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University of Washington School of Medicine
Online News
Vol. 12, No. 30
July 25, 2008
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To view an archived version of Online News on the UW
Medicine Web site, visit:
http://www.uwmedicine.org/Global/NewsAndEvents/somnews/index.htm
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This week’s news:
* Eileen Whalen of University Medical Center in Tucson, Ariz., named executive director of Harborview Medical Center
* CMV infections affect more than just patients with compromised immune systems, researchers find
* Communication skills can increase physician efficiency without sacrificing patient satisfaction
* UW medical student Gabriel Fine and faculty member Michael Regnier elected to scientific committee of Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Foundation
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EILEEN WHALEN NAMED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR HARBORVIEW
Following a national search process, Eileen Whalen has been named the new executive director for Harborview Medical Center, effective Oct. 6. In this role, Whalen will provide executive leadership for Harborview and serve as a member of the senior leadership team for UW Medicine.
Whalen has more than 25 years of experience in health care and comes to the UW system from University Medical Center, Tucson, Ariz., where she has served as vice president since 2004. The University Medical Center is a 355-bed tertiary/quaternary care facility that serves as the only academic medical center in Arizona and is the teaching hospital for the University of Arizona School of Medicine. It is ranked among the nation’s premier hospitals in U.S. News and World Report rankings of America’s Best Hospitals. The hospital serves as the Level I trauma center for the region and has a full range of comprehensive medical and surgical specialties and centers of emphasis that are similar to those based at Harborview Medical Center. The hospital is a nursing Magnet facility and consistently ranks as the employer of choice for southern Arizona.
Prior to working at the University Medical Center, Whalen was at Saint Mary’s Regional Health Care System in Nevada. She also worked previously at San Francisco General Hospital and the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems and served as a national health-care consultant for trauma care systems across the country. Whalen holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s degree in public health and administration from Chapman University. She was the founding editor of the Journal of Trauma Nursing and has numerous publications in emergency and trauma services and in health-care system design. Whalen is a well-recognized national speaker and has served as a reviewer for the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma verification team.
Whalen will report directly to Johnese Spisso, UW vice president of medical affairs and clinical operations officer for UW Medicine, and also to the Harborview Board of Trustees consistent with the King County-UW Management Contract.
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CMV INFECTIONS AFFECT MORE THAN JUST PATIENTS WITH IMMUNE-SYSTEM PROBLEMS
An infection due to a virus called cytomegalovirus (CMV), which most commonly affects people with compromised immune systems, can also affect hospital intensive-care patients who have no immune-system problems, UW researchers have found. CMV infection is also associated with longer hospital and intensive-care unit (ICU) stays independent of other causes, according to the study, published July 23 in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.
About half of all healthy adults in the United States are exposed to CMV during their life, researchers estimate, and control the infection with their immune system, often without even experiencing symptoms. In some people with reduced immune function, such as organ-transplant recipients, the virus can reactivate in the body and cause serious health problems.
In this study, researchers looked at CMV reactivation in 120 patients with no immune-system problems who were admitted to a hospital ICU. They also analyzed how CMV reactivation affected a patient's long-term health outcomes, including the amount of time the patient had to spend in the hospital or ICU and their risk of death. This study is novel because it is one of the first to look at people with apparently normal immune systems who were being treated in the ICU for trauma or another medical problem, explained the study leader, Ajit Limaye, associate professor of medicine and laboratory medicine at the UW.
The researchers found that CMV reactivation was surprisingly common in ICU patients, with about 30 percent exhibiting an active CMV infection in their bloodstream at various points during the 30-day study period. Even when controlling for other possible variables, CMV reactivation was strongly associated with a longer hospital and ICU stay for patients. Longer hospital stays can drive up health-care costs, and can be inconvenient or uncomfortable for patients, Limaye added.
Patients without immune system problems are not typically tested for CMV. However, despite the study findings, Limaye said, it would be premature to start routine testing of ICU patients for reactivation of the virus. First, the researchers will need to see whether using anti-viral drugs to treat regular-immunity ICU patients can help cut down on reactivation of CMV, or whether it can cut down on the length of hospital stays for those patients with the reactivated virus.
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COMMUNICATION SKILLS INCREASE EFFICIENCY OF TIME-CRUNCHED PHYSICIANS
Certain communication skills can foster efficiency and effectiveness during a doctor's office visit without sacrificing rapport with patients, according to UW and University of Rochester researchers. Their model of a smoother flow of communications between doctors and patients appeared in the July 14 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The authors noted that effective communication in primary care must include skills that enhance the quality of care while helping physicians and their patients use time wisely. Their model includes ways to establish the purpose of the visit with the patient, understand the patient's perspective, and reach a mutual agreement on a plan. They also discuss common interviewing pitfalls that unnecessarily lengthen the visit, and ways to avoid or correct them. For example, when patients' concerns are acknowledged, they are less likely to keep restating them.
The researchers are Larry Mauksch, a behavioral scientist and lecturer in family medicine at the UW; David Dugdale, UW professor of medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine and director of the Hall Health Primary Care Center; Sherry Dodson, clinical librarian at the UW; and Ronald Epstein, professor of family medicine, psychiatry, and oncology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and a member of its Center to Improve Communication and Health Care.
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MEDICAL STUDENT AND FACULTY MEMBER NAMED TO SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH COMMITTEE
UW third-year medical student Gabriel Fine and faculty member Michael Regnier, associate professor and vice-chair of bioengineering, have been elected to the scientific committee of the Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Foundation. The foundation supports medical students and new investigators who are interested in cardiovascular research.
The scientific committee oversees the Sarnoff Foundation's scientific programs, including the Sarnoff Fellowship Program and the Scholar Fellow-to-Faculty Research Award. The committee also works to advance the foundation's reputation as a scientific organization.
Fine recently completed a two-year Sarnoff Fellowship and is now returning to the UW to resume his clinical coursework. He will also be serving on the foundation's alumni committee.
Regnier, director of the UW's Heart and Muscle Mechanics Lab, studies the regulation of muscle contraction and the process of converting chemical energy into mechanical work in muscle tissue. His research focuses on the role of those processes in cardiac muscle tissue and cardiovascular problems.
UW faculty member Debra Schwinn, professor and chair of anesthesiology, is currently serving as vice chair-elect of the Sarnoff foundation's scientific committee.
For more on the foundation, see http://www.sarnoffendowment.org/
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Justin Reedy, editor:
206-685-0382, jreedy@u.washington.edu
Online News is copyright 2008. All rights, including electronic
redistribution, are reserved.
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