Community Annual Meeting 2005

Transcript of remarks from Elliot J. Sussman, M.D., President and CEO. December 7, 2005

Good evening and welcome.
An astronaut…a ballerina…an inventor…a bareback rider in the circus…the president…or a teacher!
What kind of future did you envision when you were young?

At age 5 or 6, the vision is somewhat primitive. As we progress in life, we refine our sense of our self. Our role models become more sophisticated. We come to know our interests and capabilities better. Opportunities present themselves—and we respond to some, let others go by, and do our best to learn from them all. Ultimately, we develop a concept of the bigger picture. We learn how our life decisions can have an impact on others and maybe even make the world a better place.

What was my future vision? I confess, I always believed I was going to be a physician. There’s a story in my family about my grandmother and her friends. When the others would brag about having a grandchild in medical school, my grandmother would pull out my photo and say, “He’s going to be a doctor, too!” I was only 9 months old. But can you see the obvious future doctor?!

By the time I was 5 or 6, medicine was my dream as well as my grandmother’s. I admired our family physician, Dr. Morris Monaloy. Every time we visited him, or he visited us—yes, Dr. Monaloy made house calls—I looked up to him, because like Marcus Welby, he seemed to help heal everyone he touched.

As I matured, I developed another fascination—large organizations and how they work. I was a 10-year-old who read The Wall Street Journal. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was putting together the pieces for my future: a physician leading a big, complex, not-for-profit health system.

I’m sure you can look back and see how your own future gradually came into focus. It wasn’t an accident. I’m a believer in the creative potential of the human race: What you can envision, you have the power to make happen.

It’s true for individuals and for organizations as well—and that’s what I will talk about tonight: the most creative group of people who comprise the most visionary organization I could ever imagine--Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network.

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Nearly 40 years ago, Leonard Parker Pool looked at The Allentown Hospital and envisioned what it might become when we “grew up”—a network of hospitals, health centers, physician practices and more, all working together to bring a new level of healing and hope to the people of the Lehigh Valley.

In the years since, just look at the visions we’ve brought to life: a comprehensive cancer center and regional heart center…pioneering clinical procedures…a whole new patient-centered way of providing care…and safety innovations that are in the forefront nationally.

And listen to the questions our Lehigh Valley Hospital visionaries are asking today. Hmmm…“How can we create a computerized system so that when a patient comes into the emergency room, caregivers can instantly access her vital information—not only anywhere in our network, but in any emergency room?” That’s Harry Lukens, our chief information officer.

“What are the real issues that keep our community from being healthier—and how can we overcome them?” That’s our community health team, launched by the late visionary, Dr. Mark Young, and led today by Dr. Jeff Etchason.

Our clinical teams of physicians and nurse specialists are asking things like: “Must a massive head injury cause permanent damage?” “Could lowering a patient’s body temperature help him recover from a stroke?” and “How can we help people with chronic diseases manage really well at home?”

Some of these questions are really visions, building on the work others have begun around the country and around the world. In other cases, our vision is entirely original, something that's not been done before—and Lehigh Valley Hospital will be the first to bring it to life.

Envisioning our future starts with imagination. But that is only the beginning. As powerful as a vision can be in creating the future, it takes planning, organization and determination to make it a reality.

It also takes resources. Lehigh Valley Hospital is known for its strong fiscal management. We’re also privileged to have a generous community that shares our vision and is willing to invest in it. The major fund-raising campaign we’re launching this year—called “Investing in Excellence Here at Home”—has some sterling examples of donors carrying on the tradition of Leonard Pool.

But ask me what’s most fundamental in creating our future and the answer is clear—it’s our people! That’s where the questions, and the ideas, and the planning, and the energy, and the determination all come from. The thousands of nurses, doctors and other colleagues at Lehigh Valley Hospital come to work sharing a great and common vision: to make an entire community healthy, and to provide the finest care for you and your family. And we are making it happen!!

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Nurses are on the front line of this visionary team. It’s quite simple. You can’t have a first-rate hospital without quality nurses. We are blessed with the nation’s finest. Take our Cedar Crest emergency department—they were named the best emergency nurses in the United States this year by Advance for Nurses magazine.

