk to people face-to-face practice and internship services for and they learn about more than just Sacred Heart University nursing students. peoples’ health,” she says. “They learn about their cultures, their families, what Strong also established the Aging With they like to cook and eat, where they Grace seniors program in 2005 that like to travel.” About 20 of her students specifically serves older adults. She travel every year to Guatemala for a has held blood pressure and flu clinics one-week stint in public health clinics in literally on the street, advising her that Central American country, further nursing students that they will have their expanding their experience in nursing, greatest impact when they work in the diversity and culture. midst of the community.
PHOTO: TOM VIOLANTE
‘Wherever the people are is where we go to provide nursing — whether it’s in the home, at a grocery store or in a community clinic,’ says Strong
10 November 2010
Closer to home, she found devastation and despair aplenty on her first visit to Mississippi one month after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the region, upending thousands of lives and wreaking havoc on families who could ill afford to repair the damage or restore order to their lives. “I don’t even have to close my eyes and I can be there,” says Strong about the Katrina-stricken Lakeshore, Miss., region when she and her co-workers arrived. “We went into communities that looked all right on the outside but the interiors of the buildings were destroyed and the people fled elsewhere. What we saw wasn’t terror caused by people: it was terror caused by nature.” She recognized that mobilizing the kind of response needed couldn’t happen quickly enough because of the scope of the damage. “It takes time to put these things in place,” Strong says. “But time is precious when you are hungry, when you’re wet, when your entire world has vanished – and you are very frustrated about the slow response.” Strong and the Aging With Grace group that traveled to Mississippi with her began a project to hand sew rag dolls to
bring to the people who had been driven from the neighborhoods. “To see the look in peoples’ eyes when we brought them these rag dolls — it brought back memories to them of their own childhood that they could then give to their child or grandchild, and this gave them a sense of comfort, a sense that ‘Someone else made these for me, someone who cares about me,’” says Strong. The health-care system was thin or virtually non-existent so that her group became both the health-care providers as well as recorders of the history of what had occurred during and after the storm.
“Preparedness: Radiological and Nuclear Emergencies: Medical and Public Health Response to Radiation Incidents” at SHU’s Cambridge Campus. Strong acknowledges that challenges lie ahead. She cites diminishing resources, tight grant money and shrinking local and state budgets where money for expansion of public health programs has been reduced or eliminated. She hopes that private resources will provide what is missing and credits the Agency on Aging of South Central Connecticut with providing badly needed funding for elder residents.
“I am a public health nurse,” says Strong. At Sacred Heart, Strong teaches online “I believe what is global is local. Illness throughout the year and in the classroom and disease doesn’t stop at a town’s for the fall and spring semesters, in borders. Sickness costs money but a addition to her administrative role as superb health system equals a healthy director of the RN to BSN program. population. The wealth of a country When she finds time to relax, she reads is measured by the good health of its history books (“We can learn a lot from citizens, so if I can make a difference in our past mistakes”), gardening (“I’m peoples’ lives as a public health nurse, not a professional gardener — I just then they will be stronger.” tinker”) and travels. Ever conscious — Thomas R. Violante of her public health background and experiences with Katrina, Strong cohosted a seminar with Sigma Theta Tau, the nurses’ professional sorority, titled
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Healthcare Heroes
11
Physician of the Year Edward Rippel, MD Quinnipiac Internal Medicine, PC Hamden
A Modern-Day Marcus Welby A Hamden sole practitioner makes high-tech headway in primary care
A
t Quinnipiac Internal Medicine, what some see as the future of medicine is happening now.
The program “recognizes clinician practices functioning as medical ‘homes’ by using systematic, patient-centered and coordinated care management processes,” according to the NCQA.
Electronic medical records allow Edward Rippel, MD, the office’s primary-care “The basic principle is most of the care physician, to communicate more that a patient gets should be under the efficiently with patients, track and aegis of the primary care office, any care monitor chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease and ultimately outside of office we coordinate, and we track those elements to completion,” achieve better outcomes. says Rippel, who views the recognition Moreover, Rippel says, using medical as a reflection of his approach to software technology has proven to be a medicine. better way to run his business.
Rippel drew attention earlier this year when he became the first sole practitioner in Connecticut to be as recognized as a Patient-Centered Medical Home by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) at Level 3, the highest level.
PHOTO: TOM VIOLANTE
Ripple says his practice style has always been ‘patient-centric with an emphasis on preventive care.’
He says his “practice style has always been patient-centric with an emphasis on preventive care, guideline-based chronic disease management and coordination of care with specialists.” Moreover, his “practice philosophy” hinges on “personal individualized service,
with superior availability and patient communication.” A New York native, Rippel attended the Bronx High School of Science, where he discovered “a penchant for biological science.” He majored in biology at New York University, graduated from New York Medical College, interned at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx and was a resident at Morristown (N.J.) Memorial Hospital. He then worked in a Colorado federal prison and a Spanish Harlem (N.Y.) community center to fulfill his obligation to the National Health Services Corps, which helped finance his medical education. In 1993, Rippel joined a primary care group in Hamden. When the practice dissolved in 1999, he opened his own practice.
While working in Spanish Harlem, Rippel used a ruler and spreadsheet to track preventive care and disease management. “You had a fairly good snapshot but could not do more,” he recalls. “In the 1990s, I heard about the advent of electronic medical records, and it seemed sort of a fantasy. The industry evolved fairly quickly but it really was a very expensive proposition, not feasible in primary care.” A decade later, the situation changed when insurance companies began implementing pay-for-performance models for achieving or exceeding certain health benchmarks.
you,” Rippel says. He found out around 40 percent of his patients had well controlled diabetes, which was “about the same as the national average.” By focusing on those patients with followup visits, the percentage “at goal” for diabetes control rose to 70 percent over the next several years. In 2009, Rippel earned recognition from the NCQA for providing high-quality care to diabetes patients. The following year he earned NCQA recognition for providing high-quality care to patients with cardiac problems. When Rippel became the first solo practice in Connecticut to achieve patient-centered medical home recognition this February, the NCQA dubbed him a “triple crown winner.”
