St. Joseph Medical Center certified as a Primary Stroke Center

St. Joseph Medical Center has been certified as a Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.  The certification places St. Joseph among the elite hospitals in the country in providing interventional care to stroke patients, according to the Commission.

Certification recognizes hospital’s that make exceptional efforts to diagnose and treat stroke patients and signifies that their care processes achieve long term success in improving patient outcomes.

St. Joseph’s certification follows more than a year of planning and implementation, and was earned following an intensive on site evaluation by the Joint Commission.

“Much like heart attack care, time is of the essence in caring for stroke patients, and being a Primary Stroke Center indicates to the community that we have the skills and the expertise to intervene quickly and effectively to provide care that meets or exceeds national standards,” explained Sharon Strohecker, Vice President of Clinical Services and Chief Nursing Officer.

Strohecker also noted that the certification is “testament to the hard work and dedication of many of our fellow coworkers in establishing a coordinated and collaborative program that offers best practice stroke care for our community.”

The hospital acknowledged the efforts of Berks County’s Emergency Medical Services community for the working with St. Joseph in developing stroke protocols and for the key role they play every day in recognizing stroke symptoms in patients and then taking immediate actions to stabilize the patients for transport. 

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Catholic Health World
March 15, 2012 Volume 28, Number 5

Staffers in the emergency room at St. Joseph Medical Center find themselves treating a victim of violence almost daily, says Michele Jones, who for the past six years has directed emergency services at St. Joseph, which is located in Reading, Pa.

On any given day, doctors and nurses may see a middle schooler who's been punched in the face during a fistfight, a woman assaulted by her husband or a young man stabbed or shot during a drug deal.

In the fall of 2010, four students at Reading High School were shot to death in separate off-campus incidents, spurring their classmates to form a group called Project Peace. Students have marched and held rallies in an effort to end the cycle of violence, not only at Reading High School but in the entire Reading School District, which saw 1,216 incidents of violence in the 2009-2010 school year, according to a locally produced School Safety Annual Report. But violence is intractable, and, in January, a 16-year-old Reading High School student was killed and one of his two 15-year-old companions mortally wounded when they attacked a 65-year-old man, who was riding his bike on a bike path. The district attorney said the biker had acted in self-defense and no charges would be filed against him.

Widespread poverty
Violence is not the only issue in Reading. In September, the U.S. Census Bureau released new data showing that the city is the poorest in the country for its population size. More than 41 percent of Reading's 88,000 residents live below the federal poverty line, which is less than a $22,000 yearly income for a family of four.

Jones believes she sees evidence of poverty in her emergency room, too, with more people out of work and lacking health insurance.

"The impact of poverty on health care has been one of those quiet creeps,'' she says. "More and more, we see people showing up as self-pays." When ER patients say they can't even pay for an antibiotic prescription, staffers refer them to a hospital's social worker for assistance. But many times, people won't reveal that they can't afford treatment, Jones says.

"I'm not a statistician," adds Jones, but she believes "on a gut level" that there is a direct correlation between "the rising poverty level in our community and the amount of violence that we see."

Lack of education is another challenge for Reading, where just 8 percent of residents have a bachelor's degree, lagging far behind the national average of about 28 percent. According to the Reading School District, only 65 percent of its students graduate from high school. This compares with an average statewide graduation rate of 91 percent.

Community-building grants
Faced with these problems, a number of organizations in Reading have joined with St. Joseph to develop solutions to revive their city. St. Joseph is sponsoring and supporting more than $2 million in community-building grants for the following projects:

$840,000 for the "Reading Youth Violence Prevention Initiative," which seeks to reduce violence among youth with a variety of programs, including working with students, parents and schools to support positive relationships and keep young people in school.

$850,000 for "Building Brighter Futures," which focuses on the largely Hispanic community in Reading. The effort provides job training in the health care field, including for careers as certified nurse assistants and home health aides.

$250,000 to expand "Right from the Start," which seeks to increase the school-readiness skills of children by identifying and working with infants and toddlers at risk of developmental delays.