We’re a Magnet hospital, meaning we’re a magnet for the nation’s best nurses. This honor is earned in a strict judging process by fewer than 3 percent of hospitals nationwide. In fact, we were the first full-service Magnet hospital in Pennsylvania and are the only one in the Lehigh Valley. In a time of a continuing national nurse shortage, we attract and retain the best and brightest without the need for agency assistance. Mary Del Guidice, our new vice president of patient care services, was a manager in the nation’s first Magnet hospital, and she chose to leave there and come here. She’s helping lead a nursing team that now approaches 2,000 nurses!

We’ve also added nearly 100 physicians this year. Some, like Peter Fisher, our new chair of pathology, come from renowned teaching hospitals like New York’s Columbia Presbyterian. Others, like gynecologic oncologists Waleed Shalab and Marty Martino, are in high demand nationwide. There are only about 600 specialists in his field nationally, and we now have three in the region’s largest program.

Roberto Bergamaschi, our new chief of minimally invasive surgery, studied and practiced in France, England, Italy and Norway, and now calls Lehigh Valley Hospital home. He's the holder of our ninth and newest endowed chair, in colorectal surgery, named in honor of visionary surgeon Indru Khubchandani.
We also host an entire team of hospitalists, internal medicine physicians who are here in the hospital 24 hours a day to collaborate with your own doctor. In two years we’ve grown to 14 hospitalists.
Over the next few years, we envision our total hospital workforce growing from 8,000 to more than 10,000. Each time we expand our team, we look for people with vision and imagination—the kind neurosurgeon Chris Lycette, newly recruited from Los Angeles, California, demonstrated this year. In the space of a month, he used a highly unusual treatment to save the lives of two children seriously injured in separate auto accidents. Here to tell you more are pediatric intensive care nurse Lori Milot and Sue Coder, the mother of Kara, one of those children.

Lori Milot
Kara arrived in the pediatric intensive care unit after a car accident that caused numerous injuries, and severe head trauma was the most serious. The next ten days would be critical.

To give Kara the best chance of recovery, Dr. Lycette removed a portion of her skull so her brain had room to swell without causing permanent damage. At that time, we also used a new monitoring device on our unit--called Licox--to ensure that Kara's brain tissue was getting enough oxygen and was kept at the right temperature. Later, Kara was fitted with a special protective helmet.

We worked around the clock to support Kara and help her recover, and her family was right there with us. Her mom calls Kara her "care bear," so when Kara woke from her coma we gave her her own Care Bear to comfort her! Three months later, when Kara came back to have the skull segment reattached, we gave the family a bottle of sparkling cider so they could celebrate at Kara's ceremonial helmet-removing party.

Families thank us for our care, but the gift we get in return is so much greater. To see Kara walk back onto our unit smiling, laughing and telling stories about her new kitten is something we'll cherish forever.

Sue Coder
So much happened in those days after the accident, but what I remember most are the people who cared for us. People like Charles Orth, a chaplain, who calmed my nerves with his serenity…Dr. Lycette, who gave us confidence before Kara's surgery…Ernie Deeb, a nurse anesthetist who helped my son Dalton during the long waits at the hospital…Cory Black, a physical therapy aide who always made Kara smile…and Karen Brixus, who showed Kara how to style her hair after her surgeries.

Many years ago my father needed hospital care, and I remember the staff at those hospitals keeping a distance. I thought that's the way it had to be. But it's different at Lehigh Valley Hospital. The people here truly want to help other people. For that, my family is eternally grateful.

DR. SUSSMAN:
Thank you, Sue and Lori. We’re thrilled that Kara is doing so well, and equally pleased that Kevin Flynn, the other injured child, also is fully recovered.
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Who among us could envision caregivers of this caliber working in anything less than first-rate facilities? That’s what we’re determined to provide, and this year we unveiled the region’s most advanced hospital at Lehigh Valley Hospital--Muhlenberg. Behind that big blue H are an expanded Regional Heart Center, new centers for critical care and diagnostic care, and 188 beds in all-private rooms. Our enhanced Cancer Center means local people like Lester Eick of Bath, who received a life-saving second opinion from our specialists, can get the expert care they need close to home.