“Now you had another source of revenue, and here’s this wonderful tool that could help me to realize my vision of chronic “Practices that earn medical home disease management and preventive recognition are really the leading edge of where health care needs to go, and that care,” says Rippel, who speaks Spanish is a system that combines integration and Italian (he says 15 to 18 percent of and technology to deliver better care at his patients are Spanish-speaking). He lower costs,” says NCQA spokesperson began interviewing vendors. In summer Andy Reynolds. 2006, he selected eClinicalWorks to set up an electronic medical record system, The ranks are swelling. As of September and set out to improve patient care. 30, there were 108 patient-centered medical homes in Connecticut “I thought I was doing a pretty good job, but there’s nothing like real data to sober recognized by the NCQA (105 at Level
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3). Of those, 24 were sole practitioners. Electronic medical record-keeping also has been good for Rippel’s business. With increased visits and other measures, including in-house rather than outsourced billing and pay-forperformance programs, Rippel has been able to enhance office productivity. He says his $50,000 investment in software technology “was recouped in just over two years.” During office visits, Rippel takes notes on an tablet PC, which allows him to send a prescription directly to a drugstore or order a diagnostic test. “It’s not just data-capture,” he says. “It’s sharing of data.” Patients receive a printed summary of their visit and educational materials related to treatment. They can submit questions, which he answers by e-mail, via a patient portal he launched four months ago. The system already has helped several patients, including a student who needed to quickly send his immunization records to a law school where he had been Continued on page 18
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Corporate Achievement
Defibtech, LLC Guilford Founder and CEO
The Shock Felt Around the World Defibtech’s accessible, easy-to-use defibrillators are saving lives in 40 countries
C
ardiac arrest is a game of numbers. A human being who spends three minutes in sudden cardiac arrest has a 70-percent chance of survival. By ten minutes, the survival rate plummets to just two percent, For the patient to survive, the heart must be resuscitated by an electronic device called a defibrillator. A person in cardiac arrest either has to be near a defibrillator or count on a rapid response time from emergency crews — and every second is a matter of life and death. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could count on always being close to a life-saving defibrillator? A Guilford company thinks so. Defibtech is changing the world with
14 November 2010
that could get there quickly.”
In 2003, Defibtech Founder Glenn W. Laub, MD had one successful company under his belt and he was looking for another project. A cardiologist, Laub was chairman of a cardiac surgery program, and medical-device sales reps would compete for his attention to show him their latest wares. He was not easily impressed. But there was one device that caught Laub’s eye: an automated external defibrillator made by Medtronic. “I used an external defibrillator in the operating room every day, but I’d never seen an automated one,” he explains. “There are a few heart conditions [arrhythmia and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and others that cause sudden cardiac arrest] where time is really of the essence. I was impressed with this portable gadget
PHOTO: PRISCILLA SEARLES
Laub: “I was always interested in engineering and creating new solutions to problems.”
a portable defibrillator that is saving upwards of 1,000 lives each year. Since 2004 close to 150,000 of the LifeLine automated external defibrillator (AED) devices have been sold in more than 40 countries. They’re manufactured in the U.S. with instructions in 16 different languages and are saving lives all over the world.
He was impressed with the device’s utility. But Laub recalls that the Medtronic device was clunky and, at $3,500, expensive. So he phoned Gintaras Vaisnys, a fellow student from Laub’s days at Yale, where he in 1978 earned a BS in biochemical engineering, and the two men developed an AED that was user-friendly and significantly less expensive than the competitor’s product. “I was always interested in engineering and creating new solutions to problems,” Laub says. He was one of those kids who liked to take radios and other electronics apart just to get to their innards and see how they worked. When he first became a physician in 1981, working in his garage, he invented a device for measuring blood flow in the leg and he and his wife Karen started a company called Zertl Medical to market it internationally. It’s Laub’s childhood passion and ten patents for medical devices including the Lifeline and ReviveR AEDs that makes Defibtech worthy of this Corporate Achievement award. Daun Barrett, coordinator of Griffin Hospital’s Valley Parish Nurse Program, agrees that Defibtech is worthy of the award. Her program oversees 85 AEDs in churches, schools and senior centers, purchased through a combination of grants and funding. “When you have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, your chances of survival are very low,” says Barrett. “Nobody does CPR and there is no AED. If it’s a sudden cardiac arrest, not just a regular cardiac arrest, the only way they’re going to bring you back is with an AED.” Having an AED in a public place strengthens the “chain of survival” by speeding the response to a sudden cardiac arrest victim, who must be revived with a defibrillator within minutes for the best chance of survival. Each elapsed minute decreases the
chance of survival by ten percent. Barrett’s program has included three years of training for non-medical professionals to use the portable defibrillators. This year, she’s training seventh-graders in area schools to use the AEDs. “AEDs have always been a passion of mine because there are lives lost that shouldn’t be,” Barrett says. “It’s the sudden cardiac arrest that many people never see coming — you just drop to the ground and need an electrical impulse to start it again. It can happen to anyone, without any history of heart disease. The AED is a marvelous invention. If someone does a minute of CPR, then slaps the device on, the impact is exponential.”
functionality was added after Defibtech learned that people had concerns about using an AED. While most have audio instruction, for emergency responders, laypeople were still afraid to use them, so video instruction was added. First responders, including policemen, firemen, and security guards, are the biggest group of users, with schools and office buildings becoming increasingly equipped with the devices. “One of the areas where people have cardiac arrest and survive are health clubs, since they’re almost always witnessed and there are usually many
people around,” Laub says. AEDs are also found at airports, sports venues and other places that attract large numbers of people. Laub estimates the Lifeline saves 1,000 people a year from dying of sudden cardiac arrest, though he acknowledges it’s difficult to get a precise number because not everyone who uses the devices reports back to Defibtech. “We’ve had some fantastic saves — saves from people who never had seen an AED before,” Laub says. “It’s just terrific.” — Melissa Nicefaro
And nearly anyone can use them, according to Laub: “The FDA says they’re restricted to be used by people who are trained on these devices. Everyone who takes a CPR course now is trained in AEDs.” In fact, the majority of the people saved by these devices are saved by laypeople who never have used one before. “They’re so easy to use, they’re almost foolproof,” Laub says. “They have very sophisticated techniques so that they only shock people who need to be shocked and they won’t harm everybody.” And at $1,250, the Defibtech AED is not prohibitively expensive for insitutional users. However, until insurance is required to pay for them, they’re not likely to be found in many private homes. “That’s not to say that some of the affluent who have certain conditions and can’t get an implantable defibrillator aren’t early adopters,” Laub allows. “That market is not as mature right now as the office buildings, schools, health clubs, where they definitely should have been five years ago.”