$260,000 to help recruit and train volunteers to make regular visits to the elderly, to help seniors stay in their homes as long as possible in Berks County, which includes Reading, and in the southern part of the neighboring county of Schuylkill.

Preventing violence
Except for the job training project, all of the grant money is coming from St. Joseph's parent organization, Catholic Health Initiatives of Englewood, Colo. In mid-2009, CHI launched "United Against Violence," a national violence prevention campaign backed to date by $5 million in grants from CHI's Mission and Ministry Fund.

Through that initiative, CHI provided planning grant money in 2009 to St. Joseph to assess what already was being done in Reading to reduce violence. From that effort, the Reading community decided to focus on preventing youth violence, developing its "Blueprint for Action" toward that goal, says Kelly Altland, vice president for development at the St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation, and the person who oversaw the proposals for the $2 million in grants.

One of the first things the Reading community did was to form a collaboration of more than 100 people who represented all types of organizations, including police, schools, businesses, churches and the juvenile justice system, to name a few, says Altland.

"We said, 'Let's not duplicate the good work that's already being done, let's see what we can enhance and do better,''' Altland says.

With money from the 2009 planning grant, an antiviolence committee awarded three mini-grants totaling $45,000 for projects such as "Challenging Gender Norms that Lead to Violence: A Men & Boys Initiative," which teaches young men and boys how to manage their anger, build healthy relationships with girls and women and make positive contributions to society.

A second mini-grant sent some of the Reading high schoolers who formed Project Peace to an intense leadership training class in California, so that they could better communicate an antiviolence message to their peers.

Another $100,000 from the grant money is expected to be awarded shortly to community programs selected by a Youth Violence Prevention Project committee. The project's first goal is to reduce by 5 percent those 1,216 incidents of violence in the Reading School District by 2014.

Collaborative approach
"The best part of this entire initiative is the fact that it's been such a grassroots effort,'' says Scott Rehr, executive director of Berks Connections/Pretrial Services, who helped develop the Blueprint for Action.

"St. Joe's has provided the leadership, but they really opened it up to the entire community to participate in the decision-making process," says Rehr. "Too often things are top down, but there's literally been hundreds of people involved in this process over the past two years."

Reading already has benefited from collaboration, says Altland. At a meeting on preventing youth violence that included police and school officials, participants learned there was no policy in place for the schools to alert police after a confrontation or fight between students during the school day, so that officers could be aware that violence might continue after school. That policy is now in place, says Altland.

Some might question why a hospital is leading efforts to prevent violence, create job training and ensure a child's readiness for school, but John R. Morahan, St. Joseph's president and chief executive, says the CHI's public health approach to violence prevention and its funding of community-building efforts is in line with the medical center's historic mission.

"We're improving the lives of people in our community, and I don't think that's anything different than in 1873, when three sisters of St. Francis came to Reading and opened the first hospital,'' says Morahan. "They also took care of the people, and this is just an extension and continuation of that mission."

 

Copyright © 2012 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Donna Troy or call (314) 253-3450.

St. Joseph Medical Center will sponsor a free Prostate Cancer Screening on Monday, March 19, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the Cancer Center on the hospital's Bern Township Campus.
 
The screening will include a FREE Digital rectal exam and evaluation by urologists on St. Joseph's medical staff. The PSA, prostate specific antigen, blood test will also be available for FREE.
 
Registration is required. To schedule a screening, please call 610-378-2602.

Heart Institute welcomes new Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery

Dr. Kirk McMurtry has joined the medical staff at St. Joseph Medical Center and he is the newest member of Heart Institute joining the hospital from the Liberty Heart Institute, where he had been Chief of Cardiothoracic (CT) Surgery for Liberty Health in Jersey City, NJ. He is a graduate of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and completed his general surgery residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. He returned to Mt. Sinai where he completed a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery.

He is a member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS), the International Society of Minimally Invasive Cardiothoracic Surgery (ISMICS) and the American Medical Association. He is a Fellow in the American College of Surgery and is board certified in thoracic surgery and general surgery.

