Danielle Cook’s oldest son was only 11 years old when he was diagnosed with stage three Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the immune system. “There was a huge sense of powerlessness and great sadness,” remembers Cook, a mother of three who worked for years as a cooking demonstration instructor in the Washington, D.C., area.
Cook, who now also works as a holistic nutritionist, relentlessly looked for answers in food. After months of making special recipes, she saw her son go from a “worn, depressed, tired kid to a healthy adolescent,” she says. Drawing from her experience, she founded Happily Hungry, a program that consists of cooking workshops geared towards hospitalized kids battling cancer and other illnesses.
Watch the video above to see how Cook helps patients and families deal with some of the negative side effects that accompany various medical treatments.
Tag: hospital
Introducing the Country’s First Hospital System to Achieve Energy Independence
With a revolving door of patients, high-tech equipment and extensive lighting and heating needs, hospitals and healthcare systems require a lot of energy to run — giving them a sizable environmental footprint. In fact, according to the Department of Energy, they have about 2.5 times the energy intensity and carbon dioxide emissions of commercial office buildings.
As global temperatures continue to rise, hospitals and health care systems need to prepare for a rapidly shifting climate. Just think back to Hurricane Sandy when hospitals needed patients to evacuate due to floods and power outages.
ThinkProgress reports that several hospitals, like in Maine and Massachusetts, are ramping up their efforts to combat climate change. But the Gundersen Health System — an extensive healthcare network comprised of clinics, hospitals, nursing homes and other services in 19 counties (Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota) and has more than 6,000 employees — has really stepped up to the plate.
Gunderson recently reached an environmental milestone: It now produces more energy than it consumes. If you check out the video below, the hospital system (headquartered in La Crosse, Wis.) relies on a whole slew of green energy sources — including a biomass boiler that burns wood chips from milling or forest residue, geothermal pumps that use the earth as a heating/cooling source, a solar thermal water heating system and wind turbines, as well as dairy digesters and generators to create energy from cow manure from farms.
MORE: This Amazing Home Creates More Energy Than It Uses
This eco-friendly behavior all started in back February 2008, after an energy audit discovered dozens of energy-saving opportunities. For example, by simply changing the lightbulbs, ballasts and other fixtures in six buildings, Gunderson saved $265,000 a year and energy use dropped 4.4 kilowatt hours annually — enough to power 440 homes. Simple things such as cutting use of 24/7 exhaust fans and implementing automatic shutoff times for the organization’s 8,500 computers also added up.
By the end of 2009, Gundersen says it was able to improve efficiency by 25 percent, resulting in more than $1 million in annual savings. Fast-forward to today: The hospital system’s energy efficiency has reportedly improved by 50 percent, which translates to $2 million in savings a year.
Gunderson has also distanced itself from gas, oil and coal and has frozen “all future investments in fossil fuels as part of an energy strategy that executives said will help ‘set the standard for environmental stewardship in healthcare,'” Modern Healthcare reports.
“We did not set out to be the greenest health system,” Gundersen CEO Jeff Thompson says in a statement. “We set out to make the air better for our patients to breathe, control our rising energy costs and help our local economy. We believe we have made more progress on all three than anyone else in the country.”
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DON’T MISS: Here’s How Colleges Are Leading the Green Revolution in Sports
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From Farm to Patient: How One Medical Facility is Rethinking Hospital Food
The words “hospital food” usually inspire thoughts of rubbery jello and syrupy fruit cups. But the St. Luke’s University Health Network in Easton, Pa. is doing its best to change that.
In the fall of 2013, it teamed up with the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to establishing organic farms and spreading organic practices, to establish a produce farm serving the hospital network. The farm’s harvest quota for this season (its first) was set at 44,000 pounds from five acres of tilled land; as of this writing, it’s is on track to exceed that amount.
The excess land used for the farm is part of the St. Luke’s Anderson Campus, the newest addition to the St. Luke’s hospital network. Opening its doors three years ago, the hospital itself covers about 40 acres – but in total, it owns 500 acres of land. The additional land was acquired, according to Anderson Campus hospital president Edward Nawrocki, as part of a long-term expansion strategy.
Last year, however, Nawrocki began looking for creative ways to use the extra real estate. Some employees suggested an organic farm, an idea that Nawrocki jumped on.
He contacted the Rodale Institute and spoke with executive director Mark “Coach” Smallwood. Coach started looking for a farm manager and quickly decided upon Lynn Trizna, a young woman involved in organic farming that Coach identified as “a farmer without a farm.”
