News Around the State

Cardiovascular Services of Central Mississippi expands to Flowood

Cardiovascular Services of Central Mississippi, presently located in the Medical Office Building on the campus of Central Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, has expanded its location and services to include a clinic and sophisticated vascular lab in Flowood to provide comprehensive evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of vascular diseases effective June 11.

The team of board certified specialists is comprised of cardiovascular and thoracic surgeons Craig V. Adams, MD, FACS and Gerhard H. Mundinger, Jr., MD, LL.D, FACS and interventional cardiologist Abdul Bahro, MD, FACC, FSCAI.

“We are very excited to have Cardiovascular Services of Central Mississippi on the campus of River Oaks Hospital in Flowood,” said President and CEO of River Oaks Hospital Dwayne Blaylock. “River Oaks Hospital has a long standing reputation for excellence and that will continue as we expand our services to include these distinguished physicians who will provide comprehensive evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of vascular diseases. Our team has nearly 60 years of combined expertise to assist patients through innovative and advanced vascular procedures.”

Cardiovascular Services of Central Mississippi treats conditions of the vascular system (arteries and veins) and performs diagnostic and therapeutic procedures such as arteriograms and angioplasty, as well as surgical and endovascular treatments for vascular disease. The clinic specializes in minimally invasive techniques such as angioplasty and endovascular methods.

The clinic offers both minimally-invasive and open procedures to address a wide range of artery and vein disorders. It is always the goal to perform the most effective, least invasive procedure to address each specific medical issue.

The Flowood clinic is located at 1020 River Oaks Drive, Suite 480 and the Jackson clinic is located at 1860 Chadwick Drive, Suite 256. For more information, call (601) 376-1394.

St. Dominic’s Joins Joint Replacement Registry

St. Dominic’s has become a member of the American Joint Replacement Registry (AJRR), an independent, not-for-profit database designed to store comprehensive data about joint replacement procedures and to improve the patient experience of those who undergo joint replacement surgery.

More than a million hip and knee replacements are performed each year in the U.S., and that number is expected to increase as more men and women remain active as they grow older. While most replacement surgeries are successful, about 7.5 percent experience problems following surgery that require the artificial joint to be replaced.

“The American Joint Replacement registry will be of great value to patients, surgeons and hospitals throughout the country,” said Cris Bourn, Neuroscience/Orthopaedic Service Line Administrator at St. Dominic’s. “It will allow us to gather data in order to determine the safest, most cost efficient manner to care for our joint replacement patients.”

The AJRR serves as a central clearinghouse for information about joint replacements performed at St. Dominic’s and other member hospitals and medical centers throughout the country that participate in the registry. The AJRR aims to carefully monitor the artificial joint throughout a recipient’s lifetime in a database containing information about the patient, the surgeon who performed the procedure and the hospital or medical center where the procedure took place. The data collected will help doctors more quickly identify joints that are performing poorly and will help match patients, procedures and devices to ensure every patient has the best experience possible.

Physicians and other healthcare professionals who use the registry can easily access data from medical centers across the country and use the information to make informed recommendations to their patients. Registry information about patient outcomes will also help artificial joint manufacturers improve their product and identify potentially faulty products and help reduce healthcare costs associated with replacement procedures and follow-up care.

Dena Boggan Earns CHPC Designation

The Compliance Certification Board (CCB) announced that Dena Boggan, CPC, CMC, CHPC, HIPAA Privacy/Security Officer at St. Dominic’s, has received the Certified in Healthcare Privacy Compliance designation, making her one of only three in the State of Mississippi to earn the certification.

Dena has demonstrated knowledge of relevant regulations and expertise in compliance processes sufficient to assist healthcare industry in understanding and addressing legal obligations, and promote organizational integrity through the operation of effective compliance programs.

Privacy compliance professionals such as Dena are tasked with assuring that healthcare providers follow federal, state, and local regulations that govern maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of sensitive healthcare information.

St. Dominic’s Opens Radial Lounge for Patient Recovery

Minimally invasive cardiac surgery patients whose procedure is done through the radial artery in their wrist can now recover in the St. Dominic’s Radial Lounge while resting in a chair and watching a personal flat screen television.

“Technology and ingenuity continue to evolve the types of procedures and outcomes we can provide patients,” said D. Russell Young, Interventional Cardiologist at St. Dominic’s. “Cardiac procedures have changed from open and very invasive to a minimally invasive catheter-based procedure with access to the heart through an artery in the groin to now being able to access the heart from an artery in the wrist.”

