InsideRefuah Health Center

Inside
BEHIND-THE-SCENES OF THE
REFUAH HEALTH FAIR
This past July, the so-called “lightbulb” went off with the
idea of having a back-to-school health fair for the community. What a great way to communicate important
information about fall health issues, as well as helping
to build the trust and rapport between the Refuah staff
and our patients.
Volume 2 | Issue 4 | September 2009
Refuah Health
Center
BEN BRUKNER JOINS REFUAH TO
OVERSEE ELECTRONIC CONVERSION
Stemp Systems Group has been engaged to
serve as the consultant CIO for Refuah. As Chief
Information Officer, Ben Brukner joined by Rachel Merk, will work with Refuah staff in all departments to manage the implementation of
eClinicalWorks.
Here’s a behind-the-scenes look into the making of our
health fair:
Set the location, time and date. There was actually
much discussion on these core factors because of the
construction at Refuah. We had to determine if there
would be enough room in the Refuah parking lot for
the fair, or would we have to look into a different space.
Jay Burd and Pinny Ostreicher were instrumental in
mapping out an actual floor plan for the event – identifying a lane for traffic to accommodate the Aim moms
and babies, and determining how the booths should
be configured. Timing was also key – we moved the
time of the fair several times – but settled on an afternoon fair to accommodate the local boys who would
be in school earlier in the day.
Fidelis: We approached the Fidelis marketing team to
inquire about a possible sponsorship of the health fair.
They were enthusiastic and supportive from the start,
and we had several planning meetings during July and
August. The health fair appealed to Fidelis because it
met one of their goals – to get patients up-to-date
on their immunization. By getting children immunized
right at the fair, we were able to work towards this goal.
The health fair also provided a fun atmosphere to inform families about a wide variety of health matters in
a single location. We worked with Fidelis as a true team
– with their representatives meeting with us regularly
in the planning stages, and also offering to provide
great give-aways and create the outdoor banner.
Police: Early on, we met with Aron Kaff,
continued on page 3
Refuah employees getting trained for the new
electronic records system.
continued on page 2
inside this issue:
From the Desk of Mrs. Sternberg
Dr. Manini meets Dr. Parness
Ask the Doctor, Mishpacha Magazine
Free computer equipments available!
New employees
Refuah Trivia
From the Desk of
Mrs. Sternberg
Dear Refuah employees,
I hope you had a chance to attend our
Back-to-School Health Fair, held on August 30. This event, which was organized
over a six-week period, is yet another example of how our staff comes together
for the benefit of the community. As
you will read in our behind-the-scenes
article, there were many logistics to be
worked out, and many “hands on deck”
needed for the event to be a success. I
am so proud of our staff – from our physicians who provided families with essential fall health information, to our team
of organizers. Hundreds of children benefitted from this event – having learned
about proper dental care, school safety,
successful school behavior and the importance of getting up-to-date with
their immunization. Incredibly, over 100
immunizations were administered at
the Fair, exceeding all of our projections.
This accomplishment is a direct result
of the dedication exhibited by Dr. Ruth
Gershen and Karen Bergoff, as they provided the immunizations in a less than
an optimum environment.
Thank you to all who made the Refuah
Back-to-School Health Fair a success. I
look forward to future events in the year
ahead.
Sincerely,
Chanie Sternberg
Executive Director
BEN BRUKNER JOINS REFUAH
REFUAH HEALTH FAIR continued from page 1
eClinicalWorks will provide a foundation upon which
Refuah will develop processes to streamline all aspects
of patient care. This new software will replace all functions of Medical Master (Scheduling, Billing, etc.) and
will serve as a central repository for all patient medical records. When implementation is complete, eClinicalWorks will increase the accuracy and efficiency of
tracking patient and schedule information, maintain-
the community liaison for the police. He was incredibly important in reaching the police right away to ensure the
safety of people attending the health fair, and the people driving on Route 45 that day. This was a must as it ensured
that we not only had a fun, informational day, but also a safe one.
continued from page 1
ing clinical documentation and processing billing.