Dr. McMurtry’s comprehensive skill set of surgical capabilities includes procedures for coronary revascularization, aortic and mitral valve replacements and repairs and tricuspid valve repairs. He has the experience and expertise to perform high risk revascularizations and complex operations such as multiple valve repair in combination with revascularization. Dr. McMurtry has major credentials in the performance of minimally invasive mitral valve and aortic valve repairs and replacements, open aortic surgery and endovascular thoracic aortic procedures. He also performs the full spectrum of open and minimally invasive thoracic surgery including lobectomy and VATS (video assisted thoracic surgery).

Dr. McMurtry's office is located on St. Joseph's Bern Township campus in the Medical Office Building, Suite 207.  His office phone number is 610-378-2676.

 

Trisha Urban to discuss importance of giving back

Home Makeover recipient to share television experience and thoughts on value of volunteering

Trisha Urban, whose husband's sudden death less than nine hours before she was to give birth to their first child led to an outpouring of community support, will be the featured speaker at St. Joseph Medical Center's Heart of  Gold event on Wednesday at the Body Zone from 6:30 to 8 p.m.  The event is free.

Urban and her daughter, Cora, were the recipients of numerous gifts, including the complete home makeover that was featured on the ABC television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  Extreme Makeover showcased the handiness of hundreds of local volunteers, including the Home Builders Association of Berks County.  The volunteers transformed the Urban's home in about a week's time. 

At the event Wednesday, Urban will share her personal experiences of the makeover event and discuss how she finds opportunity to give back to others.  The event is called Heart of Gold to emphasize the physical benefits of giving and volunteering which lead to the release of hormones that are good for the heart.  Attendees also will hear the stories of others who find it heart warming to give back to the community.  The event is being presented by HeartCaring at St. Joseph Medical Center, a program that provides expert cardiovascular care designed specifically for women and their hearts.

Registration for the event is required and can be made via email to danyellewhalen@catholichealth.net or by calling 610-378-2492.

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Sign up for “Create Your Weight,” weight loss classes taught by a registered dietitian.  The classes will be held on Mondays, from January 9 through March 26, from 7:00 – 8:00 pm, at the Bern Campus.  For additional details, please call 610-378-2489.  To register, please call 610-208-4735.

 

Managing Diabetes classes meet Thursdays, January 5 - 26, from 9:00 – 11:30 am at the Bern Campus.  Registration is required by calling 610-378-2100.  For additional information, please contact Angela Serafin, RN, MSN, CDE at 610-208-4626.

$2 million in grants for youth violence prevention initiatives and jobs training, childhood development and 'aging in place' programs announced

 St. Joseph Medical Center details programs at annual public meeting

St. Joseph Medical Center today announced nearly $2 million in grants for projects in the City of Reading to reduce violence among youth, to train inner city residents for jobs in healthcare and to help prepare kids to succeed in school and life and another related grant of $260,000 to help scores of elderly in Berks and Schuylkill Counties remain safe in their homes.

The grants were detailed by representatives of the recipient organizations at the hospital’s annual public meeting today held in Reading, Pa.

A significant portion of the grant funding is being provided through St. Joseph’s parent organization, Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI).

"We are proud to announce these grants today.  The recipients have earned their funding, at least in part, because of the work they have done.  They are committed and talented partners who share the same ideals we do in achieving a healthier community. Each of them provides the framework for advancing health and human services in Berks community," hospital President and CEO John R. Morahan said.

The Grants:

1) The Reading Youth Violence Prevention Initiative is a collaborative effort to address youth violence by creating new opportunities for participation, leadership and economic opportunity for young adults. Since 2009, St. Joseph Medical Center has been working with local leaders as well as the nationally recognized Prevention Institute on a public-health approach to reducing violence. The project is supported with $840,000 over five years.

"Violence prevention isn’t often thought of as a traditional means of delivering healthcare, but it makes sense that St. Joseph Medical Center should be engaged in this effort," says Kelly Altland, Vice President of Development, who was instrumental in helping the hospital to obtain funding for all of the grants as the leader of the St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation. 

"We see the toll of violence every day in our emergency department.  It is an epidemic that is as persistent and pervasive as any infectious or chronic disease,” She said.  "But there is good news: most violence is preventable – but (preventing it) is difficult work.  It requires an investment of resources, people, leadership and commitment and that’s what we are here to talk about today.”