Nawrocki, “Farmer Lynn”, and Coach picked a site for the farm and a smaller, five-acre parcel for the first season. Following organic practices, 12 types of produce— from tomatoes to kale to beets — were planted.
Often, ripe produce is picked in the morning, transported, prepared and served the same day.
“Health care in the past was about sick care. We got paid when people got sick.” says Nawrocki. “In the next decade, it’s going to be about keeping people well.”
But this change doesn’t come without challenges. The existing food vendor, Sodexo, has had to modify its food acquisition practices to incorporate the local produce since many of the items it sources already come prepared. Farmer Lynn and Nawrocki have taken a hands-on approach to working with Sodexo on menu modifications, something that the vendor’s staff is excited and proud of.
Currently, the Rodale Farm organic produce is served in the cafeteria, plus it’s also gradually being incorporated into the patients’ meals, as many are on restricted diets.
As the farm grows, Nawrocki and Farmer Lynn and Nawrocki are working to expand patient options. Both hope that other hospitals with land investments will adopt this idea, revolutionizing how food is prepared for those who need good nutrition the most. Who knows? Maybe in the future jello cups and prepackaged food will be seen in the same light as bloodletting today – an anachronism of a less sophisticated time.
The Next Big Thing in Controlling Infectious Disease Is in Your Fridge
Not all innovations are expensive or high-tech. Outside Philadelphia, a hospital turned to a cheap and simple solution for a complicated and common problem. Every hospital in the nation is working to prevent the spread of C. difficile, a dangerous infection that patients often pick up during hospital stays. It’s one of those things that make people fear going to the hospital, and make health care more expensive. But Holy Redeemer hospital found a grocery-store solution: yogurt. Dietitians encouraged potentially vulnerable patients to start eating yogurt, which contains healthy digestive bacteria. Infection rates fell by about two thirds, and the program earned an Innovation Award from the Hospital and Health system Association of Pennsylvania. It could be a big step toward cutting the 337,000 yearly cases of C. diff in U.S. hospitals.
The Checklist That Can Reform Healthcare
Behind the scenes, hospitals are transforming the way that doctors and nurses care for patients under the Affordable Care Act. The experiments that hospitals are trying out and small changes they’re making are less prominent parts the ACA, but Summa Akron City Hospital is showing off as an example of innovative implementation. Starting Jan. 1, the hospital will embrace a new business model. Medicare will pay the hospital one lump sum, upfront, for surgical procedures and any complications that surgery patients experience within 30 days of discharge. Currently, payments come based on procedures, not patients, so if a patient had complications and returned for another procedure, revenue grew. Under the new system, based on quality instead of quantity, the hospital could lose money if the patient needs to return, but would profit more from a successful procedure. As cardiologist Dr. Ken Berkovitz, explains it, “Everybody in the health care system gets rewarded for doing more, rather than rewarded for doing the right thing.” Meanwhile, some of the other seemingly simple changes are already making a difference; for example, did you ever think that a using checklist could be so innovative?
In Alaska, a Plan to Help Patients Brave the Winter and Get Medical Attention
Throughout the winter, plenty of people in the country face some troubles when challenging weather makes it tough to get to medical appointments. Sometimes it’s just a matter of braving the cold to make it to a checkup, other times it’s getting through heavy snow in an emergency or for crucial treatments. Alaskans, naturally, face some of the greatest challenges, given the state’s cold climate and expansive land area. Accessing care in Alaska isn’t just a problem of weather; key centers like the Anchorage Native Medical Center simply don’t have enough space to evaluate and treat the patients who travel there. Patients end up reserving about 100 nearby hotel rooms every night. The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium is stepping in to help by planning a new 170-room housing facility. The building will be connected to the medical center, and as Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium CEO Roald Helgesen explains, improving access means improving the quality of care.
Are Marketing Tricks the Secret to Making Healthier Choices?
Forrest General Hospital in Mississippi wants fewer heart patients. The hospital partnered with the American Heart Association to commemorate National Eating Healthy Day and the “My Heart, My Life” program, and they brought cafeteria revolutions to a new level. They didn’t stop at swapping out fatty, high-sodium foods for healthier options. And they didn’t stop at adding low-calorie and diet drinks. They took a marketing-minded approach, implementing strategic steps like rearranging vending machines to put the healthy options right in front of everyone’s faces. They connected with nearby colleges as well—students contributed recommendations based on the latest research, while chefs, culinary developers, and nutritional developers have been rotating in to create a well-rounded menu. The project became a comprehensive community-based program that can help people learn to make permanent diet changes.