A healthy community starts with a healthy commitment. That’s why we applaud Business New Haven’s 2011 Healthcare Heroes. Their vision and leadership improve the quality of life in our community. After all, a healthy community is everyone’s responsibility. We believe all of us working together can help to make our community stronger … better … healthier. And we’re just committed to doing our part. For more information visit anthem.com.
The standard AED lauched in 2003 is still available, as is the new Lifeline View, which falls in a new class of defibrillators. The batteries last around seven years and fuel 300 shocks. “All of the other defibrillators tell you what to do; the View shows you what to do, and that’s something that nobody else has,” Laub says. The video
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Healthcare Heroes
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Education Physician Assistant Program Quinnipiac University, Hamden Cybthia Lord, Program Director
T
he demand for health care professionals is growing, and physician assistants are a hot commodity.
Quinnipiac University’s Physician Assistant Program is one of three such programs in the state, along with those at University of Bridgeport and Yale. The physician assistant (PA) in years past may have had lower status compared to physicians, and some patients wonder why they spend more time with a PA at the doctor’s office than with the doctor. Program director and Clinical Associate Professor of Physician Assistant Studies Cynthia Lord explains that PAs, physicians, and nurse practitioners are the only three medical providers licensed to practice medicine in the U.S. “Physician assistants are medical
The First Line of Defense Quinnipiac’s physician assistant program grows to meet soaring demand providers who see patients from cradle to grave, and more and more people understand the role now,” Lord says. “We work with physicians, under their supervision, and it’s a collaborative relationship. We work together on the same team and the patient gets a much more holistic treatment.” It’s the focus on outpatient procedures and especially preventative medicine that a PA is most charged with. “We try to make it so that before [the patient’s medical condition] escalates into anything bigger, we’ve nipped it in the bud,” Lord says. “I wouldn’t treat your diabetes because I’ve helped you all the way through to not get diabetes. Or if you develop mild diabetes that is treated by your diet and not with 16 meds or needing your leg removed.”
Lord says the demand for more care providers throughout the health-care industry is huge, and as it is there aren’t enough PAs, physicians or nurses, so the more PAs in the system to handle the number of patients and the amount of time spent on each one, the better. “When you’re 80 years old, your 15-minute visit isn’t 15 minutes any more” Lord says. “The time a patient needs from us is much more. PAs and nurse practitioners help expand and open up that practice.” Danielle Tabaka, president of the Connecticut Academy of Physician Assistants and a 2005 graduate of the program, says there are approximately 1,600 licensed PAs in Connecticut, and they will be key to making health Continued on page 18
PHOTO: PRISCILLA SEARLES
When he turned 70, LaCamera decided ‘It was time to retire — but I had more work to do.’
’Not only do our students get good jobs and get them right away, but they’re getting non-entry-level positions,’ says Lord (with QU students). 16 November 2010 2011
BUILDING ON A TRADITION OF TRUST
St. Vincent’s Medical Center congratulates our partner in care, Quinnipiac University and its Graduate Physician Assistant Program on its Healthcare Hero Award.
Setting the Standard for Care You Can Trust Healthcare Heroes
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PHYSICIAN Continued from 13
accepted for admission and a patient able to download his medical records from an emergency room in France. The proactive approach suits Susan Rapini, executive vice president of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce. “The whole key with him is prevention before things become a problem,” says Rapini, who began seeing Rippel this spring. “You don’t leave the office without having your whole plan done and your appointments, and he’s so sincere and doesn’t rush you. “You have your medical portal, where you can see all your lab results online,” Rapini adds. “You can e-mail him, and he’s meticulous about getting the right information and helping you manage your care.” Rippel plans “to continue in
the pursuit of realizing my vision of improving quality of health care at the level of the patient and helping to offset the cost for health care. “If you look at performance measures and quality of care outcomes, the practices that are primary care-heavy are the ones that have the highest success rates and lower costs.” Steve Glick, president of Chamber Insurance Trust, regards Rippel as “an innovator, visionary and example of how primary-care doctors should perform. “He represents the future of primary care technology and personal communication, and in a way he’s like the old doctor Marcus Welby,” Glick says, referring to the 1970s TV series starring Robert Young, who embraced the role of general practitioner. Make that Dr. Welby with a 21st-century twist. – Karen Singer
We’re Gonna Make Your Day...
PA Program
back to school to make such a switch, either.
Continued from 16
“For a lot of us, that flexibility is very appealing,” she says.
care more widely available as physicians become increasingly more occupied. “There is a greater emphasis on preventative medicine, and we’re in a position to play a good role in that,” Tabaka says. “PAs will continue to fill the gaps as health-care reform takes shape. They will likely continue to be integral in taking care of patients.” Lord graduated from the Yale School of Medicine’s Physician Associate Program in 1991 and was one of the first three faculty members hired for the PA program in 1994. She says the generalist training provided by QU’s program affords its graduates the flexibility to apply their skills across the health-care spectrum, adding that the average PA may work in two different specialties during his or her career, and one need not become re-certified or go
The program’s 54 new students each year undergo an intensive 27-month curriculum. For the 16 to 20 existing Quinnipiac students that enter the program from their undergrad years, the course starts the day after graduation. Lord says Connecticut is an especially “PA-friendly” state in which to train and practice, thanks to legislation that gives physician assistants the ability to perform as broad an array of tasks as their MD delegates. The laws can be more restrictive in other states in such ways as limiting a PA’s ability to prescribe medicine. Though she is currently on the administrative end, Lord still spends ten hours each week teaching in the classroom, and has been a
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clinically practicing PA in family medicine and primary care since 1991. The program now boasts eight core faculty members, all of whom still practice professionally as PAs, with up to 30 adjuncts providing additional instruction. And they must be doing something right: Lord says only nine students have failed the board exams in the past 17 years, but even they have since passed.
several times a week to ACES students, and children at the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic at the Hospital of St. Raphael, even donating toys and books at the holidays. Lord also established ties with the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Early Evaluation Program (KEEP), where PA students are primary screeners for up to 100 people at the bi-monthly program. Tabaka herself was involved in the KEEP program, and remained so after graduating. It even had an influence on her career path.