Scott Rehr, the Executive Director of Berks Connection/Pretrial Services, led the two year process that involved more than 100 community leaders, as they worked with the Reading Youth Violence Prevention project to obtain the additional funding. 

Rehr said the group's goal is to change the underlying conditions that contribute to violence in homes, schools and neighborhoods and to prevent violence from occurring in the first place.  His organization created a Blue Print (see attached) or click on this link for that Blueprint.

The group’s three goals are: 

· Support positive relationships and home environments for young people.

 · Enhance student and school engagement to keep young people in school.

 · Improve conditions in communities most impacted by violence.

 "The Blueprint is just words on paper.  Its implementation will succeed but only if we collaborate and coordinate our efforts and we maintain and grow the engagement in our community,” Rehr said.  “To do that, we need to empower families, provide safe and positive schools and establish healthy neighborhoods.”

**Read the Reading Youth Violence Prevention Project Blueprint for Action by clicking here:
http://www.thefutureofhealthcare.org/inc/pdf/RYVP-blueprint-for-action.pdf

 2) Building Brighter Futures is an initiative funded through a federal grant procured by the St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation from the Health Resources Services Administration. It will support health-care job training at the Langan Allied Health Academy on St. Joseph's Downtown Reading Campus, which focuses on the largely Hispanic population in Reading’s inner city.

This project will be funded through a multi-year grant of $700,000 and will recruit from the population around the inner-city locale to train students for careers in healthcare. It is a collaboration with Berks Technical Institute (BTI) and the Literacy Council of Reading/Berks and will recruit and train qualified nursing assistants and home health aides.  

"Our model is innovative and comprehensive.  It is expressly designed to both meet the urgent and unique needs of our community," says Joseph Reichard, president of BTI.   He said the model emphasizes:  foundational healthcare competencies; strategies, skills, and support services to promote greater job readiness and academic/career path progression; and language and literacy enrichment. 

He said students’ practicums, externships, and job placements will be at a wide range of nursing and rehabilitation facilities, as well as home health and adult day care sites, in the city and the suburbs. 

 3) The Right from the Start (RFTS) program helps kids be better learners by increasing their "school readiness."  The program was developed by the United Way of Berks County

Funding for this initiative, which amounts to $250,000 over two years, adds two new components to the RFTS program: The Ages and Stages Developmental Questionnaire (ASQ) is a scientifically-validated screening tool to identify developmental delays in children as young as five months old, and Play & Learn Centers (PLC) are informal, neighborhood-based parent and child activity sessions that will be offered throughout the city in churches, libraries and other locations.

Intervention prior to kindergarten has significant academic, social, and economic benefits, Altland said, noting studies have shown that children who receive early treatment for developmental delays are more likely to graduate from high school, hold jobs, live independently, and avoid teen pregnancy, delinquency, and violent crime.  She said such intervention can save society about $30,000 to $100,000 per child.

The Ages and Stages Developmental Questionnaire – identified as the ASQ - is a well-known, scientifically-validated developmental screening tool recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  It is administered in St. Joseph’s Downtown Reading pediatrics clinic to help identify developmental delays in children as early as 5 months old who can be referred for further monitoring or early intervention.

Since November 2009, the Downtown Campus staff has administered 1155 ASQ assessments, and has found:

-         38 percent of the children assessed were developmentally on target for their age.

-         22 percent tested at borderline and parents received education and training to help their child become school ready and meet the developmental standards.

-         40 percent of the children were identified as “delayed”. The ASQ coordinator provided additional education and referred the family to early intervention with Berks County Intermediate Unit or Service Access Management.

"We have seen important yet distressing results.  The national average shows 1 in 6 children who were administered the ASQ have an identified developmental delay.  In Reading, we are seeing an average of 3 out of 5," Altland said.

The second component of this grant is the establishment of Play & Learn Centers (PLC) in collaboration with The Salvation Army. 

