Nick's Blog

General Electric, General Dunn and General Information

We are still planning a major announcement from General Electric next week, and that should become a solid reality after Tuesday when we, once again, meet with Jeff Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric.  This time we meet Jeff in Cleveland.  Hopefully, you'll see us on the Today Show again soon.  (NBC is owned by GE.)

General  Mike Dunn,  (U. S. Army retired) is coming home from the Gulf tomorrow.  Two weeks turned into nearly three as he cared for patients and attempted to avoid hurricane Rita while serving on the Comfort, a hospital ship deployed to the New Orleans area.  Welcome back, Dr. Dunn, WRI's Chief Medical Officer and our newest Gastrointestinal specialist.

Today, we met with the PA Department of Health to get approval for our new sleep lab.  Now, many of you may be wondering why a sleep lab?  Well, as Winnie Horner, Cindy LeComte and Rick Jordan said to me one day a couple of years ago, "Are you kidding?"   

When you consider our primary population base and the things that contribute to sleep apnea, it does clearly seem like a no brainer.  We have a lot of overweight patients, several thousand people with high blood pressure and numerous other contributing symptoms.  You name it, we have it.  So, we start with one bed, add another, and another until we fill up Wing I. 

We also had PA Dept of Health discussions regarding our three new OB/GYNS.  Actually, the challenge is one of numbers.  Will there be 1990's, 1980's or 1970's numbers at WMC.  So, will there be 145, 225 or 275 babies born at the hospital this year?  It reminds me of my 33rd birthday when I was informed that my responsibilities as Executive Director of Laurel Arts included a newly formed festival called Somerfest.  When I asked my Board Chairman how many people to expect, his reply was 1500 to 15,000.  Yep.  How many porta johns does that equal?

The steps that we are taking include at least one change that will wreak havoc among our visitors and guests.  We will be locking down Wing III access from the Emergency Room elevator and limiting that access only to physicians and specific hospital directed OB employees.  So, no matter where you happen to be, the elevators by the pharmacy are the only tickets to ride.

So, we need to clear out the parking area by the former school of nursing, and I plan to donate the infamous, but not real great, presidential parking space to the cause.  I'm not sure where I'm going yet, but my space is better used by pregnant ladies, those suffering from respiratory problems, or just some poor sleepy person than by me.  (Actually it may be premature for me to leave that spot, I'm 10 lbs. overweight, sleepy, have high blood pressure and a touch of allergic asthma.)

So, sleep lab, babies, and black lung are all part of our new initiatives. 

October is coming.

October is Mary's Month

     October is going to be a very big month for Windber Medical Center, Windber Research Institute, Windber Professional Services and the to be created Windber Health Venture.  I'm not sure how, but I'm sure that it will be . . . The stew is in the pot and it is bubbling.

    We have put 75,000 miles on the car and enough air miles and hotel stays to have everything turn silver, gold, and platinum (not to be confused with Dr. Michael Liebman's Million Mile recognition).  We have been meeting with power brokers, scientists, MD's, and professionals from all over the world, and have planted seeds everywhere.

     Our former enemies have begun to embrace us as true friends.  Our friends have more deeply realized the hope for the future that our scientists bring.  Several individuals who have realized that they are not in sync with our mission are making arrangements to move on to other challenges, and, most importantly, all of the right team members are gathering around the healing hillside.

     We have secured initial financing for both the hospital and the research institute to allow us to begin to take the necessary steps to secure our collective futures, and last week placed the orders to allow us to remain in the que for future expansion, growth and discoveries.

     As of November 1st, our new OB's, Drs. Amy Anderson, Pradeep Kulkarni and  Roger Morrell will begin their practice at WMC.  We have begun seeking the necessary PhD's to initiate several of our scientific challenges. 

     After two years of hoop jumping, our work with the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute has finally been approved for proteomic research, and the minimally invasive surgery equipment for Dr. Kim Marley has arrived to allow Dr. Marley to begin his leading edge work in our facility.

     The Health System is working with WMC on a plan to enable all CHS facilities to collaborate and better serve our public while expanding their efforts into adjoining counties and States.  Additional operating rooms are being taken out of mothballs and reopened.  The former School of Nursing has been remodeled and is a functional medical office building again.  Our staff is growing by leaps and bounds from recruitment efforts directed toward the former Lee Hospital, and, finally, our efforts to secure funding to build out WindberPlace and the new Surgery Suites are moving forward.

Just last weekend we met with several investors who are interested in moving our 16 Slice Pet/CT out to other hospitals, in order to make room for our new 64 Slice Pet/CT.

So, hold onto your hats.  October is going to be awesome.  It's Mary's month. 

Oh, and, if it applies, get your mammogram.

Dr. Lee Hood

There's a new movie at the theaters entitled "Red Eye."  Some of us lived at least a part of this film last week as we flew to Seattle at 7:00 AM and began our trip back that night, actually the next morning, at 2:30AM.  Ten hours of breathing recirculated air on the way to and from Washington  resulted in an early autumn cold, but, more importantly, and more positively, it may have produced a major, new partnership for Windber. 