Most students probably shouldn’t worry about finding a job, either. With such a heavy demand for “I now work in the field; it PAs, Lord says that within intrigued me and I realized 16 weeks out of the program, through that program 88 percent of the graduates that it was something I land their first-choice job. really enjoyed doing,” says Tabaka. “Quinnipiac is Each year, she says, about really committed to giving half the graduating class back to the community, and goes into surgery and that’s one thing that really surgical subspecialties stands out.” (including critical care medicine), while 20 percent The students and faculty enter primary care and 23 also give bagged dinners, percent pursuing emergency clothing, cosmetics and medicine. She credits the toiletries to the homeless in program’s solid faculty with New Haven. PA students providing instruction worthy also engage in a Migrant of making Quinnipiac’s Farmers Clinic through the program nationally summer. competitive. “Our service back to the “Not only do our students get community is important, good jobs and get them right and I’m very involved in our away, but they’re getting outreach,” Lord says. “You non-entry-level positions,” have to be a good model, a Lord says. “To go into good mentor. You can’t just surgical ICU or the critical sit behind a desk and say, care unit is not something ‘You do this.’ a new graduate typically “Our obligation to the does. We have a very good community is real,” she reputation in the state and adds. “We ‘practice’ across the country. They medicine — and the know what they get with a students clearly practice in Qunnipiac PA, and they’re the community. And when comfortable putting them in you go out and work with those positions.” people on their oral health But it’s also the program’s and their health literacy, extensive community when you work with people outreach that Lord says who are homeless and who distinguishes the program. are migrant farmers, the She has a passion for students get that ‘Ah-ha’ promoting health literacy, moment: ‘I get it. This is especially in children. So why it’s important.’” all involved in the program provide books and offer — John Mordecai fitness/health fairs and read
Founded on education. Fostered by community. Quinnipiac University’s Physician Assistant Program has been honored with a 2011 Health Care Heroes Award in the category of Education.
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Healthcare Heroes
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Advancement of Health Care: Corporate Protein Sciences Corp. Meriden Don Adams, Chairman Manon Cox, CEO
O
ne month after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Meriden’s Protein Sciences Corp. (PSC) found itself on the front lines of the war against bioterrorism. The company makes proteins from cells derived from viruses and can grow them quickly and accurately.
In an interview with BNH published 30 days after the attacks, then-CEO (now Executive Chairman) Dan Adams revealed that the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) told the company that “We were the only ones who could make a vaccine to protect people against a pandemic flu in time to make a difference.” In the interview Adams himself suggested that the deadliest threat might be not from bio-terrorism but rather a reprise of the “Spanish” flu pandemic
PSC’s Adams (left) and current CEO Cox hope for final approval of FluBlok with a matter of months.
2020 November November2011 2011
Heading Off a Pandemic at the Pass Protein Sciences closes in on a revolutionary flu vaccine
that killed 50 million people worldwide immediately following World War I — more than three times the number killed in combat during what was to date the bloodiest conflict in human history. Two years later that fear hit home nearly everywhere across the globe when the World Health Organization identified SARS as a new disease in 2003. SARS spread rapidly and infected thousands of people around the world, including people in Asia, Australia, Europe, Africa as well as the Western Hemisphere.. SARS is caused by a member of the coronavirus family of viruses (the same family that can cause the common cold). It is now believed the 2003 epidemic started when the virus spread from small mammals in China, possibly initially infected by a bat.
By 2005 fear that another flu, Avian Flu virus (H5N1), would find its way to the U.S. annd promising results by Protein Sciences in treating chickens against the flu convinced the FDA to put a PSC vaccine on the fast track. It was a track that Adams had been hoping to move down since 1995. That’s when he first contacted the board of Protein Sciences at a time when the Meriden bioscience company was struggling under the challenge of creating a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. The company was short on funds and without a CEO when Adams, an experienced biotech entrepreneur, contacted the board. Adams had in 1976 founded and was CEO of drugmaker Biogen (now Biogen Idec, a $25 billion company) as well as three other biotechs. The board told Adams they were seeking
new capital and would look for a CEO after they raised the money. Adams responded that PSC would need a CEO first in order to raise money. Shortly thereafter Adams was named Protein Sciences’ new CEO. Adams first decision was to jettison work on the HIV/ AIDS vaccine. Although he believed the technology showed promise, the effort had been “mismanaged.” While development of the AIDS vaccine was lost, the lessons learned in creating vaccines and growing proteins in a novel way were not. Says Adams: “My philosophy was we’re going to patent around [the licenses, originally acquired from Texas A&M University], so when they expire we will own the field.” In biotech to own something is to buy it first. And although the company’s human trials for the FluBlok vaccine results were praised in scientific literature, the costs to the company were significant. According to current PSC CEO Manon Cox, “One clinical trial cost us $20 million alone.” And while the reality that a truly deadly pandemic was possible and arising from “natural causes” was getting the attention of health officials, things were getting harder for PSC to fund operations and growth. By 2007 the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services had committed $8.5 billion to address concerns of a pandemic flu through expanding existing vaccine facilities and funding new technologies. However, much of that money continued to be directed to large pharmaceutical companies and much of that to traditional vaccine methods.