Mindy McCormick, the Salvation Army’s Director of Social Services described the Play and Learn Centers as informal, neighborhood-based parent and child activity sessions, with the goal of working with parents of at-risk children at the earliest stages in order to intervene and encourage healthy development.

"If parents and caregivers are provided information, referrals, support and opportunities to stimulate healthy development, the percentage of disadvantaged children entering kindergarten with developmental delays will decrease," she explained.

4) Neighbors Helping Neighbors is a collaboration between St. Joseph and Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Allentown to expand the outreach and volunteer base in Berks and Southern Schuylkill Counties to help older adults stay in their homes safely for as long as possible.  It is also hoped the program, funded for three-years and $260,000, will significantly improve access to social services and health care.

St. Joseph's Vice President of Mission and Ministry Sister Janet Henry noted that "the number of elderly requiring services will increase dramatically over the next two decades. They are living longer and wish to remain in their homes."

She said that informal support networks provided by family and friends are being taxed more heavily because of this and that studies show that successful aging-in-place strategies minimize inadequate and inappropriate care as well as the overall costs of that care by offering a range of flexible services to fit the needs of the individual.

Pamela Russo, Assistant Director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Allentown said the vision for Neighbors Helping Neighbors "is to provide the benefits of friendship, companionship, assistance, and spiritual care.  We hope to enhance, in every dimension, the fullness of life of elders living in their community independently."

She said the volunteers will lend a helping hand to elders, serve as their advocates, and help them stay connected to their communities and to help them enjoy a fullness of life residing in their own homes and to participate as fully as possible in the life of the community.  She said the program will be offered in cooperation with churches and families, community organizations, health care providers and agencies serving elders.

As the annual meeting closed, hospital president and CEO John R. Morahan said: 

"The key word we have heard today is 'partner.’ As St. Joseph, like all hospitals, prepares for healthcare reform, partnering will be more important than ever before.  Strong collaborations with different organizations build healthy communities."

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EKGs from field lead to quicker heart intervention 
 
St. Joseph to honor EMS' Thursday for efforts in providing quick care, helping hospital to achieve Top 50 in Nation Award

Patients experiencing chest pain due to a heart problem have blockages cleared17 minutes faster, on average, at St. Joseph Medical Center, Reading, Pa., when the responding ambulance sends a wireless EKG from the scene to St. Joseph's Emergency Room.
 
For patients that can mean the difference between life and death, according to St. Joseph Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Liaison Michael Whalen.
 
“We always tell people who are experiencing chest pain to call 911 and, in looking at these response times, you can see why that is important,” he explains.  “The EMS crews in Berks are highly trained and they have the tools to give us what we need to prepare for every patient’s arrival.”
 
St. Joseph will honor all of the county's EMS crews for their efforts in providing swift care for patients, which was a key element in the hospital's recent selection as one of the nation's Top 50 heart hospitals.  The event will be held in the Franciscan Rooms on the 2nd floor of the Bern Township Campus at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 15th.
 
[The Top 50 award was made by an independent firm, Thomson Reuters.  Read more on the award here:  http://www.thefutureofhealthcare.org/comments/204/blog.pl]
 
The wireless EKG system used in most area ambulances was donated by St. Joseph in 2008 and can transmit a detailed 12-lead electrocardiogram in mere minutes for diagnosis, long before the ambulance drives up to the emergency room with the patient.  The EKG gives a comprehensive picture of the heart through a rhythm strip easily interpreted by the trained eye.
 
Such advanced knowledge, speedily supplied, allows hospital staff to act even more quickly once a patient enters the emergency room.
 
The hospital provided 30 monitors free to all county advanced life support (ALS) emergency medical services (EMS) which have compatible systems with the hospital.  The project came about through the efforts of two doctors from Berks Cardiologists Ltd. who work in the Heart Institute at St. Joseph, Drs. Guy Piegari and Louis Borgatta.
 
Danyelle Whalen, a nurse and St. Joseph’s Cardiovascular Patient Navigator, said treating the most acute heart attack patients – someone experiencing a ST-elevated myocardial infarction or STEMI – requires intense coordination of a multidisciplinary team, “including the 9-1-1 Center, EMS providers, Emergency Department physicians and staff, and cardiovascular physicians and staff,” she noted.
 
