Health
UKIAH, Calif. – On May 22, a beautiful baby girl, Yaretzi – Aztec for “will be loved forever” – Ramos, was born to Fabiola Ramos at the Family Birth Center.
This is a typical event on any given day at Ukiah Valley Medical Center. But for the Ramos family the day became anything but typical.
Upon further assessment of Yaretzi by pediatrician Paul H. Macdonald, M.D., it was determined that Yaretzi would need a pediatric echocardiogram.
“Newborns can be extremely vulnerable and I wanted to take necessary precautions to make sure her heart was functioning properly,” Macdonald said.
Initially this came as a shock to the Ramos family.
“Typically for this test we would have to transport the baby by helicopter or ambulance to the Bay Area leaving the family filled with anxiety as the mother recovers and the family prepares to make the trek down to San Francisco or Oakland to be with their baby. Just knowing the extra burden this puts on families helped UVMC’s administrative team make the decision to invest in the necessary training and equipment to make pediatric echocardiograms available at UVMC,” said Dr. Macdonald.
“The investment in the well-being and piece-of-mind of mothers and young families is worth the cost,” said UVMC Chief Executive Officer Gwen Matthews. “As the largest medical center in Mendocino and Lake counties, we want to make sure we are able to provide the services our community needs close to home.”
“Each of our adult echocardiography technicians recently went through training at the University of California Davis Medical Center,” said UVMC Echocardiography Supervisor Linda Tea.
“This training was comprised of observation studies of live pediatric echocardiograms being performed in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and outpatient radiology lab,” said Tea. “Our techs also went through extensive simulations demonstrating their competency on a state-of-the-art training mannequin before attempting the test on an actual pediatric patient. The pediatric echocardiogram can be performed on newborn infants to 18 year olds.”
As for her daughter being the first patient to have a pediatric echocardiogram done at UVMC, Fabiola Ramos said, “I am so glad we were able to do the test here [at UVMC]. I couldn’t imagine having to worry about Yaretzi being transported without me to [the Bay Area] and then having to worry about getting down there myself.”
Fortunately, the echocardiogram ruled out the need for any transport.
“I am so thankful for the care I received at UVMC and especially the nurses; Monica, Daisy, Maria and Dr. Macdonald – they are all angels who helped my little angel. I will forever be grateful to UVMC,” Ramos added.
In addition to pediatric echocardiograms, UVMC offers state-of-the-art diagnostic services including one of the most powerful MRI’s in Northern California, PET/CT scanner, CT scanner, nuclear medicine, digital x-ray, ultrasound, digital mammography, DXA scan, and other advanced diagnostic tests and procedures at two different locations: Mendocino Radiology and UVMC.
For more information on diagnostic imaging tests and procedures available at UVMC please call 707-463-7342.
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- Written by: Editor
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Sutter Lakeside Hospital has improved its ability to provide non-stop, around-the-clock intensive care unit (ICU) patient coverage in recent years by utilizing an electronic telemedicine network called eICU.
“Large city hospitals, and major university medical centers with 20-30 intensive care beds have physicians and specialists on-site to staff ICU shifts 24/7,” said Dr. Bunchong Kosolcharoen, known as Dr. Tony, the director of Sutter Lakeside Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, states.
“At rural hospitals like Sutter Lakeside, our resources are limited,” he added. “In order to provide the highest level of care, equivalent to university-level hospitals, we have instituted electronic remote monitoring at night. This ensures that quality patient care can be provided continuously by a whole team of doctors.”
From 4 p.m. to 7 a.m., doctors from around the North Bay area, including Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Marin General Hospital and Sutter affiliate California Pacific Medical Center, provide acute care of Lakeside ICU patients by observing them electronically.
These doctors can view patients at Sutter Lakeside visually, see patient charts, and look at electronic records, x-rays and test results remotely; physicians can even track Sutter Lakeside’s patients’ vital signs through an electronic stethoscope.
Kosolcharoen added, “The eICU is comprised of a big group of physicians from a variety of hospitals, including those outside the Sutter system, so we have the advantage of being able to draw from a very deep pool of knowledge and experience.”
Using high resolution cameras and telemedicine links, the eICU enables up-to-the-minute monitoring so that doctors miles away can write orders and ensure that patient care occurs in real time.
For example, should a patient’s heart stop at night, an alarm is triggered and the telemedicine team alerts nurses on duty at Sutter Lakeside to take immediate action.
“The eICU is a collaborative process where primary and staff physicians at Lakeside confer closely with CPMC doctors and ensure that established care plans are carried over before signing out. I like to think of this as a second-eyes process where the San Francisco staff serves as a backup for those of us at Lakeside every night,” explained Dr. James Pretorius, a hospitalist at Sutter Lakeside who works in the eICU.
“Another new feature allows doctors to have a two-way visual discussion with patients using a TV monitor rolled into the patient’s room on a robotic cart,” Pretorius said. “The Lakeside Emergency Room staff and the stroke team at CPMC are using this device today for personal, one-on-one visits with patients to observe their status. These and other high-tech systems enable us to provide an extremely high level of care.”
The Sutter eICU network monitoring system has become a model for the North Bay region. At Sutter Lakeside Hospital, it is one more way that the hospital can provide excellent care for patients and keep them close-to-home.
“We want to provide the best care possible for the whole patient. I ask myself if I would I want to be admitted to Lakeside’s eICU and my answer is definitely ‘yes.’ While technology alone cannot replace doctors, it does make information flow quickly so physicians at both locations can make timely, accurate decisions faster and more efficiently,” said Kosolcharoen.
To learn more about Sutter Lakeside, visit www.sutterlakeside.org/ .
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- Written by: Gary Quackenbush
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