Another expansion is well under way at our Cedar Crest site. In August, we broke ground on a new seven-story patient tower, named for generous donors Charles Kasych Jr. and his sister, Anna Kasych. The Kasych Family Pavilion will house more than 150 new beds, including a 32-bed intensive care unit, new transitional open heart unit and expanded Regional Burn Center. In constructing it, we’re following the guidelines of the national Green Building Council. The project also includes three new parking decks and a medical office building designed for a team approach to patients with complex health problems.

With all the excitement at Muhlenberg and Cedar Crest, we didn’t forget Lehigh Valley Hospital at 17th and Chew this year. We expanded and renovated the inpatient hospice unit, and are in the process of adding two state-of-the-art orthopedic operating rooms. Demand there also has grown for our pediatric clinics, where visits are up 5 percent. Waiting times for well-child visits used to be 30 to 45 days. Then we started a program called Advanced Access—the first of its kind in a clinic setting nationally—that now lets parents call ahead and get an appointment within 3 days.

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A highly skilled staff, in up-to-the-minute facilities…our vision of quality care is coming into clearer focus, but we still need to give our team the perfect tools. That means staying on the leading edge of clinical innovation and health care technology. At Lehigh Valley Hospital, we’re there.

For example, our cancer patients now benefit from a combined PET/CT scanner that lets our specialists diagnose and monitor the stage of cancer and identify its exact location. And our new 64-slice CT scanner--the first in the Lehigh Valley--in minutes captures precise images of any area of the body.

In breast health, we're introducing digital mammography. We already exceed the national standard for early detection of breast cancer. This new technology will dramatically reduce waiting times and allow specialists—medical, surgical and radiation oncologists—to view images simultaneously and create even better outcomes.

In that award-winning emergency department I mentioned earlier, we’re using the T-System, a computerized medical record that means doctors and nurses can spend less time filling out paperwork and more time tending to patients. Our technology puts us in elite company--fewer than five percent of hospitals in the United States are using computerized physician order entry in the ED to its fullest extent, and we're one of them, creating faster, safer care for admitted patients.

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The final component in building a visionary hospital is creating a culture of innovation. What does this mean? Imagine you work at Lehigh Valley Hospital. Our Culture of Wellness program supports you in developing and pursuing your personal vision of fitness and health. And our Working Wonders program challenges and rewards you for envisioning a better way of doing things. This year, our employees came up with more than 100 ideas that improved our care and saved us more than $700,000.

Andy Brown is one of those visionaries. A clinical coordinator in respiratory therapy, he proposed doing a certain diagnostic test in-house, to make life easier for patients and cut costs. For his idea, he earned a reward—and guess what Andy did with it. He used the money to buy the machine one of his young patients needed to assist her breathing.

Andy knows the satisfaction of helping a patient envision a healthier life, and then helping her get there. We had a dramatic example of that in unit 4C recently. Days after Bernadette and Edward DeVito and family moved to our area from Georgia, Bernadette was hospitalized with a clotting disorder so serious, she lost her left hand. Staying by her side in the ICU for two weeks cost Edward his new job. When one of our nurses, Kim Bartman, heard that story, she and her 4C team took up a collection, held a bake sale, arranged a haircut and other services for Bernadette through our Youthful You Institute, and “adopted” the DeVitos for the holidays.

What makes our people so special? They all share a core ideology, something author Jim Collins calls a hallmark of visionary organizations. Our core ideology is our strong commitment to heal, comfort and care for our community—and “community” means our patients, each other, and you.