She explains that each team member is “essentially part of a STEMI relay team which quickly and efficiently passes the patient through the continuum of care.  Since our processes and actions are measured in minutes, quick treatment, which is so vital to reducing heart muscle damage, is achieved because of these smooth and practiced transfers,” she explained. 
 
She said St. Joseph, which is an accredited Chest Pain Center, works in partnership with pre-hospital providers to reduce time to recognition and treatment of acute heart attack patients in the field. 
 
“As a team, we have effectively reduced time for STEMI patient treatment to 45 minutes, half the national recommendation of 90 minutes 'door-to-balloon' (from when the patient arrives at the hospital Emergency Department until the blockage is cleared),” she said.  "That is something that we could not do without the active participation and responsiveness of the EMS professionals in Berks County and it was a significant contributing factor in our Top 50 Heart Hospital award."
 

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http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=348852

American Cancer Society Invites public to share ideas, learn more about Berks resources
 
The public is invited to an open house in the main lobby of St. Joseph Medical Center on Thursday, Dec. 1 from 3 p.m to 5 p.m. to learn more about the variety of resources available for cancer patients and their families from the Berks Unit of the American Cancer Society.
 
The Berks Unit's Volunteer Board of Directors will also be attending and will ask attendees for their ideas and suggestions about how to better meet the community's needs as well as how to create more community awareness about the society's resources.
 
Two-time cancer survivor, Cindy Castner, the president of the Berks Unit's Board of  Directors, emphasized the need for people to know what's available to them so that if they or family or friends would not feel alone in dealing with a new cancer diagnosis.
 
"If I only knew all the support the American Cancer Society offered, it would have made so many things easier for me and my family when I was first diagnosed," Castner explained.  "Our board is determined to get the message out and to inform as many people as possible about the education and prevention, and support and treatment resources we have right here in Berks."
 
The event is free of charge.
 
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Ball proceeds support Women’s Heart Health

'Urbangreen' theme supports hospital's sustainable practices

The 85th Annual St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation Charity Ball raised $88,950 to support St. Joe’s Women’s Heart Health Program! The event, held in mid-November at the VF Outlet Center’s Designer’s Place, was attended by 285 guests, a 23% increase over last year. Following our Franciscan tradition, this year’s theme, "Urbangreen", complemented the Medical Center’s commitment to sustainable practices to protect and preserve our natural environment.

We gratefully recognize our Diamond Sponsors – Carole and Ray Neag, Brentwood Industries, Giorgio Foods and Respiratory Specialists – for their leadership support of the Ball. We also thank our additional sponsors, guests, contributors, advertisers, silent auction donors, volunteers and our Charity Ball 2011 Planning Committee. Because of their participation, we will be able to improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular disease for more women in our community!

Charity Ball 2011 Planning Committee
Dr. Rocco Santarelli, Honorary Chair
Rosanna Borgatta, Co-Chair
Lori Shober, Co-Chair

Charity Ball 2011 Sponsors
Diamond
Brentwood Industries
Giorgio Foods, Inc.
Carole & Ray Neag
Respiratory Specialists
Sapphire
East Penn Manufacturing Co., Inc.
Fox Rothschild LLP
VF Outlet Center
J.M. Winston Radiology Associates
Ruby
Berks Pathology Associates
Boston Scientific
Reading Eagle Company
Emerald
Alvernia University
Dolan Construction
Fulton Bank – Great Valley Division
Highmark Blue Shield
Land Displays
Lillibridge
Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute
Wyomissing Optometric Center
Wine Sponsor
Berks Cardiologists
Table Sponsor
Connors Investor Services
John and Anne Morahan
National Penn Bank
Sodexo

Charity Ball Planning Committee
Santina Connors, Meggan Kerber, Kathy Rogers, Gaye Corbin, Claire Polinsky, Kalpa Solanki, Jackie Fessler, Kathleen Politzer, Sara Tuanquin, Kelley Gross, Monica Quigley, Laurie Waxler, Gretchen Keith, Tabitha Roach, Tina Ziolkowski