PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL MEDICINE NEWS BUREAU
Contact: Leonard N. Karp
lkarp@philadelphiamedicine.com
215-735-3989
For Immediate Release:
In this month’s issue:
1. Children's Hospital Opens Musculoskeletal Center
2. Temple Names Neurology Chair; To Expand Department
3. Penn Center to Study Medication Errors
4. Fox Chase President Named Head of American Cancer Society
Philadelphia - Philadelphia International Medicine hospitals announced new services; expansion programs and additions to faculty that will further establish the network of hospitals as among the world's best.
New CHOP Musculoskeletal Center to Offer Team Approach to Comprehensive Care
Children and adolescents who have a wide range of musculoskeletal issues now have access to the latest diagnostic and treatment advances at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a member of Philadelphia International Medicine. The Musculoskeletal Center at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a comprehensive, interdisciplinary center devoted to the full spectrum of musculoskeletal care, celebrated its grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony on Oct. 30, 2001.
"The Musculoskeletal Center brings together a highly skilled interdisciplinary team to provide comprehensive care for children with all types of musculoskeletal conditions, from the most complex disorders to more routine needs," said John Dormans, MD, chief of orthopedic surgery at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
The Center will serve as a valuable resource for children and adolescents with routine musculoskeletal needs, as well as focus on the treatment of children with spinal disorders, benign and malignant tumors, and brain injuries.
In addition to the treatment of patients, the Center's staff is also actively involved in clinical and basic research initiatives, which encompass the development of new procedures and techniques for treating a wide variety of musculoskeletal conditions.
The Center's unique, interdisciplinary approach incorporates the expertise of specialists in a variety of areas, including orthopedic surgery, rheumatology, nursing, orthotics and prosthetics, rehabilitation, physical and occupational therapy, neurophysiology, radiology and social work.
Temple Names New Chair of Neurology; to Expand Department
S. Ausim Azizi, MD was recently appointed professor and chairman of the Department of Neurology at Temple University Hospital and School of Medicine, a member of Philadelphia International Medicine. Azizi is certified by the American Boards of Psychiatry and Neurology. He completed his residency at Yale University School of Medicine and earned his PhD. and MD degrees from Southwestern Medical School in Texas. His research interests involve the biology and application of bone marrow stem cells for treatment of neurological diseases. He has authored many seminal scientific articles in this field.
Azizi has received several academic honors and awards for teaching excellence in neurology and is a member of national and international neuroscience organizations. With the appointment of Dr. Azizi, Temple is planning to expand the scope and magnitude of neurological care it offers to its patients.
Penn Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice is Reducing the Risk of Medication Errors
The University of Pennsylvania Medical Center has assembled a multidisciplinary team of physicians and researchers to form the Center of Excellence for Patient Safety Research and Practice. A $7 million grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will fund the center through its first five years of operation. The center's mission will be to examine medication errors and address practical ways to prevent their often-fatal effects.
"Sadly, medication errors are among the most common - and potentially preventable - types of medical errors," said Brian L. Strom, MD, MPH, director of the new center and chair of the Penn Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology. "They account for more deaths each year than motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or HIV infection - at an annual cost of $17 to $29 billion."
Of course, much is already known about medication errors. The elderly are most often at risk for such complications. Anticonvulsants are among the high-risk drugs. So are digoxin (also known as Lanoxin), used to treat congestive heart failure, and anticoagulants, such as warfarin (also known as Coumadin). The most common effects of medication errors are internal bleeding and kidney failure.
There are many causes of medication errors, and they can occur anywhere in the medication use process, including diagnosis, prescribing, dispensing, administering, ingesting, and monitoring. Among healthcare professionals, factors such as work stress, distractions, interruptions, inadequate training, fragmented information, or information overload may increase the risk of committing errors in the handling and monitoring of drugs.
Moreover, medication errors are also a societal issue. Patients often cannot - or do not - adhere to prescribed drug regimens, an error that accounts for almost a quarter of all hospital admissions attributed to drugs. Poor adherence can take the form of overuse, under-use, or erratic use of the drug. Among patients, factors such as advanced age, frailty, cultural or literacy barriers, mental illness or incapacity, or lack of adequate social support have all been found to contribute to the inability to adhere to prescribed drug regimens.
