NLH Gastroenterology campaign gets National nod from American Hospital Assoc. Posted on May 3, 2016 by Dakota PikeThe American Hospital Association’s Matthew O’Connor reached out to Littauer after hearing about our gastroenterology campaign – his story is in the this months issue of the associations Health & Hospital Networks.Using Humor to Address a Serious Health Care ConcernNathan Littauer Hospital in upstate New York uses silly pint glasses, puzzles to help improve colon cancer mortality rates.May 3, 2016Matt O’ConnorUnable to make a dent in colon cancer patients’ mortality rate through traditional means, a small hospital in upstate New York is adding a new ingredient to its approach: humor.The 74-bed Nathan Littauer Hospital found its home county of Fulton was near the national average for incidence, but had a higher than average mortality rate. Leaders there decided to look at their gastroenterology department, and specifically its colonoscopy procedure — or lack of procedures in this case. They staffed up from one gastroenterologist to three and opened a new endoscopy center, but something was still missing.“Everyone knows that nobody wants a colonoscopy,” says Laurence Kelly, president and CEO of Nathan Littauer Hospital, in Gloversville, N.Y. “We said, ‘Let’s do something different and creative to get people’s attention,’ and it certainly has worked.”That’s where their humorous colonoscopy initiative comes in. Patients who schedule a colonoscopy receive a notepad filled with quizzes, puzzles and a space to write “a haiku about #2” for their frequent trips to “the office.”The real draw is that each patient who schedules a colonoscopy gets a pint glass with tick marks to help measure out his or her laxatives for the procedure. It also makes a great beer glass for later.The program is only five months old, but many are optimistic it will help to bring the hospital’s colon cancer rates down, including Nathan Littauer gastroenterologist Kamini Ramani, M.D., who some patients call “Dr. Innerds” because of the logo on the pint glass. “I’m hopeful we will reach our goal and at least get near the national standard,” she says.Hospitals don’t often employ humor to tackle such serious issues, but Kelly believes it has made all the difference. “Listen to ideas that are out of the box,” he says. “You think your usual efforts will work: this is science, this is medicine, it’s preventive and the right thing, so people would say, ‘Yes, sign me up’ — but it just doesn’t work that way.”
Primary Care Saves Lives Posted on April 26, 2016April 28, 2016 by Dakota PikeAnother Happy Patient!Simply put: Nathan Littauer’s Primary Care saves lives. Listen to Mary Ann Bausewein, RN as she explains a patient’s encounter at our Mayfield Primary/Specialty Care Center… April 2016
Wellness Words April 2016 Posted on April 12, 2016April 12, 2016 by Dakota PikeHealthLink Littauer’sWELLNESS WORDSSubmitted by Carol Tomlinson, RN BSCommunity Health EducatorSAY YES TO LIFE!Become An Organ, Eye & Tissue Donor Organ, eye and tissue donation may not be the most popular topic, but it is one that saves thousands of lives every year. There is no age limit to becoming a donor. In fact, the oldest donor was 93! Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be in perfect health. Except in the case of kidney donations, your eligibility to donate organs or tissues won’t be determined until after your death. According to the Center for Organ and Tissue Donation, there are currently over 100,000 patients waiting for life-saving transplants in the U.S. Every 14 minutes, another name is added to the waiting list and an average of 18 people die every day due to a lack of transplantable organs. One donor can save or enhance the lives of up to 50 people. Today the heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, small intestines and pancreas can all be transplanted in individuals whose own organs are failing. Tissues that may be donated include bone, heart valves, skin, cartilage, tendons, veins and corneas.Some examples of the uses of tissue donation include:Donated bone can prevent amputation for bone cancer patients.Tendons and cartilage can replace tissue lost or injured due to trauma, disease or infection.Veins can be used to reestablish blood circulation after bypass surgery which can prevent heart attack.Donated skin may be used to help save severe burn victims.Heart valves have the ability to “grow” in younger patients, reducing the need for repeat surgeries.Cornea recipients are often given the chance to see for the first time.Truths about becoming a donor to remember include:People of any age can become donors.Registered donors receive the same care in hospitals as non-donors. The medical staff trying to save lives is completely separate from the transplant team.Most major religions in the United States do not prohibit organ or tissue donation.Donation does not prohibit an open-casket funeral.There is absolutely no cost for donation.How do you sign up to become an organ, eye and tissue donor? It’s simple!Go online to health.ny.gov/donatelife and choose the option that is best for you.Call the New York State Donate Life Registry at 1-866-693-6667.Tell your family and be sure they are aware of your decision so they can support your wishes.YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Registering to be an organ, eye and tissue donor is one of the finest and most unselfish humanitarian actions you can take. Why not take the time now to declare your wish to give the gift of life?For more information, call HealthLink Littauer at 736-1120. You can e-mail us at healthlink@nlh.org, see our website at nlh.org, or visit our new wellness center at 2 Colonial Court in downtown Johnstown, Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. We’re your community health & wellness service of Nathan Littauer Hospital and Nursing Home.