The first two patients that had access to the lounge on Monday, April 15 seemed comfortable as they reclined in their chairs watching sports.

“This procedure is not new, but at St. Dominic’s we have now improved the patient experience, in a center that is already tailored to this mode of heart cath,” said Young.

Johnny Morrow of Jackson, one of the patients recovering in the lounge on Monday said, “From the moment I woke up I did not know I was in the hospital. It was more of a lounge setting, an excellent atmosphere. Very comfortable.”

Open procedures and procedures that access the heart through the groin require patients to lie flat for several hours afterward. The radial procedure allows the patient to sit up and recover and St. Dominic’s is providing the café-like setting and comfortable lounge chairs for them. 

UMMC pediatrician Hannah Gay named to TIME Magazine's TIME 100

TIME named HIV specialist Dr. Hannah Gay, UMMC associate professor of pediatrics, to the 2013 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. 

In caring for a newborn infected with HIV in 2010, Gay followed an atypical treatment regimen and functionally cured the baby. She and her colleagues, Dr. Deborah Persaud, Johns Hopkins Children’s Center virologist, and University of Massachusetts Medical School immunologist Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, who were also named to the TIME 100 list, presented the child’s case report in March at a scientific meeting in Atlanta. The report is the world’s first to describe an HIV functional cure in an infant.

Gay said she is honored and wants the recognition to highlight the efforts of physicians and scientists worldwide working in HIV prevention, care and research.

“This case represents decades of work by thousands of researchers and health-care providers to bring the HIV epidemic under control,” Gay said.

TIME’s full list and related tributes appear in the April 29 issue, available on newsstands and tablets on Friday, April 19, and now at www.time.com/time100.

Gay and her colleagues’ entry on the list can be found here.

The list, now in its 10th year, recognizes the activism, innovation and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals. As TIME Managing Editor Richard Stengel has said of the list in the past, “The TIME 100 is not a list of the most powerful people in the world, it’s not a list of the smartest people in the world, it’s a list of the most influential people in the world. They’re scientists, they’re thinkers, they’re philosophers, they’re leaders, they’re icons, they’re artists, they’re visionaries. People who are using their ideas, their visions, their actions to transform the world and have an effect on a multitude of people.”

UMMC's Woodward appointed to national medical school accrediting body

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s associate vice chancellor for Health Affairs, has been appointed to the nationally recognized accrediting body for U.S. and Canadian medical schools.

Woodward, who is also UMMC’s vice dean of the School of Medicine, will serve a three-year term starting July 1 as a member of the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME), sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Medical Association.

The U.S. Department of Education recognizes the committee for accreditation of medical degree education programs in the United States.

Most state boards of licensure require that U.S. medical schools earn accreditation from the LCME, signifying that they meet national standards for a medical degree education.

“For someone whose career has been spent in academic medicine, I am honored to serve on the LCME, since it impacts medical education across the United States and Canada,” Woodward said.
“I also want to be able to take all of the good things we’re doing at our medical school and continue to put Mississippi on the map of medical education.”

Woodward, also a professor of emergency medicine, is a native Mississippian. She earned her undergraduate degree from Mississippi State University and received her medical education at UMMC, where she also completed her residency training.

Dr. James Keeton, UMMC vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, submitted Woodward’s nomination to the LCME.

She will be one of 17 medical educators and administrators, practicing physicians, public members or medical students serving on the committee, which will meet in Chicago and Washington, D.C.
In the United States, the LCME determines the accreditation status of all programs leading to the medical degree. It works with the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools to accredit M.D. programs in Canada.

The LCME meets at least three times a year and reviews written reports and surveys from all accredited schools, while also visiting up to 30 institutions annually.

UMMC faculty members have served as site visitors before. “But no one from the university has served on the LCME board itself,” said Dr. Dan Jones, chancellor of the University of Mississippi.
“This high-profile, national position is important for Dr. Woodward and for our university.”
Woodward helped shepherd the School of Medicine through its own recent accreditation process. After judging the school on nearly 130 standards following an on-site visit in 2012, the LCME found that the institution was in compliance for every area, a rare occurrence for any medical school.

“In the coming years there will be some major changes affecting accreditation standards,” Woodward said, “including a transition to an online, rather than a paper, self-study process; an increased focus on meeting the nation’s need for primary care physicians; and remaining vigilant for the impacts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on medical schools.
“I am awed by the great responsibility that comes with this position.”