a virus is grown and either killed or weakened so it won’t transmit the disease. The body reacts to it and makes antibodies, which destroy the virus. Cox says that traditional vaccine production is not up to the challenge of a true pandemic. “The process is long — it can sometimes take up to 12 months to identify and modify the viruses so that it will provide the correct immune response and can be grown in eggs,” she explains. Eggs are the traditional medium for creating vaccines and pose their own unique set of problems that can slow vaccine production. The Protein Sciences approach is different. “It is pluck [a piece of genetic code from the virus] and play,” says Cox, and we use insect cells as production facility. Instead of giving people virus that has been killed we only give that part of the virus” that will generate antibodies in the human host. In the event of a pandemic Cox says it is much safer to work with as well. “Since we just use some genetic code which cannot cause disease, you don’t need to work with a [potentially] deadly virus that is pathogenic,” she says. By starting with the known cause, Cox says PSC can literally have a workable vaccine in days not months. Currently traditional vaccine manufacturing capacity would only meet a small fraction of worldwide demand for vaccine, and capacity for the Third World would be completely inadequate in the event of pandemic. In 2008, Protein Sciences announced the sale of the company for $78 million as word of a major U.S. government contract
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Continued on page 26
With a traditional vaccine Healthcare Heroes
21
Person of Merit Harry H. Penner
The Renaissance Man of Science Harry Penner’s footprints surround Connecticut’s bioscience industry(with more yet to come)
I
Pharmaceuticals, a prescription drug trauma situations and surgery. t’s not easy to find a New Haven company developed on the strength of bioscience company that doesn’t “There’s currently no test available — intellectual property, pending patent have Harry Penner’s name somehow certainly not quickly and inexpensively applications, technology out of Yale. connected with it. He has helped develop — for this,” Penner explains. “It’s a very at least a dozen companies and is now “The proximity to the scientists who fun diagnostic opportunity.” focused on growing three more here in are generating technology is not only Penner and Vincent Pieribone are New Haven. convenient, but also important to Affinimark’s co-founders. The company regular updating of that technology and He believes he has all bases covered with was launched with funding from communication with potential investors one prescription drug company, one Connecticut Innovations Inc. (CII) and that specializes in diagnostics and one Launch Capital. “It’s an ‘all-Connecticut’ and partners,” Penner says. consumer-supplement business. New Haven Pharmaceuticals is at the thing,” he says. “Having the office on final stage, pre-approval, of its lead Temple Street close to Yale helps.” Affinimark Technologies is developing a product, something Penner calls a hightest for the presence of cerebral spinal Penner also is developing New Haven tech time-release aspirin product licensed fluid, called Cerebrostrip, for used in from a firm in France.
PHOTO: PRISCILLA SEARLES
“We very serendipitously found new uses for aspirin were being developed — one for liver injury and one for foreign body reaction — and what better product to use with that than a 24-hour controlled reach aspirin?” he asks rhetorically. And as so often happens with science, one discovery leads to another. “As you know, aspirin can irritate the stomach and the scientists over at Yale learned that zinc, when used in a certain way, can help GI [gastrointestinal] irritation and so that can be combined to create even more products,” Penner explains. “The zinc product by itself is being developed to treat reflux disease. That has been the most unique and coincidental or serendipitous set of circumstances, all of that coming together to create this very neat suite of programs that are now getting funded.”
Says Penner: ‘The intellectual stimulation that comes from dealing with all of these things is incredibly gratifying.’
Penner’s third company, Prevention Pharmaceuticals, focuses on nutritional supplements developed by Yale scientists. “Our proximity to Yale is key,” he says. “It’s about networks. What’s interesting about the supplements, the consumer health products, is there are not only ties to Yale; it [also] involves some of the same people as New Haven Pharmaceutical — almost like sister companies.” Other companies with which he’s had varying degrees of involvement over time are RxGN, a clinical research organization (CRO) headquartered in Hamden, and Neurogen, where Penner was CEO from 1993 to 2001. He also was co-founder of Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, on whose board of
22 November 2011
of talented people that have over the “That’s where I cut my teeth in the directors he continues to sit, and he course of their careers worked at Bayer, pharmaceutical industry, largely from serves as an advisor to MAK Scientific, which seeks to commercialize technology the legal side,” Penner recounts. In 1981, Pfizer and the like, we have a wonderful group of people who are literally right he went to work for Novo (now Novo from the University of Connecticut. here at our doorstep in New Haven,” Nordisk), where he was offered the Penner was also involved with Ikonisys Penner says. “We don’t have to go to opportunity to relocate to Denmark. and Genaissance for a number of years. another state or run into problems with He co-founded Marinas and was CEO “As luck would have it, I was chosen communication with people who are not there until 2008. to become a member of the top close by.” management of the company, becoming “There’s clearly variety in my day,” he Penner says one of the things that’s been executive vice president and general acknowledges. “Just look at these three most rewarding throughout his career is counsel to the parent company in companies: You have Affinimark, New working with highly talented people at Haven Pharma and Prevention. We cover Denmark,” he explains. “That was quite his various companies. a trip — literally and figuratively.” the consumer-health end of the spectrum to prescription drugs to diagnostics. “Sometimes people worry that New Three years later he returned to The intellectual stimulation that comes Haven can’t attract the kind of talent Connecticut and opened a North from dealing with all of these things is American headquarters for Novo in New that you find in Boston or the [San incredibly gratifying.” Francisco] Bay area,” Penner says. “It is York City’s Chrysler Building. Three more difficult, but we’ve had wonderful years after that, he saw an opportunity Oddly, Penner’s academic training is in founding people with a breadth of with Neurogen, and so began his local the law — not science. experience. pharmaceutical career. “There wasn’t even a biotechnology industry” when he was in school, Penner jokes. He holds a BA from the University of Virginia, a JD from Fordham and an LLM in international law from New York University.
“I did practice law for a few years and I enjoyed it, but I got tired of the Long Island-to-Manhattan commute,” says Penner. So in 1978, he and his wife relocated to Connecticut where he took a position with Boehringer Ingelheim.
Penner has since served as bioscience advisor to the governor, as co-chair of the bioscience industry group Connecticut United for Research Excellence (CURE) and as chairman of the state’s Board of Governors for Higher Education. He currently sits on the boards Rib-X, New Haven Pharmaceuticals, Prevention Pharmaceuticals and Affinimark.