Gazette story features Littauer provider Melissa Bown Posted on April 8, 2016 by Dakota PikeUNUSUAL TIMINGFlu season running late this year in Capital RegionBy Vanessa Langdon/For The Daily Gazette, April 6, 2016 Littauer Photo by Sara SchrumMelissa Bown, employee health/infection prevention manager at Nathan Littauer Hospital in Gloversville, pictured, expects the late flu season to die down in the next couple of weeks. CAPITAL REGION — Winter started late this year and so did the flu season, according to Megan Helmecke, infection preventionist with Albany Medical Center. The late season flu hitting the Capital Region is more unusual in its timing than its severity, she said.“We had a high level of confirmed flu cases in the last weeks and [it’s] starting to decrease in the last couple of days,” she said.The late uptick in flu cases has been reported statewide.“We really didn’t see flu cases pick up until early February,” Helmecke said. “Seems to be we peaked in mid-March, which seems to be the same that New York state is reporting.”The late season flu is being felt in area schools, too.“Like the snow we saw yesterday [that] we usually see in February, it’s just hitting later than usual,” Robert Hanlon, a spokesman for the Scotia-Glenville School District, said Tuesday referring to Monday’s snowfall.Similar to what’s being reported at local hospitals, the district is starting to see relief.“We usually see this level in mid February — it kind of peaked last week and now we’re seeing it drop back off,” he said.Hanlon said that this peak is nothing like the situation they saw during the swine flu outbreak.“What we ran into with swine flu is half of a classroom would be out. It’s kind of spread out all over the place now,” Hanlon said. “Schools aren’t even required to keep track of their numbers — the only time schools were required to track numbers were [during] the swine flu.”The outbreak at Scotia-Glenville has not required the district to do any special cleaning.“It wasn’t across the board so we didn’t do anything more than we normally do, nothing intense, nothing with special chemicals or anything like that,” he said.“With the flu you have to just burn it through you and recover.”This late season flu is a strain that is protected in the vaccine, according to Helmecke, so the spread should be controlled.“People don’t usually think of the flu in April but with the late onset, the peak is at a different time period,” she said.At Nathan Littauer Hospital had only had nine confirmed cases of flu this season but they have heard about a late-season outbreak in the community.“I had heard of some reports that our Lexington Community Houses had an outbreak of the flu,” said Melissa Bown, employee health/infection prevention manager at Littauer. The Lexington houses are state-run group residences for people with disabilities.According to the state reports, the 2015 peak for the flu occurred about the first week in January for hospitalized patients and the last week of January for out patients. This year the peak was the third week in March for the state, said Bown.“I would say we would start to see it die down overall in the next week or two and it’ll continue down,” she said.“We should get another couple weeks of it and then we should be in the clear.”
