The WakeMed app is GPS enabled, providing real-time identification of the nearest WakeMed Emergency Department or facility.  Turn-by-turn GPS directions are automatically generated from your current location and touch-to-call phone numbers are listed for every facility.  For the convenience of patients and visitors, the app includes hospital floor plans and campus maps for easier navigation.

The Doctor Finder feature allows users to search more than 1,000 physicians representing nearly every specialty and subspecialty.  Health Profile and My Insurance sub-sections offer users the ability to store physician phone numbers, medications, photo of insurance cards and other personal health information.

The app also enables users to keep up to date on upcoming hospital events, news and current events by following the hospital’s blog, wakemedvoices.com, and Facebook feeds.

Emergency Department wait times for the system’s five, soon to be six, emergency departments across Wake County will be added in the near future.

To download the app, visit the Android Market, iTunes Store or visit wakemed.org.

Yesterday the Today Show  compared the Chilean miners’ rescue pod to an MRI.  This comparison is one to which many people can relate.

The average MRI has an opening of 23 inches and the rescue pod that successfully brought the 33 trapped miners 2,300 feet to the surface was only 20 inches in diameter.

People with claustrophobia  often struggle with getting an MRI, but there is an MRI in Wake County designed especially for people who are claustrophobic.  The Open Bore MRI at WakeMed Apex Healthplex has an opening of nearly 27 inches, which offers almost 1 foot of free space between a patient’s head and the magnet.  To put this in perspective, the Open Bore MRI’s opening is a full 7 inches larger than the miners’ rescue pod.

Click here to see a virtual tour of the Open Bore MRI.

Magda Vandyk is a radiology supervisor at WakeMed Apex Healthplex.

Last week, the North Carolina Hospital Association (NCHA) and The North Carolina Medical Society (NCMS) announced that WakeMed and Moses Cone are the initial beta sites to develop and launch the North Carolina Healthcare Information Exchange (NCHEX).  This is an exciting project for every health care provider and patient in North Carolina.

For years, hospitals have been submitting data to the North Carolina Hospital Emergency Surveillance System (NCHESS).  NCHESS is a system that tracks infectious diseases and works to catch potential outbreaks or pandemics in real-time so the spread of the disease can be controlled early on.  North Carolina is already a bit ahead of the national curve with state-wide data submission because 111 hospitals are already contributing data twice a day to NCHESS.

Using the already successful NCHESS platform, NCHEX is going to take it one step further and create a clinical database that will enable authorized users to access a patient’s record, enabling the provider to see lab results, medications, physician interactions, diagnoses and much more. This statewide electronic medical record is going to improve the health and safety of the medical care provided across the state as well as increase efficiency of our health care system.

CHF occurs when the pumping capacity of the heart is diminished to the point where there is insufficient blood flow to the body.  CHF can result from a number of causes.  It most commonly occurs when blockages in the heart arteries cause damage to heart muscle.

After the onset of CHF, the condition is usually progressive. Up to a certain point, patients can be treated with oral medicines and life-style modification. However, after a certain point, oral medications cannot help the heart pump enough blood to the body. This is called end-stage congestive heart failure. At this point patients have three options:

1. Intravenous (IV) medications which temporarily help heart muscle function
2. Heart transplant
3. A left ventricular assist device.

IV medications are not effective long term, and can actually make heart failure worse in some cases.  A heart transplant is the ultimate treatment for end-stage heart failure. However, finding an appropriate donor takes time. Until a transplant is available, a LVAD can help the heart pump blood to the body. 

L VAD’s are not new, and have been around for more than a decade.  These devices were initially large and required constant monitoring, and patients with LVADs were prone to life-threatening complications. However, technology has steadily improved, and the quality of life for patients with LVADs has improved along with these technological advancements. 

Studies have shown that patients who have end-stage heart failure live longer and have a better quality of life with an LVAD than without.  In fact, LVAD’s are now often used not just as a bridge until a heart transplant, but as a long-term solution by themselves, known as destination therapy.

Mr. Cheney has ischemic cardiomyopathy (damage to heart muscle due to blockages in the arteries).  These blockages have caused five heart attacks, the first of which was when he was 37 years old.

To treat these blockages, he has undergone bypass surgery and stenting procedures. However, his heart is now damaged to the point where he has end-stage CHF. To treat this, he has received a LVAD. It remains possible that he may need a heart transplant in the future.

Dr. Ravish Sachar is a cardiologist with Wake Heart & Vascular Associates and perfoms many procedures in the WakeMed Heart Center.

For patients with crohn’s disease or small bowel disorders and cancers, diagnostic imaging options recently got a lot broader because WakeMed Imaging Services is now offering CT enterography at Raleigh Campus, Cary Hospital, Apex Healthplex and North Healthplex.