"Clearly, there is no single cause for this problem - and no single solution, either," said Strom. "But it is a problem that can be solved, and this center brings together researchers that will address both the clinical and societal issues behind medication errors."
Indeed, the center's investigators hail a host of different backgrounds, including pharmaceutical epidemiology, health services research, biostatistics, occupational medicine, sociology, psychology, and economics. They will be drawing on Penn's 20 years of experience in studying medication safety problems to conduct multidisciplinary research and education programs designed to identify and implement systematic approaches to reducing errors. The AHRQ grant is also in recognition of the success and prominence of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's Drug Use and Effects Program to reduce medication errors.
The center has already designed four inaugural projects that attack the problem of medication errors in real-world clinical settings. The projects are based at Penn and linked to the government of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as well as a national network of medication education and research centers.
The first project investigates factors that may predispose elderly patients to hospitalizations due to errors in medication use. For this project, collaboration with a state-run, population-based pharmaceutical benefit program will greatly enhance the ability to widely examine dose-related medication errors among elderly individuals taking specific high-risk drugs.
This project should help create a prediction rule to identify and decrease medication errors in high-risk patients that result in hospitalization.
The second project tackles error from the direction of adherence, researching indicators that predict poor adherence to warfarin therapy in an anticoagulation clinic. Outcomes from this project should help develop a predictive index that will allow healthcare workers to identify which patients are at risk for medication errors before they begin therapy.
The third project studies medication errors as the cause of preventable kidney failure among hospital inpatients. The researchers will examine the preexisting pharmaceutical monitoring system and determine how the system can be improved to decrease medication errors.
The fourth project examines the sociological and organizational causes of medication errors at the clinical level. The center will study the extent to which workplace conditions lead to medication errors among physicians, with emphasis on stress-inducing conditions, such as workload, schedules, work organization, shifts, and patient/staff ratios. Results could help design systems that decrease stress on health professionals and in turn, decrease prescription error rates.
"We have our work cut out for us, but this is not an impossible mission," said Strom. "The ultimate goal of this center is to determine practical methods to decrease these errors in order to improve patient health and lower medical costs."
Fox Chase Leader Robert Young Named National American Cancer Society President
Fox Chase Cancer Center president and CEO Robert C. Young, MD, has been chosen to serve as national president of the American Cancer Society (ACS), the nation's leading voluntary health agency devoted to fighting cancer.
President Young took on his new role on Nov. 3 at the ACS annual meeting in Anaheim, CA. Young has been an active member in the ACS at the local, state, and national levels for more than 12 years. In addition to serving as president, he is a member of the ACS national Board of Directors. Young has been president of Fox Chase Cancer Center for 14 years.
Internationally known for his work in the treatment of lymphoma and ovarian cancer, Young serves on the Board of Scientific Advisors of the National Cancer Institute. He is past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, one of the world's largest oncology societies, and is past president of the International Gynecologic Cancer Society. Most recently, Young served as chairman of the board of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a nationwide alliance of leading academic cancer centers dedicated to insuring the highest-quality, cost-effective cancer care.
"I come to this position from the perspective of a lifelong cancer researcher," said Young, one of the first ACS presidents to also lead a major cancer research center. "One of the most important challenges before the Society is to continue to find the correct balance between public health efforts of the ACS and the need for cancer research which ultimately supplements this strategy. I think I bring a fresh perspective to this effort and I hope to excite the public."
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Young received his B.Sc. degree in zoology in 1960 from Ohio State University and his M.D. in 1965 from Cornell University Medical College. He is board-certified in internal medicine, hematology and oncology by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Young came to Fox Chase in 1988 from the National Cancer Institute, where he was associate director of the centers and community oncology program.
The American Cancer Society is the nationwide community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy and service.
Philadelphia International Medicine is an organization that provides medical and patient support services to international patients. It also provides continuing medical education and health care training and education to international physicians, administrators and other practitioners. As the international department of several Philadelphia-area hospitals, international patients gain access to physicians and hospitals rated among the best in the world through one telephone call to PIM. You can reach PIM by calling 1-215-735-3575; fax, 1-215-790-1267; or e-mail, physicians@philadelphiamedicine.com. You can find out more about PIM through its Website at www.philadelphiamedicine.com.
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