Grand Rounds April on Arkansas Medical News Inc.

Grand Rounds April

Walton College Team Turns UAMS Breast Cancer Test Into Winning National Business Plan

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – A simple breast cancer screening test that uses a woman's tears and is being patented by the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has helped business students in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas win a national business competition.

The students formed Tears for Life LLC, a medical diagnostic device company that has an exclusive license from UAMS to use the technology. Tears for Life is developing a noninvasive test kit that can reliably screen for breast cancer using proteins found in tears.

The potential screening product already has attracted interest from investors, and the students' business plan has won two recent awards, including first place and a $10,000 award at the University of Cincinnati Spirit of Enterprise M.B.A. Business Plan Competition.

The screening test was invented by V. Suzanne Klimberg, M.D., and Larry Suva, Ph.D., both of the UAMS. Klimberg is director of the UAMS Breast Cancer Program, while Suva is director of the Center for Orthopaedic Research.

The Tears for Life students received technical help from Klimberg and Suva, while Mike Douglas, director of UAMS BioVentures, advised the team on the business aspects of the plan.

"This technology has enormous potential," said Douglas, whose BioVentures program helps UAMS scientists get patents and commercialize their discoveries.

Cooper Clinic Echocardiography Laboratory Granted Accreditation

The Cooper Clinic Echocardiography Laboratory was granted accreditation by the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography Laboratories (ICAEL). Echocardiography is a noninvasive test that is useful in the detection and management of many types of heart disease. Using sound waves, echocardiography assesses how well the heart muscle pumps, whether the valves of the heart are functioning properly, and if blood flow through the heart is occurring normally. The accreditation process is voluntary and signifies the laboratory's pursuit of excellence in the field of echocardiography. Staffed by two registered sonographers, the Cooper Clinic Echocardiography Laboratory is part of the Clinic's Department of Cardiology and Cardiopulmonary Services located in the Centers of Excellence, Fort Smith.

St. Anthony's Medical Center Hires Foundation and Marketing Director

Gina Daniel is the new Director of Foundation & Marketing at St. Anthony's Medical Center in Morrilton. Gina is responsible for corporate development, community outreach and marketing in the areas of The Foundation, Pastoral Care and Auxiliary at St. Anthony's. Gina was most recently employed at Ozark Health Medical Center. Gina has over 15 years of marketing experience, the majority of that spent as a media planner, buyer and in media sales.

Tax Forms Include Check-Off to Benefit Cord Blood Initiative

Arkansas tax filers again this year have the option to donate all or part of their income tax refunds to help build a statewide cord blood banking system that will be based at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

Gov. Mike Beebe signed into law in 2007 a unanimously approved measure to allow Arkansas to begin storing and researching potentially life-saving blood cells harvested from umbilical cords following the birth of healthy children. As part of that law, an income tax check-off program for contributions to the Newborn Umbilical Cord Blood Initiative was drafted and is included on the 2008 state tax check-off form that filers can elect to include with their state income tax return. No funding was included in the law other than the tax check-off program.

The check-off allows filers to have donations automatically deducted from their refund checks for whatever amount they wish to give. Filers expecting to owe money also have the option to donate by filling out the same form, but submitting a separate donation check.

Local Physician Launches Nephrology Practice For Northwest

SPRINGDALE — Shamsul Alam, M.D., a board-certified Nephrologist, is establishing a new specialty practice for Northwest Health System, with clinics in Washington and Benton Counties.

Dr. Alam completed an Internal Medicine residency at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City and practiced for six years before serving a Nephrology fellowship at Medical University of Ohio in Toledo.

Physicians Hail Arkansas Court Victory Against Baptist Health

LITTLE ROCK — In a legal victory that preserves the patient-physician relationship and promotes competition, an Arkansas state court ruled today that Baptist Health, Arkansas' largest hospital system, acted improperly by inappropriately restricting hospital admitting privileges and interfering with the continuity of patient care.

The ruling in Baptist v. Murphy permanently prohibits an economic credentialing policy adopted by Baptist Health in 2003, which would have allowed the hospital system to interfere in the patient-physician relationship by denying hospital-admitting privileges to medical staff members based on financial concerns.