Wouldn’t you like to work alongside such visionary people? You’re not the only ones. Lehigh Valley Hospital ranks as the number one hospital and number two of all large employers among the Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania.
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The people, the facilities, the tools, the culture—they all add up to quality health care that’s recognized nationally. For the tenth straight year, U.S. News & World Report has named Lehigh Valley Hospital one of America’s best in five different care areas--digestive diseases, geriatrics, heart care and surgery, hormonal disorders and orthopedics. We’re also one of just four hospitals nationwide honored this year by the American Hospital Association’s Quest for Quality prize.
These days, if you want to find the hospital with the highest-quality care you can just go online and Google. That’s what William Schuck did when he learned he needed a risky combination of heart bypass and valve surgery. William, who enjoys biking with his son Bill in Manhattan, lives just outside the city, but a leading health quality website prompted him to head west for the highest “5-star” care. Coincidentally, around that time he struck up a conversation with an amateur painter in Washington Square Park, who turned out to be our very own urologist Brian Murphy. When he heard the name of Brian’s hospital, William said, “That’s where I’m coming for my surgery!” Dr. Ray Singer performed the procedure, and today the patient is bicycling again.

What do you envision when you think of “quality care”? Clinical programs are probably the first thing that comes to mind.

One of the most dramatic clinical innovations at Lehigh Valley Hospital this year is the Advanced ICU. It’s a high-tech command center staffed by specially-educated critical care doctors called tele-intensivists and critical care nurses who enhance the work of our bedside care teams. This “tele-intensivist” program and other new technologies give our ICU nurses 1 hour and 15 minutes more time every day for hands-on care.

How about this for envisioning new ways to do things: Our orthopedic specialists are doing a total shoulder replacement that reverses the usual ball and socket, solving the problem of a worn-out rotator cuff. They’re using a new artificial disc for people with spinal deterioration. And they’re treating spinal fractures with a nonsurgical injection of medical cement to stabilize the vertebra and ease the pain.

In heart care, the MI Alert program I told you about last year is expanding. MI Alert ensures that heart attack victims get an artery-opening angioplasty in 90 minutes or less. Now, we’re bringing this gold-standard care to hospitals in Carbon and Luzerne counties. When one of their patients needs angioplasty—as Ron Butz of Lehighton did this year—he’s flown here by MedEvac.

Our open heart surgery team boasts the best results in the entire commonwealth for the second consecutive year. We’re the only Pennsylvania hospital with lower than expected mortality both in-hospital and at 30 days, and with fewer readmissions at both seven and 30 days. Here’s one reason why—our “cardiac quality nurses,” a new career we invented with funding from the Dorothy Rider Pool Health Care Trust. Katrina Fritz and Patricia Parker make sure all heart patients get the treatments proven best for their long-term outcome.

Chronic disease is a major concern here in the Lehigh Valley and nationally. We’re developing a new approach called Community Care for Complex Illness to help the growing number of people with conditions like heart failure, diabetes and chronic lung disease. The program includes partnerships between family practices and advance practice nurses with expertise in caring for the chronically ill. It also includes a computerized registry to better track patients’ needs, a tool kit for physicians with disease management guidelines, home monitoring systems and community volunteering. The result is better care and happier people.

To help our children lead healthier lives, we’ve added many new faces to our pediatric specialty team. We now have two pediatric gastroenterologists, two child/adolescent psychiatrists, seven neonatologists and five neonatal nurse practitioners. We've also added a pediatric rheumatologist, pediatric hematologist oncologist, allergist and, starting early next year, a pediatric neurologist and a second pediatric surgeon. We’re planning long-term to concentrate our pediatric specialty and inpatient services on the same campus at Lehigh Valley Hospital to best serve the needs of the smallest members of our community. Finally, we’re creating an adolescent medicine program to provide the preventive health care so critical to the futures of young adults.

Imagine you’re pregnant and have a serious health condition--one that could jeopardize you and your unborn baby. It was a reality for Carolyn Thomas, who turned to maternal-fetal medicine specialist Wayne Hess. His team of six specialists offers care to moms with complicated pregnancies. They read the highest-level ultrasounds and even reach out long-distance to moms in outlying areas through computer technology. By next year, we will be the only hospital in the United States offering these services by perinatal specialists stationed in the hospital around the clock. Carolyn feels fortunate to have her team right here--you’ll learn why now as she and Wayne tell her story.

Carolyn Thomas:
I worked in human resources, Joe worked in the plant. One day, my boss called me to fix a problem with Joe’s paycheck. I didn’t realize he was really playing matchmaker…until I saw Joe’s smile and blue eyes. It’s no surprise we dated, got married and started dreaming about a family.