“By virtue of the rich treasure trove
“What I’m most hopeful about is that the state continues down the track that I think it’s on of putting even more money to work at Connecticut Innovations to spark new companies,” Penner says. “New companies generate new employment opportunities and create a larger tax base and that works out well for everybody.” —
Melissa Nicefaro
Congratulations Harry Penner 2011 HEALTHCARE HERO
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Healthcare Heroes
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Health Care Professional Sue Fitzsimons, RN, Ph.D. Senior Vice President of Patient Services Yale-New Haven Hospital New Haven
O
n May 24, 200 nurses assembled in a Yale-New Haven Hospital auditorium to listen to a live phone call from Craig Luzinski, director of the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program. They were about to learn whether five years of efforts to improve the status of nurses at the hospital would result in Magnet designation for high-quality nursing. After Luzinski uttered the word “Congratulations,” screams and cheers drowned out the rest of his comments. Among those savoring the moment was Sue Fitzsimons, the hospital’s senior vice president of patient services –– and the
PHOTO: PRISCILLA SEARLES
’You don’t do this in a silo,’ Fitzsimons explains. ‘The entire organization needed to be involved
24 November 2010 2011
Setting a New Standard for Care How Sue Fitzsimons helped set the bar higher for YNHH nursing driving force behind the extraordinary feat. “Sue was the visionary leader who persuaded us to go for it,” says Yale New Haven Health System Executive Vice President and COO Richard D’Aquila. “Under her leadership the hospital, after a long and difficult process, was able to achieve what only about six percent of hospitals achieve.” Just 391 hospitals in the world are Magnet designated. All but five are in the U.S. Connecticut has two: YNNH and Middlesex Hospital. The Magnet program “recognizes the quality of your nursing staff,”
Fitzsimons says, “but the hospital is designated because the nurse can’t work in an environment where the hospital doesn’t support 88 standards across four domains.” To achieve Magnet designation, the nursing staff must excel in areas including transformational leadership, exemplary professional practice, new knowledge, innovations and improvements and empirical quality outcomes. The application form is daunting. “It is 15 volumes weighing over 40 pounds,” says Fitzsimons, who grew up on Long Island and earned a BSN at Cornell in 1968
Congratulations Sue Fitzsimons, RN, PhD Senior Vice President of Patient Services and Chief Nursing Officer
For being named Business New Haven’s 2011 Healthcare Heroes “Healthcare Professional of the Year.”
We thank you for leading Yale-New Haven Hospital’s successful journey to Magnet® designation, which recognizes healthcare organizations for high-quality patient care, nursing excellence and innovation in professional nursing practice.
Healthcare Heroes
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Fitzsimons Continued from 24
and a master’s in nursing at New York University in 1974. After working as a staff nurse at New York Hospital and Long Island Jewish Hospital and as an instructor of nursing at Queensboro Community College, she moved to Ohio, where she completed a Ph.D. in education at the University of Dayton in 1983. Fitzsimons spent the next two decades in the Buckeye State, teaching nursing at two universities, honing her administrative skills as senior vice president of hospital operations at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton and earning accolades and awards. “I was recruited in 1997 to become the chief nursing officer and senior vice president for patient services at YaleNew Haven Hospital,” says Fitzsimons, who today oversees a nursing staff of some 2,800. Fitzsimons already had some experience with the Magnet Recognition Program at Miami Valley Hospital, where she was seeking Magnet designation. “We were not fully there when I left Dayton,” she says. “When I came here I had multiple conversations about it with [YNNH President and CEO] Marna [Borgstrom], and the conversation continued with her and Rick D’Aquila. “You don’t do this in a silo,” she adds. “The entire organization needed to be involved, and we actually hired a staff. I have a Magnet coordinator, who is a full-time nurse who spends her day thinking about this, a project coordinator and two consultants to ensure that our interpretation of the standards was correct. “For five years, we looked at what’s the best way to do it and visited places that
Protein Scineces Continued from 21
surfaced. The development would be funded and finished by the acquirer, Emergent BioSolutions of Rockville Md. Emergent provided immediate funding to shore up Protein Sciences, but the deal soon fell apart with acrimony and lawsuits a plenty. In early 2009 H1N1 surfaced as a potential pandemic virus. Like many flus H1N1 started in birds and was transferred to pigs, which is why it was
26 November 2011
had been successful,” Fitzsimons says. That’s not unusually long, according to Luzinski. “We call it a journey, which results in the transformation of an organization into one that can address and meet all the criteria,” he says. “It takes time to innovate and change the culture and put infrastructure in place where nurses have a voice.” The process, Luzinski adds, typically requires a leader with “the energy and tenacity” to succeed. Even though Fitzsimons possesses those qualities, D’Aqulia says, he was “a little worried about Magnet. “It was a great aspiration but it was a very heavy lift,” he says. “I had my doubts that we could meet the requirements, which were very stringent. My biggest fear is that we would get really close and not get it. And that would be demoralizing.” One requirement, transformational leadership, dealt with “how the organization supports leadership, mentorship and successor planning for nurse leaders,” Fitzsimons explains. “We had to describe and demonstrate with data or examples over time that this organization had achieved this. Right from the beginning, I began an education of the organization and tempered the message for different employee groups to explain what transformational leadership is, why do you do it, why it is important and what will it take to get there.” But once each group, including physicians and admitting staff, understood its role in supporting nurses, “The light bulb went off,” Fitzsimons says. “When you start out, you’re a novice at it and the staff are not sophisticated,” she adds. “You work and evolve with them
initially called swine flu. With pigs as hosts the flu became more suitable for transmission to humans. Eventually more than 17,000 people worldwide would die, in part due to lack of supply of vaccines. In 2009 PSC won a contract from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services for up to $150 million for the development, clinical testing and eventual manufacturing of its FluBlok vaccine. This June PSC received its second-round payment of $40 million.