Mississippi native returns home to take over Rural Physicians Scholarship Program

When Jennifer Wahnee Sherman entered Mississippi State University about 20 years ago, more people lived in her residence hall than in her hometown.

Her small-town upbringing is a plus in her new position as executive director of the Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program, she said.

“I realize how important it is to do something that helps Mississippi, especially rural communities,” said Sherman. “This program does that.”

Headquartered at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, the program has tried since its debut in 2008 to relieve the state’s shortage of primary care physicians in rural areas, awarding state-funded scholarships to medical students committed to practicing there.

“Medical students with large debts are less likely to practice in small towns,” said Sherman, who earned her doctorate of education at the University of Alabama.

“With these scholarships, they avoid those debts so they can return to those communities.

“They are from those towns. So they’re already connected.”

Sherman is connected to Leake County, where she grew up, in Lena, population 148, as of the 2010 U.S. census.

During her career as an administrator in higher education, she worked at Mississippi University for Women (MUW), the University of Alabama, Mississippi State and the University of Memphis.

Before returning here to assume her new job, on Feb. 25, she worked nearly four years in Tuscaloosa, directing community service opportunities for more than 30,000 students at Alabama.

Prior to that, she held various positions at MUW, including assistant vice president for Student Services.

“You’ve got a winner,” said Homer “Bucky” Wesley, Sherman’s supervisor at MUW, where he was vice president for Student Services.

“There was no limit to the time she was willing to put into her job helping students,” said Wesley, now the vice chancellor of Student Success and Enrollment Management at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

“Students are drawn to her. They can tell that she cares.”

Sherman has another thing going for her, Wesley said: “She loves Mississippi. She wanted to get back there, in part, because of her desire to make Mississippi a better place.”

Sherman is undertaking a task begun by Janie Guice of Ocean Springs, who retired on Jan. 17.

More than 50 students receive more than $1.6 million in scholarships today.

“It’s nice to take over something so well established,” Sherman said.

She has already demonstrated her passion for the job, said Dr. Diane Beebe, chair of family medicine at UMMC who also serves on the scholarship program’s board.

“She brings her experience working with college students, recruiting, managing state budgets and working with a state institution of higher learning and the legislature. We’re fortunate to have her.”

Sherman’s plans include expanding the network of pre-med advisors and linking the program to social media – Twitter, Facebook, etc.

“We need to figure out ways to let people know what the program does,” she said.

“When doctors go back to these small communities, they will be ambassadors for the program; but it takes a while to grow a doctor.”

Dr. Robert Mobley Named Certified Physician Executive

The Certifying Commission in Medical Management (CCMM) recently designated Robert Mobley, M.D., Executive Vice President of Medical Affairs and Quality at St. Dominic’s, a Certified Physician Executive.

CCMM awarded Mobley the status of Certified Physician Executive for educational achievements, demonstrated stature as a physician and experience in the field of medical management. The CPE designation, used in signature, indicates a physician has achieved superior levels of professional excellence and management education, while also demonstrating effective knowledge and leadership skills. The Certifying Commission in Medical Management currently lists more than 1,700 Certified Physician Executives. The national certifying body for physicians specializing in medical management, the CCMM is a not-for-profit corporation chartered by the American College of Physician Executives (ACPE) to establish and maintain the high standards required for physician executive certification. The ACPE is the nation’s largest organization of physicians in health care leadership. The College is recognized by the American Medical Association as the specialty society representing physicians in management and holds a seat in the AMA House of Delegates.

Richards participated in Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) advisory board

The Valve Center at Baptist Coordinator and Nurse Practitioner Camille Richards, MSN, APRN, FNP-BC, participated in a Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) advisory board in Chicago, Illinois, this past November for Edwards Lifesciences. The objective of the advisory board is to gain insight into how the Edwards Global Health Economics and Reimbursement (GHER) team can best support hospitals and their TAVR programs.

A specialist from Edwards selected two sites out of his territory having good results with reimbursement. Baptist presented its program as a model to assist other hospitals to improve results. The goal for all those attending was to better understand the needs of customers and to ensure the ongoing success of their TAVR programs.

Howie named vice president of nursing at Baptist Medical Center

Brenda Howie, MSN, RN, NE-BC, has been named vice president of Nursing at Baptist Medical Center. Howie has been with Baptist since 1981 and served in a clinical director role since 1994.

She has previously been a staff nurse, educator, assistant manager and nurse manager. She has her Master’s of Science in Nursing and is a Board Certified Nurse Executive.