When I became pregnant, we were overcome with joy…and fear. I have cardiomyopathy, meaning my heart doesn’t pump normally. The stress of pregnancy and labor could be life-threatening. I needed the very best care…and that’s when another very important man entered my life: Dr. Hess. The first time we met, we talked for two hours.

Wayne Hess:
Our medical team needed to learn everything about Carolyn and her heart. We researched her history, talked to her previous doctors and monitored her closely. We met with her cardiologist, Dr. Bruce Silverberg, and everyone who could possibly be involved in her delivery. Nurses, respiratory therapists, anesthesiologists, critical care doctors, newborn specialists—together, we planned for every scenario.

Carolyn would need a Cesarean section due to her obstetrical and heart problems. But should she keep taking her heart medication? If not, her heart could stop, but if so, her baby’s kidneys could fail. Carolyn, Joe, Bruce and I talked it over and agreed to continue the medication at a lower dose.

On delivery day, everyone was there including a maternal fetal specialist—just as they are for every high-risk mother at Lehigh Valley Hospital. We’re one of the only hospitals in the country with this kind of program, and it made the difference in Carolyn Thomas’s life.

Carolyn:
It was Dec. 16, 2003 and I was petrified. Dr. Hess had given me his home phone number just in case. Well, I called in a panic, and he comforted me. Then I was in the delivery room, my husband holding my hand and the anesthesiologist stroking my hair, telling me, “Everything will be all right.”

I’ll never forget the moment I heard my baby’s first cry. In fact, we both cried as I said, “Oh my God, he’s perfect.”

My husband and I aren’t the only ones who celebrated little Seth, the new love of our life. Dr. Hess and Dr. Silverberg interrupted their vacations to visit us often in the hospital. We still visit them to show them how well our son is growing. We suspect he’ll grow into golfer someday - just like his Dad. It’s comforting to know that if we have another little one, the team will be there for us again.

DR. SUSSMAN:
Thank you, Carolyn and Wayne.
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We’ve talked about the clinical side of health care, but at Lehigh Valley Hospital we know the human side is just as important. That's why our caregivers always keep in mind what it feels like to be the patient. We’re working hard to create the "ideal patient experience." We call that process service excellence, and our dedication to it has made us a national pioneer in delivering patient-centered care.

Can you imagine room service in the hospital? We did! At Lehigh Valley Hospital—Muhlenberg, you can order food from a restaurant-style menu. In that hospital you get added comfort from art displays, private rooms and lots of natural light.
Because the families of patients need care, too, we’ve expanded visiting hours in the neuroscience ICU. Research shows families are less anxious when they can visit on their schedule. And we’re developing a new computerized system in the surgery waiting room to give families constant updates on their loved one’s progress.

How can you best support a person whose life is drawing to an end? Heather Ward, an ICU unit coordinator, faced that question last year. A patient receiving end-of-life care had no one to visit her, so Heather spent hours sitting with her and giving her comfort. That simple act inspired our palliative care team to create a program training volunteers to stay at the bedside with dying patients. It’s called No One Dies Alone.
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You’ve just heard about a whole range of patient care programs that we’ve brought from vision to reality this year. Patient care is only part of the picture at Lehigh Valley Hospital. Imagine us as a tricycle—my personal favorite vision of our health network. The smaller rear wheels symbolize education and research; they help power the larger front wheel of patient care. When all three turn together, we can journey anywhere.

Court crier Robert Kosharek of Allentown knows the value of research. When his heart stopped in January, he slipped into a coma. With a new device called Arctic Sun, neurologist John Castaldo lowered his patient’s body temperature, allowing him to make a full recovery. We’re one of just six hospitals nationwide conducting final research on Arctic Sun, a device that’s also saved the life of Bob Johnson of Bechtelsville this year.

Our research teams are studying other key questions, like: “Can partial breast irradiation create a faster and potentially better cancer treatment?” “Is stenting or endarterectomy better for clearing a blocked carotid artery?” and “What are the best ways to reduce hospital-acquired infections to the lowest rate possible?”

