Ashlar Concludes 25th Anniversary Celebration

With Community Event

As the cap-off to its 25th anniversary year, Masonicare’s Ashlar of Newtown hosted an evening with John Murphy, executive vice president of Danbury Hospital, and Susan Davis, president and CEO of St Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport, on September 24. The two health care executives outlined their priorities for future wellness to a gathering of community residents and health care professionals at the Reed Intermediate School.

Ronald Rozett, MD, consulting physician to Masonicare, introduced the presentation. Dr Rozett prefaced his remarks with the statistic that 17 percent of every $100 of goods and services produced in the United States goes to health care.

Susan Davis, RN, EdD, began by assuring her audience that she is “first and foremost, a nurse,” having begun her health care career at the bedside. She disclosed that once a month she dons scrubs to work side-by-side with caregivers in different areas of the hospital.

Dr Davis encouraged her listeners to “be an active participant in your own health care,” citing a landmark study that correlates patient responsibility with a decrease in care errors. St Vincent’s received the 2007 John D. Thompson Award for Clinical Excellence from the Connecticut Hospital Association for having achieved a 52 percent reduction in mortality rates over the prior three years.

She urged her listeners to ask questions, even writing them down in advance of an office visit, to make sure they were informed. She brought information on questions to ask one’s pharmacist, clinical caregiver, and physician.

She also brought materials on “advanced directives,” which help patients make sure their wishes are carried out.

John Murphy, MD, shared some sobering statistics about the state of health in the United States., including the fact that despite spending more on health care than any country in the world, life expectancy in the US ranks 25th.

He cited the factors that contribute to premature death: genetics (30 percent); social factors such as where one lives, income, education, and quality of health care (30 percent); and the greatest percentage (40 percent) of factors being behavioral — including tobacco use (18 percent); obesity and inactivity (17 percent); and other decisions of judgment like seat belt and motorcycle helmet use.

 He said 35 percent of Americans are obese; among children, its 16 percent and growing, and among Americans over the age of 65, it is 20 percent.

Dr Murphy is leaving his practice to take on his administrative role at Danbury Hospital full-time; several of his patients attended the presentation.

Dr Murphy also stressed preventative care: getting an annual flu shot and the pneumonia vaccine, with 80 percent of breast cancer occurring in women over 50, get a mammogram every two years; he also noted the 90 percent of colon cancer occurs in people over 50, so screening (colonoscopy) is very important. Monitoring cholesterol is important in the prevention of heart disease and stroke.

Both hospital executives promoted the value of an “EMR” or electronic medical record. It ensures that all the patient data is present… x-rays, test results, history, medications, allergies, etc, regardless of where the test, x-ray, etc was done.

Dr Murphy is also promoting a “regional health information exchange.” In order to make this happen, he noted, there needs to be collaboration among providers, technical and informational interfaces, and connectivity.

Among the topics raised during the question and answer period were nationalized health care and infection control. Both executives felt that nationalized health care was very far away and that the best infection control is washing one’s hands with soap and water.

Antibacterial soaps are good but they do not eliminate every germ, especially c-diff (clostridium difficile).

The presentation was concluded with Tom Gutner, president of Ashlar of Newtown, thanking Dr David and Dr Murphy, and encouraging the audience to embrace a healthy lifestyle.