The Gazette features NLH Gastro campaign front page Posted on April 5, 2016 by Dakota PikeTrying to bring a little humor to the process, anyone getting scoped at Nathan Littauer’s endoscopy facility gets a complimentary pint glass scaled with markings o measure out their laxative. Afterward, it makes an ideal beer mug.Bringing humor to a serious issue:Fulton County aims to boost colonoscopy participationBy John Cropley March 30, 2016 FULTON COUNTY — Fulton County is in the odd position of having roughly the same incidence of colon cancer as the rest of the state but a much higher death rate.A variety of factors may be at play, but health care administrators, regulators and providers agree the most likely cause is the low rate at which county residents are screened for cancer. So the local hospital has been taking steps to make it easier to get a colonoscopy, and taking steps to convince people to go ahead and get it done.Nathan Littauer Hospital’s endoscopy office in Johnstown, which marks its first anniversary in April, is seeing 20 patients a day, more or less clearing the months-long backlog that existed when the only place to get a colonoscopy in Fulton County was at the hospital in Gloversville.Colonoscopies can save lives, but they’re nobody’s idea of fun. The procedure requires the patient to skip several meals, drink a gallon of laxative, and then be sedated the next day and examined with a tiny camera mounted on a long slender tube that’s inserted in the rectum.Some may find it embarrassing.So Littauer is spiking its outreach campaign with a bit of humor. Anyone getting scoped at Littauer gets a complimentaryscaled with markings to measure out their laxative. (In happier times, it makes a spiffy beer glass, too.) And the procedure will be performed by the Innerds, “nerdy about your innards for nearly 100 years.” (The three doctors pictured on the beer glass are approaching a century in practice, in total.)A pencil and a humorous little work pad to use while sitting in the bathroom round out the package.Patrice McMahon, Littauer’s vice president of primary/specialty care services, was previously the administrator for a gastroenterology practice, so she had a lot of experience with hesitant patients.“I knew the biggest way people would deflect their discomfort over it was through humor,” she said. This colored the hospital’s outreach.Dr. Kamini Ramani, one of the at the new Kingsboro GI Center, said she performs 1,600 to 1,800 colonoscopies a year and considers it a crucial tool to save lives.“It is still probably not being done as much as I would like to see it done,” she said.It’s a safe procedure for most patients, Ramani said, with physical damage resulting to the colon about once every 3,000 times under ideal conditions. The risk rises under less-than-ideal medical conditions, so in some cases non-invasive tests such as CT scans are substituted for colonoscopy.Ramani said the CT scan is good for detecting larger and cancer, but not as accurate as a colonoscopy for identifying precancerous problems. Early diagnosis is key to successful treatment, she said, because colorectal cancer takes a long time to develop but once it does it is a tough opponent to fight.“We do try to convince people that doing a colonoscopy is a good idea,” she said. “Many patients don’t know that they can have this done, and they should be having it done.”From 2008 to 2012, an average 49.6 men and 38.1 women out of 100,000 were diagnosed with colorectal cancer statewide, according to the state Department of Health, compared with 48.5 men and 48.6 women in Fulton County. (The rates are adjusted in the case of Fulton County, which has fewer than 100,000 residents.)In the same period, DOH statistics show 17.8 male and 12.8 female deaths from colorectal cancer statewide per 100,000 population, compared with 23.9 male and 16.5 female deaths in Fulton County.“Our effort is in response to that,” McMahon said.Littauer for years had a single gastroenterologist and two endoscopy rooms. The backlog for colonoscopies was six to 12 months, McMahon said, and many people in the hospital’s service area lacked money, transportation or motivation to travel elsewhere for quicker access to the procedure.“When you’re not screened, you don’t have the opportunity to find that precancerous polyp,” McMahon said.Littauer set out to recruit a second and third physician — Dr. Luz Alvarez and Dr. Hamid Azizur Rehman, both previously in Amsterdam — and outfitted a new site for them to work, a former Littauer ambulatory care center on South Kingsboro Avenue Extension in Johnstown.In April 2015, the Kingsboro GI Center began operations three days a week. Two nurse practitioners work there with the three doctors, and they perform about 20 procedures a day. The endoscopy rooms at the hospital remain in full-time use, typically for patients unable to leave the hospital.The co-payment at the Kingsboro GI Center ranges from $50 to $100, depending what insurance the patient has.Ramani said the colonoscopy is part of a larger picture. Healthy diet and lifestyle on the part of the patient reduce the risk of colon cancer. Rectal exams and feces tests by the family physician during the annual checkup are important for early detection, as the colonoscopy is recommended only once ever 10 years starting at age 50 for the general population.Nathan Littauer’s efforts are mirrored in the statewide public awareness campaign by the New York Department of Health to get more people to undergo colorectal cancer screening. A DOH spokesperson said the lower-than-average screening rate in Fulton County is a likely factor in the higher-than-average death rate.In 2013-2014, the most recent years for which data are available, the colorectal cancer screening rate in Fulton County was 59.3 percent, compared with 68.7 percent statewide, according to DOH. Surrounding counties had higher screening rates and lower death rates, DOH noted.The state goal is 80 percent screening statewide by 2018.McMahon cited the previously limited colonoscopy options for Fulton County’s disparity with its neighbors.“If you put up a barrier and people really have to pursue it, it’s going to fall by the wayside,” she said. “Those barriers were here and now they’re not.”