Thumbs up for Expanding the Cancer Center
With the number of cancer patients at the hospital growing by a whopping 11% a year, the hospital's Board of Directors gave the official go-ahead to start the $20 million expansion to the Anschutz Cancer Pavilion. Philanthropy has already raised half the needed funds.  |
New Imaging Center Prepares to Open at I-25 and Colorado Blvd.
In spite of a crowded marketplace and in part to serve providers' need for faster imaging services, UCH and the School of Medicine are bringing a new MRI scanners online next. The shiny new acquisition (above) will debut at the Tower One building in central Denver. |
A Stroke at the Worst Possible Moment
Treating a stroke in the teeth of UCH's June 23 network outage would necessarily lead to some high drama. Saving the patient from long-term harm would mean passing a stern test. |
Stronger Patients,
Better Outcomes
UCH's Transplant Center's patients' outcomes are among the best in the nation, but their providers say they have fixed one area with "deficiencies": making sure patients get nutrition guidance before surgery. |
| Dietitians Cami Tynan (left) and Jackie Johnson use their expertise to help patients solve down-to-earth problems.
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Sidebar: Shrinking Those Watermelon Feet
Two members of the hospital's Clinical Nutrition team are teaching heart failure and Transplant patients how to manage their own health after they leave. |
| Amie Meditz, MD, of the Med School's Infectious Disease Division is co-investigator in study researchers hope will stem the tide of new HIV infections.
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Campus Researchers Join New Front in
Battle against HIV
At the schools of Medicine and Pharmacy, researchers are working on a part of the global effort to test the value of anti-retroviral drugs that, some day, may slow the spread of AIDS. |
Who You Gonna Call?
Probably the "float team." When the number of inpatients or outpatients exceeds the number of nurses and staffers needed to treat them, the nearly anonymous group of float staff rushes in. Last fiscal year, the "floaters" (some of them pictured above) worked nearly 40,000 hours. |
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The Board says yes to bonuses After weighing how many hospital-wide and individual goals were missed, met, or exceeded during the past fiscal year, the Board of Directors approved incentive payouts for UCH employees for the third straight year. The payments will arrive Sept. 17. 
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Good budget news, but heard with furrowed brows The hospital finished its third straight financially successful fiscal year June 30, but started the next one with a relatively "soft" July. Sidebar: With its increasing numbers of under-insured and uninsured patients, the recession's shadow over UCH lengthened in 2010.
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Tube confusion At many hospitals, nearly identical tubes carry very different kinds of medications. Mixing them up can be easy, and easily fatal. Not a few individual UCH units are fighting back, not only with careful cross-checking and multiple sign-offs, but color-coded labels and tube parts that just won't fit into the "wrong" pumps.
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New sheriff in town: UCH to change security firms As of October 1, AlliedBarton will take responsibility for the hospital's security from HSS, which held the contract for the past six years.
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This Hospital Life: Is health care the New Orleans of 2010? Commentary: Check out the clinics trying to keep rivers of patients inside worn-out channels of reimbursed care; the society unwilling to fix its decaying health care infrastructure; how we cover massive leaks in the health insurance system with Band-aids. Plus: "What You Read" and much ado about Epic haiku.
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Difficult C-diff infections multiplying Patients are increasingly bringing certain "armor-coated" spores, once held in check by other intestinal bacteria, to the hospital with them. The alcohol-based gel and waterless antimicrobial foam canisters outside every room aren't enough prevent this community-acquired infection from spreading. Infection Control is throwing knowledge, soap, and water at the problem.
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A quest that peaked on Longs Peak Ben Meyerhoff (far left) tapped everything nearby - the hospital's wellness program, his clinician friends, his co-workers from around the campus and some inner strength he hadn't realized he'd had - to finally try to get up THE Colorado fourteener.
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Hospital offers a boost up the career ladder There are entry-level UCHers who have been out of school for 10 or 20 years, love the hospital, but now want to move up the career ladder or learn new professional skills. Later this month, the hospital will start helping them go to "school at work."
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A national addiction alumni rehab group grows from CeDAR Keeping alums together has turned into one of the most effective ways addiction rehab patients have of continuing their recoveries. Now Lorie Obernauer (above), who organized CeDAR's group, is linking other alumni organizers. One goal: elevate alumni activities from being an "afterthought" at most treatment centers.
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UCH in the News Promising lung cancer treatment; breast-imaging risk; aye, robot; more. Mentions: Ross Camidge; John Cohen; E. David Crawford; Edward Hendrick; James O. Hill; Richard Krugman; Paul Maroni; Wendy Poage; Marvin Schwarz; Philip Simonian.
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Around UCH Employee Opinion Survey on tap, Safety survey continues; "Rock Solid" President's Award winners (left); an "Epic" cook-off; Rehab ride finishes; more...
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Shying away from "disease of the month" advertising Also in the Marketing, Media & Bits of Business blog: big marketing responses for Integrative Medicine and Transplant, a gyn onc ad and more. Available only via Hub, the UCH intranet.
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Dean Krugman's News The latest about what's going on at the School of Medicine.
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