As a teaching hospital, we’re helping educate physicians throughout our region. More than 440 of our medical staff are on the faculty at Penn State University College of Medicine, and 185 future physicians took part in our 11 residency and 3 fellowship programs, and 3 integrated fellowships in partnership with Penn State. For the current academic year, we’ve further increased the size of our residency programs by adding 40 more funded residency positions!!

Our vision of education also extends into the community. New this year is Heart Help for Women, a program that teaches women and their doctors about heart disease risk factors and symptoms. Many women don’t realize heart disease is a greater risk to their health than all cancers combined.
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How does Lehigh Valley Hospital manage to provide award-winning patient care, research and education given the fiscal crunch affecting all hospitals today? One key strategy is to operate as efficiently as possible. For more than two years, we’ve had computerized programs in place to expedite patient transfers and discharges, and electronically track the status of every hospital bed so it’s cleaned promptly for the next patient. Colleagues from hospitals around the world visit to see how we accomplish innovations like these.

Initiatives designed to ensure patient safety—for example, computerized physician order entry and bar-coded medications—make our operations more efficient, too. Our new Capacity Throughput Council is dedicated to finding even more process improvements to help us become even better.

We also pay close attention to costs. For the past 10 years we’ve compared our expenses against those of similar-sized hospitals. According to Solucient, a leading health-care information service, our costs are lower than nearly three-quarters of hospitals our size.

Lehigh Valley Hospital is financially solid, as evidenced by our bond ratings, which were upgraded this year to A1 and A+. As we develop our five-year plans and forecasts, we’re committed to staying financially solid. Our Board of Trustees—my boss—plays a major role in ensuring our fiscal success, offering keen insights, personal support and stewardship, for which I’m personally grateful.

Fiscal strength is what allows us to invest in new programs and facilities like the ones I’ve described tonight, to better meet your needs.

It’s what allows us to reach out to people like Bruce Minarik of Coopersburg, a caterer who suffered severe burns this year. Through our generous uncompensated care program, we were able to help him with the full cost of his treatment.

Finally, fiscal strength is what allows us to pursue our vision of a healthier community. This year, we invested a record $84.1 millio n in community service. Helping to lead the way in that commitment is Dr. Jeff Etchason, who comes to us from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta as our new chair of community health and health studies.

Lehigh Valley Hospital already has strong programs in underserved areas, including some of our city neighborhoods. For example, our Center for Women's Medicine at Casa Guadalupe and our Family Health Center at The Caring Place in Allentown are specially designed to care for people regardless of their ability to pay. We've also launched a task force charged with developing new ways to help people access quality health care services. Our vision is to partner with other community groups and health care providers to create a healthier Lehigh Valley for all.

Last year, Dr. Edgar Maldonado spoke here about Centro de Salud, our bicultural and bilingual internal medicine practice. It now features two physicians and a physician assistant. Nearly 600 patients call Centro de Salud their medical home, and the no-show rate of 19% is the lowest of any of our community practices. To reach out to Latino patients in all our community practices, we’re expanding our team of medical interpreters and increasing our bilingual staff. In Lehigh Valley Physicians’ Practice, the proportion of bilingual staff has risen from 18 to 62 percent.

As our population grows and diversifies, we’re extending our message of wellness into new geographic areas. A good example: Northern Lehigh Lean, a program for overweight adults. Through four-month sessions of weekly nutrition and fitness classes, the program's 55 participants lost a total of nearly 150 pounds.

One of the best ways to create a healthy community is to start early in life. That’s why we have so many programs for children and teens. A few examples:
Safety Town, a fun way for young children to learn about bike, seat belt and burn safety
HEY—Let’s Talk About Asthma!, a program teaching fourth-graders how to recognize and prevent asthma attacks
Take Back Our Children, an ALERT initiative to prevent drunk driving during prom season

We’re also part of the Child Advocacy Center of Lehigh County, working on behalf of child abuse victims. And our exhibits at the new Da Vinci Discovery Center are getting middle- and high-school students excited about potential careers in health.