As the court observed, "The heart of this case is the patient-physician relationship. The relationship is entitled to exceptional protection." The court went on to say, "Strong patient-physician relationships are the underpinning of good medicine, and it was uncontroverted at trial that patients who have long term relationships with their doctors have better outcomes."

The American Medical Association (AMA) and the Arkansas Medical Society (AMS) successfully challenged the unfair hospital policy by arguing that the primary factor in credentialing physicians should be competency, not economic factors unrelated to quality.

The combined resources of organized medicine were brought to bear on this case through the Litigation Center of the AMA and State Medical Societies, which provided substantial financial support and, along with the Arkansas Medical Society, worked in support of the physicians who were subjected to Baptists' inappropriate credentialing policies.

Carter Joins Staff of UAMS Myeloma Institute

LITTLE ROCK — Kristen Carter, R.N., an experienced advanced practice nurse, has joined the staff of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy.

Carter, who joined the Myeloma Institute as an instructor, has more than five years of critical care experience working as a nurse in coronary care, medical and surgical intensive care units. She received her nurse practitioner certification and a Master of Nursing Science degree in 2008 from UAMS. She received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree in 2003 from the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

Arkansas Hospice Doctors Pass Boards

Arkansas Hospice would like to commend Dr. Neal Wyatt, corporate medical director; and Dr. Martin Koehn, Hot Springs Inpatient Services medical director, for passing their boards in hospice and palliative medicine. Dr. A. Reed Thompson, medical director emeritus for Arkansas Hospice, passed the test for a second time, allowing him to maintain his board certification.

All three doctors have achieved the status of diplomats in the American Board of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (ABHPM). The ABHPM promotes excellence in the care of all patients with advanced, progressive illness through the development of standards for training and practice in palliative medicine. The Board is an independent, not-for-profit organization whose certificate is recognized as signifying a high level of physician competence in the discipline of palliative medicine.

Modern Healthcare names St. Vincent Chairman of the Board Trustee of the Year

LITTLE ROCK — Gus Blass III, Chairman of the Board of Directors for St. Vincent Health System has been selected as a Modern Healthcare and Witt/Kieffer Trustee of the Year. The announcement is featured in the Feb. 23rd issue of Modern Healthcare.

Blass was selected based on his excellence in healthcare governance and leadership. In his nomination of Blass, Peter Banko, President and CEO St. Vincent Health System, highlighted Blass' accomplishments in leadership, strategy, ethics, community relations and finance. Blass has demonstrated those attributes as he has served on the St. Vincent Board of Directors intermittently for about 20 years and is currently serving a two-year term as Chairman. Additionally, Blass sits on the Board of Directors for the St. Vincent Foundation, the nonprofit, fundraising arm of the health system.

St. Bernards Installs State's First 256 Slice CT Scanner

St. Bernards Medical Center chalked up an Arkansas first earlier this year when it became the first medical center in the state to install and put into use a new 256 slice computed tomography (CT) scanner.

The Philips Brilliance iCT is one of the fastest CT scanners on the market today, and it is proving to be an especially useful tool for physicians in the Emergency Department. In addition to being the first 256 slice scanner installed in the state, the St. Bernards unit was only the 20th installed in the United States.

It combines power, speed and coverage to produce extremely high resolution images that aid physicians in diagnosing and planning treatment for patients.

The most obvious advantage of the new Philips scanner is its speed.

The speed on the front end gets information into the hands of radiologists more quickly, so their review of studies and careful formulation of appropriate treatment plans for patients are expedited. But that's just one of the things that makes this new diagnostic tool important.

The scanner can acquire cross-sectional images of the body more than three inches wide in a single rotation... something that takes only a fraction of a second. It creates 256 "slices" of information during a single rotation, thus giving radiologists more data... along with greater image clarity.

It can reconstruct data for display at a rate of 100 slices per second. The 64-slice scanner – introduced in 2005 – changed the way radiologists viewed diagnostic data. Up to that time, they looked at data slice by slice. However, now physicians use data to develop two-, three- and even four-dimensional reconstructions, giving them exceptional diagnostic information.