In the News

“People who have insulin deficiency or type one diabetes simply cannot live without this medication,” said Dr. Laura LaFave, a physician with Hennepin Healthcare.

“What we would want with the patient, if they decided to make that change, that would be a provider-patient decision for sure,” explained Mark Holtan, Specialty Pharmacy Manager at Hennepin Healthcare. “They may expect an adjustment period of going off one med and on another. You will always have that period of time where you’re sort of washing out of one medicine and adding a new one on.”

East Lake Clinic’s stated vision is to “transform the clinic into a place for trauma healing for staff and patients—transforming the health of our community by transforming the health of our clinic.”

“At times it can be a heady exercise, trying to wrap my head around the sheer number of individuals from all walks of life and ethnicities who come to East Lake Clinic with current and past traumas poorly affecting their mental and physical health,” says Dr. Ndidiamaka Koka in a reflection she wrote about the clinic’s transformation.

For Dr. Ann Kearns, it’s a lived experience and a scientific one. The longtime Mayo Clinic physician is now an endocrinologist at the Hennepin County Medical Center.

“Poison Control,” answers Renee Petroski, a poison information provider of 24 years.

“That’s the rewarding part about the job,” says Minnesota Poison Control  System director Samantha Lee, “caring that moms thank you so much. For us, it’s like a daily thing, hearing about babies eating butt paste and stuff. But for the moms who call, it’s their first time.”

When people call with a poisoning problem from home, adds Dr. Jon Cole, Minnesota Poison Control System medical director, “the vast majority of the time, we can safely keep you at home and avoid an emergency department visit.”

“When the cold wind blows, the sense of nose will flow,” Dr. John Sweet, medical director for the allergy clinic at Hennepin Healthcare, said. “The purpose of the nose is to warm and humidify the air before it enters down into our lungs to prevent irritation.”

Hennepin Healthcare is telling patients it’s experiencing high demand and longer wait times in its clinics and emergency departments. Allina Health has put out similar advisories for its hospitals citing a surge in flu, SRC and other seasonal illness cases.

A large percentage of Americans are not getting a good night’s sleep, in many cases because of a sleep disorder — and a growing number of Twin Cities companies are developing new technology to treat the issues.

Take sleep apnea. It is the top issue for U.S. sleep clinics, said Dr. Ranji Varghese, medical director for the Hennepin Healthcare’s Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center.

“It can be so disruptive to someone’s life,” Varghese said. Untreated sleep apnea can also increase risks for stroke, heart attack and hypertension.

“Every hospital that does pediatric care is saturated,” said John Hick, an emergency physician at Hennepin Healthcare, in downtown Minneapolis, which has 25 pediatric beds.

In Minneapolis, Hennepin Healthcare welcomed Leslie as its first baby of the new year. The health system says her parents, Ingrid and Walter, welcomed her to the world at 3:42 a.m.

Happy Birthday to Hennepin Healthcare’s first baby, Leslie. She came into Ingrid and Walter’s arms at 3:42 a.m.

Police and paramedics arrived to take the child to Hennepin Healthcare to be treated for her injuries.

Charles Sloan at Hennepin EMS says first responders are also preparing for a busy night. “We are expecting a pretty heavy call volume,” Sloan says. Hennepin EMS provides on-field medical services during home Vikings games. The organization will also provide medical services to fans, both inside the stadium and outside on the plaza.

“That’s on top of the normal calls we typically see on a Sunday night,” Sloan explained. “Pretty much every paramedic and EMT who is able to work is working Sunday night.”

When a person is shot, trauma surgeons like Dr. Derek Lumbard and his teammates at HCMC often have about 5 minutes’ notice that a patient is coming their way.

“Survival from the injuries is only the beginning,” he said. “If someone is still living, are you helping them thrive and actually live? Or is it good enough for them just to be alive?”

So Lumbard is also studying the longer-term effects of firearm injuries, and he participates in the Next Step program, the state’s only hospital-based violence intervention program.

Any of the 900 people so far served by Next Step can remain with the program indefinitely, said Kentral Galloway, the program’s director. They’re matched with job training, education or help finding suitable housing for a fresh start.

“It’s like a lifelong journey because we don’t really have a discharge,” said Galloway, who lost a cousin in a still-unsolved shooting in 2009.

“It just shows not just the patient but the family members of patients that there are people here for you,” said Jon Gayken, a burn surgeon at Hennepin Healthcare.

“The main risk is in exposing either people who are unvaccinated or who are otherwise at higher risk, so babies, pregnant people and older folks,” said Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn, an internist and pediatrician at Hennepin Healthcare’s downtown campus.

“Being able to take her home period is awesome because so many people were afraid she wasn’t going to make it because of how tiny she is. But she’s here now and it’s just awesome to be able to take her home,” said Demaria Witkliffe, Star’s mother.

Such upstream efforts attempt to stave off bottlenecks have become common at hospitals like Hennepin Healthcare, where people are stuck in emergency rooms because mental health treatment programs don’t have room for them, said Dr. Eduardo Colón Navarro, chief of the Department of Psychiatry.

Part of that educational process is recognizing that “if one puts aside their bias or stigma toward people with addiction and just look at the facts dispassionately, I think people will see there is an epidemic and we have the opportunity to save lives,” Dr. Charles Reznikoff, an addiction specialist at Hennepin Healthcare, told an editorial writer. “There are many ways to save lives, but making naloxone universally available is clearly one way to do this.”

“But it’s truly been in the past few weeks that we’ve seen it take off in the U.S.,” said Hennepin Healthcare’s Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn. “That’s also when we’ve been seeing cases in general go up locally.”