Northampton County residents of all ages pursued a healthier vision of themselves this year through Communities on the Move. This friendly competition challenged teams to “walk” the distance to the Fiji Islands and back. A total of 389 participants logged 61,000 miles!

Community service isn’t just an organizational mission at Lehigh Valley Hospital—it’s personal, for individuals throughout our system. Information services specialist Steve Brescia and several of his colleagues serve meals and offer friendship at Daybreak, an Allentown center for people in need. Psychiatrist Laurence Karper works with the Allentown Rescue Mission, and piloted a treatment and support program there for homeless men who are drug-addicted. Plastic surgeon Walter Okunski has volunteered his services at the Easter Seals cleft palate clinic for 35 years.
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In everything we do, our goal is to help you achieve the vision of your life, exactly the way you want it to be. More than a year ago, Martha Hotaling of Bushkill knew what she wanted, including marriage to the man she loved. Then she caught a case of the flu beyond anyone’s worst imagination. Here's Martha and two of her visionary caregivers—tele-intensivist Dr. Matthew McCambridge and nurse Eileen Palmer—to tell us more.

Matthew McCambridge
Martha came to us after passing out on her bathroom floor. She had a 104-degree fever and was sweating through her clothes—with flu complications so severe that at one point in the hospital, she stopped breathing and her organs shut down. I was watching Martha from our remote ICU when it happened. As a tele-intensivist, I use sophisticated audio and video equipment to monitor critically ill patients, and help their on-site care teams respond appropriately and promptly. In the space of 24 hours, Martha received 149 life-saving interventions, including a heart catheterization and surgeries on her arms and legs to relieve deadly pressure. She was on life support for two weeks while her body fought off the virus.

Eileen Palmer
Slowly, Martha began to recover. But it wasn’t easy. The incisions on her arms and legs were extremely painful, she needed kidney dialysis and she had to learn to walk again. As I watched Martha blossom back into a strong-willed young woman, I knew she could do it. After all, she needed to walk down the aisle on her wedding day. In addition to monitoring her vital signs and test results to ensure there were no new infections, we also attempted to make her comfortable. It isn’t easy to feel like a woman when you’ve lost a lot of your hair due to surgery and kidney dialysis and are hooked to a ventilator and IVs. I washed and braided her hair and talked to her about her future, her dogs, and of course, her wedding. She’s a special lady.

Martha Hotaling
I am still in awe at how far I’ve come. It was hard losing 40 percent of my hair, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to people staring at my scars. But I’m alive and able to enjoy all the things I love – horseback riding, surfing and spending time with my husband, Ken. I can’t thank Eileen, Dr. McCambridge and all my caregivers enough. I’m a honeymooon concierge in the Poconos, so I know hotels. For me, Lehigh Valley Hospital is the Waldorf Astoria.

DR. SUSSMAN:
Thank you, Martha, Matt, Eileen and the entire care team who helped restore this young woman’s future.

And now, as we wrap up our meeting tonight, let's do some envisioning together. Imagine all of us, here together next year. Imagine the kinds of things you’ll be hearing about that have happened in our health network in 2006.

The steel will be in place for the Kasych Family Pavilion at this time next year, and we’ll be looking ahead to opening a vibrant new building! We’ll be announcing exciting new faces who will have come into our network to help move our vision forward. No doubt, there will be new honors to celebrate, and new personal stories to inspire us.

Some of the things we’ll hear about next year are just the beginnings of ideas now. See if you can join me in imagining them…A virtual reality program to ease the pain for young burn victims…a completely smoke-free hospital campus…a Cancer Survivor Center to help people when their treatment ends and their life begins anew…a new kind of outreach program for women who need a mammogram but can't even afford to get there…a Complex Spine Center for advanced treatment of spinal injuries…expansion of our tele-intensivist program throughout the region…a powerful way to help employers help their employees prevent heart disease.

Let's go further and further. Why not imagine the end of family violence…tobacco use… childhood obesity…type 2 diabetes…cancer? What would it take?

I know what I'm envisioning for myself, for our hospital and for our community. What about you? What can you envision? What you can envision, you have the power to make happen.

Thank you, and good night.

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