Seminar Living Kidney Donation April 24 at First Hill Campus

A free educational seminar about living kidney donation will be held Tuesday, April 24 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. in Glaser Auditorium on Swedish Medical Center’s First Hill campus (747 Broadway, first floor).

At the two-hour seminar Swedish Organ Transplant’s living kidney donor team will talk about the living kidney donor process.

Speakers will include:

• Phillip Chapman, M.D. – Living kidney donor surgeon
• Nelson Goes, M.D. – Nephrologist
• Diane Gould, R.N. – Living donor clinical transplant coordinator
• Kathy Otis, M.S.W. – Medical social worker
• A living donor
• Moderator Marquis Hart, M.D. – Organ transplant surgeon and medical director of Swedish Organ Transplant

After the team members speak, a panel of two or three living kidney donors will discuss their personal experience with being a living donor, followed by a question-and-answer period.

Light refreshments will be served.

Registration for this free seminar is required.

To RSVP, contact Dwayne Biles at 206-215-2913 or via dwayne.biles@swedish.org.

SVNS provides in-home medical services, such as in-home nursing, physical and occupational therapy, infusion therapy, nutritional therapy, and hospice care.

SVNS currently serves about 300 home-health patients, about 125 hospice patients and 80 home-infusion patients, the medical center said.

Swedish said that despite turnaround efforts launched last June, the service is projected to lose $12 million in this year, which would put its total loss since 2009 at $51 million.

Swedish blamed losses on the high cost of wages, benefits and overtime and low reimbursement from commercial payers as well as “productivity issues.”

SVNS will stop accepting new patients effective immediately and will work to discharge or transfer home-care patients within the next 30 days and hospice patients within the next 60 days, Swedish said.

Swedish said it would make SVNS patients aware of other care options in the community and would work to place them with the agency of their choice.

Swedish said it would also work to help the 220 SVNS employees find new jobs, either by redeploying them elsewhere in the Swedish system, which includes five hospitals, two ambulatory care centers and more than 100 clinics. or by assisting them in connecting them with opportunities elsewhere in the community.

As part of that effort, Swedish will soon host a job fair and invite all other home-health and hospice agencies, so they can promote their current job openings to SVNS employees, Swedish said.

Resources for Seniors:

• Senior Services (referral to adult daycare and other services): www.seniorservices.org
• King and Pierce County’s Healthy Aging Partnership: www.4elders.org
• National Asian Pacific Center on Aging: www.napca.org
• U.S. Administration on Aging: www.aoa.gov

Chef Eric has struggled to manage his weight his entire life, and blogs on the Swedish website about food, his weight loss journey, eating in public, and more.

Dr. Richard Lindquist, a specialist with Swedish’s Weight Loss Services, provides some holiday eating tips to help you avoid those extra calories.

Spiced Hot Toddy

Serves 6 — 5oz drinks

Ingredients:

• 1 quart Light Soy milk
• 1 vanilla bean — split with seed scraped out
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 1 TBSP honey
• 1 whole Nutmeg

Preparation:

1. Place soy milk w/vanilla bean and cinnamon sticks in sauce pan, bring just to simmer, insuring not to boil. Remove from heat. Add honey.
2. Allow the spices to steep for 10 minutes.
3. Transfer all the ingredients to a French press and press all spices down to the bottom.
4. Froth the toddy by carefully pumping up and down on the press, divide among 6 tea cups
5. Grate fresh Nutmeg over the Toddy, serve immediately.

Nutritional Information:

• 100 calories
• 1.5 grams of fat
• 6 grams of protein
• 12 grams carbs

Green Tea & Rosemary Sparkler

Makes 1 — 12 oz serving

Ingredients:

• 1 bag – Favorite Green Tea
• 2 inch stalk of Lemongrass (can substitute a lemon wedge)
• 1 stem of rosemary — small sprig removed from the top reserved
• 4 oz hot water
• 8 oz favorite sparkling water
• Ice cubes (optional)
• Artificial sweetener (optional)

 Preparation:

1. Steep the tea bag in the 4 oz of hot water with the lemongrass and the rosemary. Remove the teabag after 3 minutes let the herbs remain until the water reaches room temperature.
2. Strain tea into a tall glass over ice and sweetener (optional)
3. Add the 8 oz of bubbly water and a sprig of rosemary for garnish

Nutritional Information:

• 0 calories

Viewers will be able to watch a deep brain stimulation surgical procedure, accompanied by a live web chat led by Drs. Ryder Gwinn and Ron Young of the Swedish Neuroscience Institute.

Essential tremor is a common condition whose cause is unknown. It is more common in the elderly but can occur at any age. The tremor sometimes runs in families, in which case it is called familial tremor.

In some cases, essential tremor can occur with other brain and nervous system disorders, such parkinsonism.

Essential tremor usually consists of small, rapid movements that typically affect the hands but can also affect other parts of the body, including the head and face.

The shaking can cause serious disability, making it impossible, for example, to perform such simple tasks as writing and eating.

In deep brain stimulation surgery, an electrode is placed in part of the brain called the thalamus and then connected to a pacemaker-type device that is implanted under the skin.

When successful, electrical stimulation from the device stops the tremor. The pacemaker device can be turned on and off, as needed, by the patient with a hand-held magnet.

Viewers of tomorrow’s live stream will be able to submit questions about essential tremor and deep brain stimulation surgery and any other essential tremor treatment options, during the live stream using an embedded chat feature or via Twitter using the hashtag #SwedishDBS.

Dr. Jennifer Witt, a movement disorders neurologist with the institute, will also be joining the conversation to discuss the medical management of essential tremor.

WHEN:

Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

WHERE:

The webcast can be viewed online at www.Swedish.org/DBSLive.

Those interested may also join the conversation via Twitter by using the hash tag #SwedishDBS.

To learn more:

• Visit the National Institute for Neurological Diseases and Stroke’s webpage on tremor.

• Visit the National Library of Medicine’s Medline Plus page on deep brain stimulation.

This is the sixth year in a row that Virginia Mason has made the Top Hospital List, and the second year in a row for Swedish First Hill.

This year sixty-five hospitals have earned The Leapfrog Group’s annual “Top Hospital” designation for delivering the highest quality care:

• by preventing medical errors,

• reducing mortality for high-risk procedures like heart bypass surgery,

• and reducing hospital readmissions for patients being treated for conditions like pneumonia and heart attack.

The 2011 Top Hospital list was culled from a field of nearly 1200 hospitals that voluntarily and publicly report their performance by participating in the Leapfrog Hospital Survey, which focuses on three critical areas of hospital care:

1. How patients fare
2. Resources used to care for patients
3. Management practices that promote safety and quality

In each of the three areas, Leapfrog asks hospitals to report on nationally standardized measures so healthcare consumers can compare hospitals in their community and across the country.

University and other teaching hospitals, children’s hospitals, and community hospitals in rural, suburban, and urban settings were all represented in the 2011 rankings.

To learn more:

• A complete list of 2011 Leapfrog Top Hospitals and the survey results for all participating hospitals are posted on a website at www.leapfroggroup.org.