CT enterography is ordered by gastroenterologist or surgeon and offers a non-invasive way to get a clear picture of the intestinal wall and the inside of the intestines, allowing easy identification of inflammation or other abnormalities.  CT enterography is less time consuming and more patient friendly versus than the traditional enteroclysis. An enteroclysis is a test where a tube is inserted into the patient’s nose or mouth, contrast is flowed through the tube, and a diagnostic x-ray is taken.

During CT enterography, patients drink the contrast and spend a short amount of time in the CT scanner.  Overall, a much more patient-friendly option with great results.

Every day I see the progress on the new Raleigh Campus Patient Tower. It is amazing how the building and the gardens are coming along. What is not visible from the outside, however, is the technology incorporated throughout the new Patient Tower.

We have added a computer in every patient room, a computer in alcoves between every other patient room, as well as the typical number of computers in nursing and physician work areas. This is a change from the way we have provided access to computers in the past.

Nurses at Cary Hospital chart on a WOW

Currently, nurses and physicians use workstations on wheels (WOW) or access computers at physician and nurse work areas. As we move toward full electronic medical records, we understand that doctors and nurses need immediate access to computers.

And since available the WOWs were not always available when they were needed and they are very expensive, we determined that it just made sense to add more fixed computers for easy access. And, we could afford to replace these computers 1.5 times for the same price as purchasing the required number of workstation on wheels.

Additionally, computers are relatively inexpensive (when compared to staff time) and there is a real patient safety benefit to having fast access to electronic medical records. We are confident that this decision will positively impact both efficiency and patient safety. And, plans are ready in motion to retrofit the existing patient care floors with a workstation model like the one that will be used in the new Patient Tower.

Lindsay Kimbrell is a Medical Technologist in the Microbiology Lab

This week marks National Medical Laboratory Professionals week, and we wanted to share the impact that medical lab professionals have in health care every day. 

For most patients, their interaction with the pathology lab is limited to the doctor’s office or the hospital where their blood is drawn or a specimen taken. But, the results from the more than 1 billion laboratory tests performed each year in the United States make a big difference to patients throughout the country, because more than 70 percent of objective information used to make diagnostic decisions is derived from the clinical laboratory.

The pathology lab at WakeMed has a workforce of nearly 250 pathologists, medical technologists, cytotechnologists, histotechnologists, phlebotomists, administrative, and support staff from all WakeMed locations. Throughout the WakeMed system just last week, the pathology lab was responsible for 42,000 lab specimens.  This is an average of one specimen every 15 seconds 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

During National Medical Laboratory Professionals week, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the clinicians and physicians who trust us to process and interpret the results of the patients they care for.  And to our outstanding lab employees, thank you for everything you do.

iStan stabalized in the ICU of the Center for Innovative Learning.

You’re sitting in a conference watching yet another PowerPoint presentation when suddenly someone in the room collapses with a cardiac arrest.  This really happened yesterday to attendees at the Triangle Gaming Conference.

During our presentation yesterday Dr. Graham Snyder, medical director of the Center for Innovative Learning and emergency physician, and I were delivering a talk about Serious Gaming and medical education at the Triangle Gaming Conference when iStan, a patient simulator, unexpectedly went into cardiac arrest.  The emergency began.  I yelled for assistance asking for anyone who knew CPR to help the dying iStan.  Gamers just like you or me responded to the call for help.

Heart beats were racing. The audience waited with anticipation…is he going to live or will he die?  In the background you could hear audience members expressing concern, “I don’t want him to die.” 

While the scenario evolved, Dr. Snyder was able to successfully defibrillate the patient.  Our “first responders” breathed a sigh of relief as Stan came back to life.  I yelled, “He has a pulse.”  Dr. Snyder insisted on having an IV.  As our audience members were waiting with anticipation, I inserted an IV into iStan’s chest for direct medication delivery.  As a breathing tube was placed, Dr. Snyder instructed our participants on how to ventilate iStan.

In the end iStan lived! He was successfully brought back to life with the assistance of two students interested in developing educational games.   Their hearts raced, our hearts raced, and the audience’s hearts raced trying to understand whether this was real or a simulated teaching experience.  As soon as our two volunteers joined the scenario, they admitted to being lost in the experience – gaming at its best.

Over the hour, we were amazed at the variety of questions our audience members asked.  We covered health care education, the development of immersive learning, the financial impact of education, and how to get involved in simulation.  If this experience told our audience anything, it was that immersive learning and medical simulation is a SERIOUS GAME with serious consequences. 

We received so many questions that we decided to offer others the opportunity to participate in a live Twitter chat tomorrow at 1 pm hosted by @wakemed.  Log in, participate, and don’t forget to use #istanlives.