Over the next few weeks, eClinicalWorks will be installed on all computers. In November practice management training will be provided to all staff. We will
switch over from Medical Master to eClinicalWorks toward the end of November. During the coming weeks,
we encourage all staff to provide concerns and input
directly to Ben and Rachel, or through Brocha Reichman and Dr. Manini.
You can call Ben or Rachel at extension 437.
Refuah Staff: Dr. Manini was instrumental in contacting Refuah staff members and arranging their participation. The
response was terrific. We thank all the doctors, nurses and additional Refuah staff for spending their Sunday at the
health fair and for making it such a success. Without you, we could not have this fair!
Back
To
School
Fair
Refuah Health Center is fortunate to have Dr. Ira Parness join us this Fall. Dr. Parness, Professor of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai Medical Center, is a nationally recognized pediatric cardiologist, recently honored as one of America’s “Top Doctors.”
Q
A
Each patient
is the most
important
one. Treat
patients as
if they were
your own
family. I
once asked
my students,
“if a child in
your extended family
had a heart
problem,
would you
trust them to
yourself for
care?”
Recently, Dr. Corinna Manini interviewed Dr. Parness for our newsletter. We hope
you enjoy getting to know Dr. Parness with this article!
How did you decide this particular area within medicine?
I have always loved physiology and the heart’s basic physiology is well understand.
I also was intrigued by the vast complexity of congenital heart defects and our ability to “puzzle out” their complicated anatomy using non-invasive imaging. If one
learns the basic underpinnings, one understand how the blood gets distributed in
even the most complex congenital heart defects without having seen them previously. Lastly, I love taking care of the whole family; being involved in the long-term
follow up of patients from prenatal life to adulthood; and, being part of a specialty
in which so much can be offered for even the most challenging of problems.
Did you always know you wanted to pursue medicine? If not,
when did the “light bulb” go off for you?
When I was 9 and 10 years old, I had some minor surgery. My mother recalls vividly that I asked her if I could be both a doctor and a chazzan (like my father). She
answered, “why not?”. Sure enough today I do both! The moral of the story is obvious- always listen to your Mother!
Were there any particular cases where you beats the odds and
saved a child’s life?
This is what I love about pediatric cardiology. We almost always win. I just wish I
could take the “almost” out of that sentence.
If there was one motto – or belief that drives you to be the best
at what you do, what would that be?
Each patient is the most important one. Treat patients as if they were your own
family. I once asked my students, “if a child in your extended family had a heart
problem, would you trust them to yourself for care?” Every doctor should develop
the expertise and the bedside manner that would enable them answer that question in the affirmative.
How do you like to spend your time off from work?
I am still waiting to find some…Hah! The answer is, my precious “off time” is spent
with my dear family: My wife of 31 years, my married daughter and her husband,
my 2 younger daughters and my mother who lives just 3 blocks away. Shabbos
is the greatest of gifts. Shabbos is my and my family’s G-d given respite from the
unrelenting demands of a doctor’s life. Except when I am on-call I can look forward
to this spiritually healing time with my family, friends and community. I cannot
imagine my life without Shabbos.
What do you believe to be the greatest challenges facing physicians today?
I don’t think the greatest challenge ever changes. Being the best doctor you can be
and treating every patient as if they were your own family is easy to say but hard
to do when you are trying to juggle an impossible number of competing demands
for your time. It is a continual challenge not to lose sight of this, especially in this
era when we have to deal with difficult insurance companies and bureaucracies in
addition to the regular stresses of caring for many complicated patients.
Ask the Doctor,
Mishpacha Magazine
By Azriela Jaffe
Someone once told me that eating lentils and rice the night before a fast was a good choice, so I did that last year,
and what a disaster. I woke up with my blood sugar so low, I almost didn’t make it through the fast. What went
wrong? What’s a better alternative?
