[Inaudible].
I'm Dana Jay, and this is Henry Ford Health System News.
We bring you stories about how our team members are putting our values of
compassion, innovation, respect, and results into action.
We're starting this time in Clinton Township where crews are making progress on
the largest construction project at Henry Ford Macomb Hospital since the
1970s. Small ceremony,
big excitement as leaders and local dignitaries gathered at the Henry Ford
Macomb Hospital construction site for a celebratory turning of the dirt.
A construction crew broke ground in April on a five story patient tower
that will be packed with innovations in patient care.
When the new building opens in 2023,
visitors will pass through a brand new lobby on their way to
160 private patient rooms that can be converted to
manage critically ill patients.
The number of ICU rooms at the hospital will increase from 48 to
60. Once the tower is complete,
existing rooms will be converted to private rooms.
That will make Henry Ford Macomb Hospital the county's first hospital to provide
all private rooms.
Dr. Sam Kazziha is the physician champion on the project. So.
I think it's going to increase patient satisfaction as far as the stay in the
hospital, but medically speaking, it's even more important.
beside the fact from infectious disease point of view,
that you're decreasing the potential of transmitting diseases between two
patients in the same room.
I'm a past patient of, of leukemia.
And it means a lot to me to be able to have one single room,
a private room where your family can be there and help you through things.
And, you know, it's just, just that, that part's especially exciting.
Joie West is a member of the patient family advisory committee,
providing feedback on design.
She's also a member of the Board of Trustees in Clinton Township,
where the hospital is located.
I'm in getting into the, I should be retiring soon age,
and that's one of the key things my husband and I look for is where could we
retire, where we're going to be close to, uh, uh, close to a hospital.
She says the new tower will help accommodate Macomb county's growing and
aging population.
The $318 million expansion project represents the
largest investment by a health system in the county's history.
Financed entirely by capital funds and philanthropy the project is expected to
contribute to a 3.5% growth in healthcare jobs in
Macomb County by 2024.
The construction project is also expanding parking and the onsite power
plant. Every room in the new tower will have a window with a view.
The new tower is expected to be completed in 2023.
The conversion to all private rooms is expected to be complete in 2024.
Now let's go to Henry Ford hospital in Detroit where outstanding work is being
done in the clinical engineering department. Xenex,
the company that makes the germs zapping UV robots used in all of Henry Ford's
hospitals,
crunched the numbers and found that clinical engineer Quinton Stephens was
among the top Xenex certified technicians in the world.
I was really shocked. Um,
we do put in a lot of work hours with the Xenex because we have a lot here.
I was just really surprised.
He gets the award on a few different metrics that we use, uh, professionalism,
timeliness of repairs, quality of work,
and positive interaction with my case management team.
The representative from Xenex says Quinton's award represents the achievements
of the entire clinical engineering team at Henry Ford Hospital.
A handful of Xenex certified technicians are responsible for maintaining a fleet
of seven UV robots. Without that team,
the robots would have to be shipped to California for repairs.
The number one thing is, is timeliness of repairs, minimizing downtime,
and ensuring that those robots are disinfecting rooms and safeguarding the
patients and staff from these nasty pathogens and viruses.
This Xenex technology is used on units with the highest rates of infection.
Pulses of high intensity UV light are able to reach and disinfect
every surface. In Detroit alone our team has used the robots to
disinfect 90,000 rooms since 2017.
Okay, moving on.
So did you know that Henry Ford has a team of specially trained paramedics
that visit patients' homes?
They work with doctors to get patients advanced follow-up care so that those
patients can stay at home rather than going back to the hospital.
The team is adding a handheld ultrasound device to their toolbox.
The folks at the Henry Ford Innovation Institute are helping get this technology
in the field.
The Pocus or point of care ultrasound attaches to a cell phone.
It allows doctors to see remotely, but in real time,
what's going on in a patient's lungs.
This is especially helpful for patients with COVID, congestive heart failure,
and C O P D.
I consider, and many of the providers consider,
it to be vital in that we can keep many patients in their home where they tend
to be most comfortable, of course,
rather than having to sell them to the emergency department or actually readmit
them to an inpatient unit.
The great thing about this is that the provider can actually
direct the paramedic to move the wand left or right, or up or down,
or even change the density of the image. Like if I want get a better view of,
uh, the lungs and based on that direct the paramedic to then
say, you know,
we should administer drug Y to this patient and it will help
improve their lung function and we'll come back and reassess tomorrow.
The devices are also being introduced to residents at Henry Ford hospital.
They're learning to use them to do daily ultrasound on patients with COVID.
Let's wrap things up now, as we always do with the featured photo.
Here's the team at the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center in their grey
t-shirts for Brain Tumor Awareness Month. Get it grey T-shirts,
gray matter? We want to see what your team is up to.
Tell us what's going on or send us your photos at news tips at hfhs dot
org. In the meantime,
thanks for watching. And I'll see you around.