and become experts over time. Once you reach maturity you have a wellhoned machine for staff engagement that results in staff who are committed, with less turnover.” The process required continuous oversight and feedback. “As we got close to document submission and knew we would get visited, it had to be a large educational effort involving the entire organization,” Fitzsimons says. The hospital filed the Magnet application on August 2, 2010. As part of the review, examiners spent four days at YNNH, from March 29 to April 1, 2011, interviewing more than 300 nurses and meeting with other medical staff and community members. Then began the waiting game. “I’ve never been so anxious, and I’m usually pretty cool,” Fitzsimons says. Relief came on May 24, 2011, with the confirmation of Magnet designation. “I’ve had a long career and there are things I’m proud of but this is right up there,” Fitzsimons says. “I feel I have created a legacy, which is a really nice feeling, and it has improved patient outcomes, led to all sort of opportunities for nurses, and really elevates your nursing staff to get the recognition it deserves.” Fitzsimons is not resting on her laurels. “In four years we will apply for redesignation,” she says. “I brought the team together the day after [Luzinski’s phone call] and told them as challenging as it was to get to this point, redesignation is more challenging and now is the time to start planning. “They were like, ‘We need a break.’ “And I said, ‘Well, that’s too bad.’” —
Karen Singer
As concerns of pandemic flu has spread globally, the company also received payments from its Japanese licensee, which recently signed a development deal with a Astellas, a major Japanese pharmaceutical company. Adams says he’s been frustrated by the pace of final approval for the vaccine, but expects it within a few months. It may come sooner if more folks see the current movie Contagion, featuring a deadly worldwide pandemic. – Mithcell Young
ConnectiCare is proud to support greater New Haven’s 2011 Healthcare Heroes
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VOLUNTEER Jeannette W. Connelly Parish Nursing and Community Outreach Center Cardiac Rehabilitation Center Griffin Hospital, Derby
W
‘She’s the Consummate Volunteer’ A former heart patient helps heart patients — with lots of heart
hen Jeannette Connelly at Griffin Hospital and just fell in love enters a room full of heart with the place,” she recalls. “I joined the patients at Griffin Hospital’s fitness center here and after a few years, Cardiac Rehabilitation Fitness Center, I started as a volunteer.” her infectious smile and cheery attitude Her eight-hour-plus day begins at about calms them down and makes them feel 7:15 a.m. with morning exercises for right at home and part of the group. She patients at the cardiac rehab center. volunteers on Thursdays at the rehab “Because I’m a former heart patient, I center, where she has served for 11 years, know what they’re going through,” and at the hospital’s Parish Nursing and explains Connelly. “So I talk with Community Outreach Center for the them, put their minds at ease, get to past five years. know them better and reassure them. Connelly suffered a heart attack 18 We have a lot of fun.” She points out years ago while working as an industrial that there aren’t any televisions in the engineering administrator at Sikorsky center so she relies on conversation and Aircraft, from which she retired in 1997. communication with the patients. “I began my cardiac rehab treatment here “Communication is the key,” says PHOTO: TOM VIOLANTE
Caring for at-risk kids is a team effort at Clifford Beers, which traces its roots back more than a century.
After she retired, Connelly came to Griffin and said to herself, ‘This is what I’m supposed to be doing.’
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Connelly. “We all have a story to tell, and they tell me theirs. We may not get too deeply into it, but they want me to know what their experience with a heart attack was like because they know I went through the same experience they did.” Connelly says the patients, who on any given day number between five and 15 out of a total of 50, talk about their children, what they did before retirement and what they want for the future. “I’ve had many friendships come out of my work here,” she notes. “It’s a great experience.” Connelly plans and hosts several luncheons yearly for the center’s patients
and works extra hours on hospital are very key to making people feel events when extra help is needed. “The comfortable. If she senses there is a husbands bring their wives and wives problem with a patient, she’ll clue me in bring their husbands,” says Connelly. on it. She’s a great communicator.” “We get about 40 people at each At the outreach center, “I do anything luncheon. So far, we’ve done 26 this that the nurses don’t have time to year. It’s really been a good way to get to do,” says Connelly. “It may be filing know people.” or copying one day, putting stamps on “I know when Jeannette has arrived in envelopes on another day — whatever the rehab center because soon afterward, is needed, I’m here to help.” And I hear laughter coming from the room,” whatever doesn’t get done during the says Eunice Lisk, manager of cardiac day, Connelly takes home to work on. “I rehab. “She puts people at ease. A lot spread it out on my kitchen table, finish of the people who come to the center what needs to be done and bring it back have come for many years. At the same the next day.” time, new patients enter the program “She is the consummate volunteer,” says gradually and that’s where Jeannette is Daun Barrett, director of community really great. She welcomes them, makes outreach, for whom Connelly works them feel comfortable, answers their at the Parish Nursing and Community questions and shows them around. She Outreach Center. “She is phenomenal. explains the equipment and introduces She accompanies us on the [community the new patients to those who’ve been outreach] van, handles registration for there a while. She’s a smiling, friendly us and interacts with adults, children, face for them to see.” everybody in such a kind and welcoming Lisk says Connelly’s outgoing personality way.” The 32-foot van, which needs at least two people on board to operate, is a precious asset to the center. “New conducts health care-oriented visits at patients there are a little overwhelmed about 30 sites a month throughout the and have never been to a cardiac fitness hospital’s service area. center before. They’re oftentimes scared but Jeannette is always friendly, sweet Barrett notes that no job is too big or and approachable. I think these traits too small for Connelly. “You couldn’t
Congratulations! Griffin Hospital salutes Jeanette Connelly on her selection as the 2011 Healthcare Heroes Volunteer of the Year for her many contributions as a volunteer with the hospital’s Valley Parish Nurse and Cardiac Rehabilitation Programs.