Our first stop in the city of Starbucks, Boeing and Microsoft was directly across the street from the Gates Foundation.  As we drove past the infamous home of the Gates Foundation, we were told that, when Mr. Gates wants to visit, ten black Cadillac Escalades come roaring down the street and one peels off into the basement garage of the building while the others go on in every direction.  Then the prized Escalade with the billion dollar cargo on board, Bill Gates, rides an elevator to the floor where his meeting is being held. Fort Knox on software.

Our primary meeting there, however, was with a very famous scientist, Dr. Lee Hood. 

"Dr. Hood is the founder and Director of the Institute for Systems Biology, a spin-off from his labs at University of Washington (UW). Hood came to UW from UCLA encouraged by aggressive financing from Bill Gates. Hood has been (i.e. first gene sequencing machine) and continues to be one of the leading researchers and thinkers in the genetic engineering and biotechnology revolution. Hood is thinking about the next step: bioinformatics.

"His professional career began at Caltech, where he and colleagues pioneered four instruments that constitute the technological foundation for contemporary molecular biology. One of the instruments has revolutionized genomics by allowing the rapid automated sequencing of DNA. Dr. Hood also was one of the first advocates and is a key player in the Human Genome Project — the quest to decipher the sequence of human DNA.

"Dr. Hood earned an M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1964 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 1968. Since then, his research has focused on the study of molecular immunology and biotechnology. Dr. Hood has published more than 500 peer-reviewed papers and co-authored textbooks in biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology and genetics. He also co-edited Code of Codes, a book discussing scientific, social and ethical issues raised by genetic research. Dr. Hood is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Association of Arts and Sciences."

Well, Dr. Hood asked us if we would consider having Windber partner with him in his research and entrepreneurial activities.  We hesitated for about  two seconds and said, "Yes."

Our first combined grant application could be for around $100M, a number that is very close to the combined funding that has come to Windber and Walter Reed over the past several years.  Dr. Hood described our science, our collection of human tissue, our bioinformatics capabilities and our partnership with Walter Reed as a valuable, unique and one-of-a-kind opportunity in the world.

Thanks, Dr. Hood.  Maybe soon the rest of the world will "get it" as we press on to make life and science better for everyone.

Katrina - State of Emergency

Today felt very eerie to me.  It was one of those breathtaking, beautiful, autumn days reminiscent of another beautiful, autumn day, 9/11.  I remember sitting at a meeting at the conference table in my office when the phone call came in from, ironically, our connection to the 9-1-1 emergency response center, to let us know that there was a plane coming into the Johnstown area with what was believed to be "a bomb on board." 

All I could think about at that moment was that we would not be able to handle a major catastrophe at our three local hospitals.  We would be overwhelmed.  We, collectively, would have been in over our heads. 

Many of the leaders responsible for the response after Hurricane Katrina have been painted with the same broad brush.  They are accused of being in "over their heads" as well.

When I heard from our connection to 9-1-1 that fateful day that there could be as many as 148 passengers on board United Airlines Flight 93, heading toward what was thought to be the John P. Murtha Cambria County Airport, my heart jumped mercilessly in my chest as I moved through the hospital to inform the employees of our hosptial wide emergency alert. 

We were NOT prepared as a hospital, a town or a region to handle nearly 150 injuries from one crash.  We had NO BURN UNITS, not enough critical care beds, only a few helicopters, and not enough staff. 

If it had been a biological bomb, we would have been even less prepared.  We had no decomtamination capabilities, and our hospitals would have been closed after the first contaminated patient entered our emergency departments.  That day, of course, the problem never had to be faced. 

After 9/11 we dedicated ourselves to ensuring that we would never be faced with the same lack of resources that we were faced with on that fateful day.  I am also completely confident that, had our area been faced with the massive devastation that Katrina brought to the Gulf States, we, collectively, would still have not been fully able to cope.  Enter the Federal Government.

Each day my job requires me to think about things like chemical, biological, and nuclear attacks in places like Washington D.C. or at a Penn State football game, and, even though we have invested heavily in things like decontamination tents and special training for our employees, it would still be a stretch to care for 100,000 plus injuries in West Central PA. We have held drill after drill, time after time and still our hospitals, our emergency groups and our country are not yet prepared. 

Politician after politician has come before us over the past week to tell us how sad they feel.  Well, they might be sad, but many of the rest of us are feeling not only sad, but also disgusted and embarrassed.

No one is suggesting that we should be able to save everyone from everything, but, as Winston Churchill stated, "The responsibility of government for public safety is a mandate."

We have been shaken to the core, and I, for one, believe that our leaders should never again be permitted to use phrases like, "we didn't think it was going to be this bad."

As Harry Truman said, "The BUCK STOPS HERE."  No one should have ever been abandoned like our own citizens were abandoned last week.   

We are paid to think "it is going to be this bad."  We are trusted to prepare for things "to be this bad,"  and, it's my personal, passionate belief that New Orleans should have been handled with professionalism, speed, and organization... NOT EXCUSES.  (I, of course, make these declarations positioned comfortably in my recliner and looking backward with 20/20 vision.)

God Bless all of you who have contributed so generously to the American Red Cross fund drive held here at Windber Medical Center last week for those people who are suffering from this catastrophe.

Dr. Michael Dunn, Chief Medical Officer of Windber Research Institute, a physician volunteer, and William Martyak, our Physician's Assistant at Alum Bank Community Health Center and a member of the Army National Guard, will both be serving the people of the Gulf Coast.  Thanks to them as well.