Dr. Morris is an internist at Refuah Health Center. Dr. Morris brings to Refuah decades of leadership in the field –
including appointments at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Hebrew University, Hadassah Hospital in Israel and
Associate Professor and Educational Director of Internal Medicine at Yale University. Dr. Morris graduated Alpha
Omeega Alpha from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He was honored by the Davidoff Honorary Society
for medical excellence. He has been a Fellow of the American College of Physicians for over twenty years. He has a
particular interest in challenging clinical syndromes and chronic disease.
Actually, beans and rice could have been a fine meal to eat before the fast, as the beans are high in protein, but
perhaps you ate too much rice with it. Rice in moderation before a fast may work, but too much rice will overload
your body with too Fatty foods and protein are absorbed slowly and decrease feelings of hunger.Thus, meat, fish,
chicken and vegetables before a fast are advised in moderate amounts. Avoid eating processed sugars (candy,
cake, cookies, and lots of bread) the night before the fast, but if you are craving dessert, fruit is fine. Carbs, especially too many all at once, cause an increase in insulin production and often causes more hunger several hours
after eating.
For someone who is healthy, you should not have low blood sugar in the morning. If you do have low blood sugar
when you first awaken, you should consult your doctor. It is possible that you have insulinoma which means a tumor that produces insulin. If you have diabetes and low blood sugar in the morning then it is because of too much
medication. If you are healthy, and you just developed symptoms of low blood sugar throughout the day during
the long fast, that’s not reason for alarm, but I can see why you’d be looking for the best menu to eat before the fast
to minimize those uncomfortable symptoms.
Low blood sugar can make you feel miserable. You could be sweating, your hands could begin to tremble, you
would have a rapid pulse and would be feeling very hungry. A more severe reaction to low blood sugar could even
result in a seizure. When you are in the midst of a serious low blood sugar reaction, your cells are not responding
to normal insulin levels, so, the body makes extra insulin until the body recognizes it. (By the way – Diabetes starts
when the body cannot make any more insulin.)
You didn’t say that you were diabetic, and I presume you would have mentioned that in your question, but for
those readers who are diabetic, be careful not to take too much medicine the night before the fast. The food intake
matters less than the amount of medicine in your body.
I hope your fast this year is lighter and less uncomfortable for you, and may it be meaningful.
Congratulations to Tracy Masciotta for guessing the answer to our August trivia question:
Name two employees who have been with Refuah
since we opened our doors.
The following employees have been with Refuah
since Day 1:
Susan Boccard
REFUAH NEW HIRES
The following employees have joined Refuah since
our last newsletter. Welcome!
Dr. Heera Chang
Renee Eckstein
Dr. Michael Hakimi
Nechama Frome
Dr.Jerrold Schwartz
Chanie Sternberg
Dr. Johannes Weltin
September’s trivia question:
Miri Krause
Rivka Sachs
Pessie Schachter
Frayde Schustal
Menacham Spilman
“How many policies and procedures does Refuah
currently have in place?”
FREE COMPUTER EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE!
Refuah is in the midst of an exciting, transformational upgrade of our health records to become completely
electronic over the next several months. This effort will revolutionize our health record department, ultimately benefiting our patients and helping us to become even more accurate and efficient in our care for them.
As part of this upcoming conversion, we updated many of our computers and are now in possession of several
hard drives, key boards, and mice which we are making available for free to our employees. No monitors are
available at this time and all Refuah data will be removed from the computers.
If you are interested, you will be required to sign a form, indicating that you are accepting the equipment asis. Any and all future repairs or servicing will be your responsibility and cannot be conducted by Refuah’s IT
department.
If you are interested and would like to learn more, please e-mail the HR department. There will be a minimum
of one computer per employee.
Refuah Health Center
728 N. Main Street
Spring Valley, NY 10977
845-354-9300