THE RIGHT ANGLE MEN’S CLUB MARCH
MEETING
The Right Angle Men's Club met on March
19, 2015 to enjoy comradery, a plated lunch and to listen to the CEO of NCH
Healthcare, Dr. Allen Weiss. The theme of Dr. Weiss’ talk was “The Future of
Healthcare Is Now”.
The meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance,
a 50/50 raffle and the introduction of our guest speaker by Bill Cooper. Dr. Weiss spoke about the technological
evolution in delivering healthcare services and some of the new capabilities
being piloted today at NCH and Sloane Kettering which included:
1)
IBM’s Watson computer providing better
patient diagnosis than humans at Sloane Kettering
2)
“Doctors on Demand” using Skype and
FaceTime for diagnosis over the web
3)
“Smart Pills” that can signal when
medicine has entered the stomach to help insure elderly patients are taking
their medicine
4)
“Smart Rooms” at NCH that use Radio
Frequency for patient vital signs and medical records
5)
Advances in Telemedicine
6)
The use of robots in Collier County to
deliver clot busting medicine to stroke patients which can significantly reduce
delivery time in a very time sensitive process
7)
The use of “Regenerative Medicine” at
the Mayo clinic for issues like cancer of the larynx
NCH is very focused on quality of
patient care and improving the outcomes for the patients that they serve. Dr.
Weiss discussed a program at NCH to monitor patient mortality for Sepsis (blood
infection) in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) that was instituted using
Statistical Quality Control Methods and 6 Sigma. That program has reduced the
mortality rate from 34% to 8% for ICU sepsis. This has significantly improved both
patient outcomes by preventing many mortalities as well as lowering the cost to
deliver the service.
Florida, as a state, is in the 2nd
quintile for quality of healthcare in the United States. An individual’s zip code is the best predictor
for life expectancy. The use of sewers and “potable water” has been the most
significant factor in improving life expectancy worldwide. In the future, you
can expect to see further exploitation of technology to improve patient
outcomes as well as reduce the cost of medical care in both the United States
broadly as well as in Collier County.
Dr. Weiss answered several questions and
concerns from our members including a description of the new NCH facility being
built at Collier and Immokalee which will have an emergency room and 20K square
feet of full service hospital facilities and offices for family physicians.
The meeting was adjourned at
approximately 1:30 with Paul L’Esperance announcing the next meeting date and
speaker.