130 Division Street Derby, CT 06418 www.griffinhealth.org
The Only Hospital in Connecticut Named a Top Quality Performer by The Joint Commission
pay her enough to do what she does for free,” she says. “We gave her a key to the outreach center because she needs to bring the work she does at home back there. That was her idea.” Connelly has received the One Heart Touching Another volunteer award from the Women in Heart Disease committee, of which she is a member along with Barrett and Lisk. She also volunteers at the Orange Agricultural Fair and the Red Cross Bloodmobile. In her spare (!) time, she reads mysteries, watches foreign films and travels. “And I go to lunch with friends whenever I can,” she adds, laughing. Connelly has two sons, two daughters and admits to being a doting grandmother to her only grandchild. “We’re a community here at Griffin,” says Connelly. “If I were younger and looking for a job, I’d work at what I’m doing here as a volunteer. I have found it to be very rewarding. When I retired, I felt a lack of accomplishment. Then I came here and said, ‘This is what I’m supposed to be doing.’ I love what I do because it’s a good ‘people’ job.” — Thomas R. Violante
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Advancement of Healthcare: Individual Peter Blume, DMS Affiliated Foot & Ankle Surgeons New Haven
Y
ou’re going to lose your leg. Or, you can see Peter Blume.” It may sound dramatic, but for diabetics faced with the bleak prospect of losing a limb, Peter Blume, MD might be their only hope. The podiatric surgeon finds himself at the forefront of diabetic limb preservation and reconstruction, and has worked and traveled tirelessly to keep patients here and abroad standing on their own two feet. Blume practices at Affiliated Foot and Ankle Surgeons on Blake Street, a
PHOTO: PRISCILLA SEARLES
’The easy route is, we can cut your leg off,’ says Blume. ‘But we can save it.’
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Giving Patients a Leg To Stand On \sub\Pioneering podiatric surgery — and saving diabetics’ limbs
practice started 54 years ago by his podiatrist father, James Blume, who still practices there at age 79. His schedule is exhausting even to think about. He sees upwards of 50 patients at Blake Street three days a week, operates two days a week at Yale-New Haven Hospital, does the rounds there over the weekend, and teaches surgical residents. This is in addition to a massive amount of research and a long list of publications (current count is 119) that he and his team put out. While evidence of his awards,
certifications and recognitions are made visible upon entering his office, he speaks altruistically of his work, while a deep concern for his patients’ well being is evident in his speech. “I do it all — bunions and basic foot surgeries, and arthritic surgery — but my excitement is in diabetic limb preservation,” Blume says. “You’re rewarded when a patient comes back and they’re walking in a shoe, and they have returned to a somewhat more stable life.” After finishing his residency at Georgetown Medical Center in 1994 he decided to pursue a plastic surgery fellowship — not for the face, but for reconstructing extremities in those with diabetes or gangrene. It was an “unheard of” move at the time. Even 15 years ago, he said, treatment was relatively rudimentary and the amputation rate was high. “I learned how to do skin grafting and flaps, and all sorts of reconstruction, and then applied those principles to limb preservation,” he says. “When I started, this whole process was quite limited. There were very few institutions that had limb teams.” With staggering diabetes statistics — just over eight percent of the U.S. population now has the disease and more than 60 percent of non-traumatic lower limb amputations occur in those with it — the need is greater than ever. Up to 40 percent of Blume’s patients are diabetic. And while amputation is necessary for some, he views it as a last resort, since those that lose one limb are 50 percent more likely to lose the other within five years. He relays the story of a train conductor patient, now on a hopeful path to recovery. “He’s maybe 51 years old, and was told he was going to lose his foot. He’s got a wife and family; we’ve got to do something,” he says. “Our goal is to get him back to work. Otherwise, he can’t support his family, he’ll have to go on disability and Medicare and sit at home. He’ll be devastated.” His use of an external fixating device
stay afloat; the last thing they care about called the Ilizaroff apparatus, which sets “That’s why I like where we are,” Blume is how much they eat, and checking their a patient’s foot in place with the aid of concludes. “I want to be in New Haven, sugar,” he says. “That’s why this isn’t metal wires that pass through the bone because I get to see patients from just a disease, it’s a social issue.” (think of the spokes on a bicycle wheel), everywhere.” While government regulations and earned him the Ilizaroff Award of But the technological advances don’t expanding insurance coverage make Excellence at the International External necessarily make treating patients easier. seeking treatment easier, Blume says Fixation Symposium last year. Some of the biggest obstacles he’s faced he still treats some patients without Blume traveled to Siberia, and later with lie in an overall lack of education insurance — including at a once-aGreece and Italy to hone his skills with and attentiveness in some patients and month orthopedic indigent clinic at Yale the device. the larger population. for no cost. “I’m one of maybe two in the state that Lifestyle and healthy eating habits are “It’s part of what we do,” he says. “Let’s uses them at the volume I do,” he says. key, but with most his patients not just get you better.” “I’m known in the community and the even having sensation in their feet, Blume has lent his expertise all over the Northeast at large as the guy that does detecting a problem becomes that much world, and even visited Cuba last year Ex-Fix and limb preservation. That’s my more difficult. Something as simple as to look at a breakthrough epidermal forte.” checking your shoes to make sure you compound being developed there. Next This is evident by the number of referrals don’t spend the next few days with spring he’ll lecture in China, where he he gets from hospitals all over the region, debris bruising your feet can make all says the meat-and-carbohydrate-centered even New York and New Jersey. While the difference. Western diet is becoming more common. it might seem a no-brainer for these He often will have to talk with patients Blume is determined to help his patients tools to be used more broadly, Blume ahead of time to make sure they have an through the disease intact, and is all the says being centered at Yale provides the adequate support system at home. more grateful to have the resources New finances, manpower and skill set that “There are a lot of social issues that play Haven has to offer at his fingertips. other hospitals may not have. a role here. We always say, ‘Don’t do the “We’re not just saying, ‘Hey, we do surgery unless you can do the post-op, “You have to remain at a big academic diabetic foot surgery and we’re really center — it takes a lot of hands,” he says. because we don’t want a disaster,” he great, so you should come here.’ We says. “The easy route is, we can cut your “I may have a colleague with me, then put our heart and soul into it through leg off. But we can save it. It’s going to three residents. Someone has to hold take time and you have to work with me. research, education, teaching, and a the frame, then drill. It takes a lot, plus comprehensive approach.” I can’t achieve this on my own.” needing a team of residents and big staff He acknowledges all this is compounded to manage the diabetic problems, the — John Mordecai by social and economic issues. cardiac issues and the vascular surgery “Some people are just trying to work and issues.
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ConnectiCare is proud to support greater New Haven’s 2011 Healthcare Heroes