UW Health orthopedic surgeons will operate at SSM Health’s St. Mary’s Hospitals in Madison and Janesville, the organizations said Friday.
SSM Health, UW Health team up on orthopedic surgery
Wisconsin State Journal
Category: Health
‘It affects everything’: The long road to recovery following a concussion
Channel 3000
The prognosis can seem dim when the road to recovery is long and slow, but Dr. Benjamin Gillespie, a physiatrist from UW Health, said patients who come into his office feeling hopeless eventually leave feeling more like themselves, even if it takes some time.
New UW scholarship helps future pharmacist fill rural health care need
NBC-15
A new scholarship at University of Wisconsin-Madison will support students who want to make a difference in rural health care, and a third-year pharmacy student was the first to receive it.
UW Health Sports Medicine training MedFlight doctors, nurses
Channel 3000
When UW Health’s sports medicine team isn’t keeping Badger athletes on the field, they’ve found a way to keep the community safe.
Sexual attacks against teen girls increased in 2021, CDC report found
NBC News
“We really don’t have that robust evidence-based, supportive, trauma-informed education at scale in the United States. And at this particular time in history, it is especially needed given what we’re seeing,” said LB Klein, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Such a curriculum would be included in what’s known as comprehensive sex education.
Weekly checkup with UW Health’s Dr. Jeff Pothof
Channel 3000
Video: UW Health’s chief quality officer Dr. Jeff Pothof joins Live at Four to talk about the latest COVID-19 news, including an analysis of immunity after a previous infection.
In New York, 2 Teens’ Deaths Underscore Dangers of ‘Subway Surfing’
The New York Times
In an increasingly digital world, the blurring of lines between screen and reality can normalize risky behavior, said Dr. Megan Moreno, interim chair of the department of pediatrics and principal investigator of the Social Media and Adolescent Health Research Team at the University of Wisconsin.
Patients now ‘self-room’ at UW Health primary care clinics
WKOW-TV 27
Now when patients arrive at clinics, UW Health says they’re given a card with a room number by the front desk and then guided by signs in the clinic. The front desk alerts a medical assistant that the patient has arrived. Once in the room, the visit goes on as usual.
Like her mom, UW professor battled breast cancer. Now she’s the first to complete vaccine trial.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Dr. Eva Vivian was a teenager when her mother, not yet 40, learned she had a breast tumor.Vivian’s memories aren’t pleasant.
“The only option was a mastectomy. They were mean to women back then. It was a male-dominated profession,” said Vivian, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Pharmacy. “There wasn’t a lot of empathy toward women who developed breast cancer.”
New UW scholarship aims to boost rural health care
Wisconsin State Journal
The Lyle L. Vandenberg Rural Health Scholarship was created by UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association, the American Medical Association Foundation and Homeward, a rural health care company started last year. It is named after a 1959 UW-Madison pharmacy graduate who provided pharmacy services in northeastern Wisconsin for many years before his death in 2021.
State Supreme Court will not weigh in on UW Health nurses’ unionization efforts
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday said it would not take up a case filed by a Wisconsin health care system seeking clarity on whether it could voluntarily recognize its nurses’ unions.
UW Health union dispute won’t get Wisconsin Supreme Court review
The Capital Times
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will not hear a case in UW Health nurses’ ongoing effort to have their union recognized by the University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority.
Supreme Court won’t review UW Health petition in nursing union dispute
Wisconsin State Journal
The state Supreme Court has declined to review a state agency’s ruling which said UW Health does not legally have to recognize the UW Health nurses’ union.
Wisconsin high court declines to review UW Health union case
WMTV - Channel 15
Following a decision from the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commissions, which backed the health system’s stance that it is not required to recognize nurses’ efforts to organize if it does not want to, UW Health said it petitioned to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Dec. 9 to expedite the decision of whether the health system “is able to voluntarily recognize a union and collectively bargain.”
UW Health nurses now have a strong union voice to meet health care crisis
The Capital Times
As a bedside nurse, nothing compares to the moment when a patient squeezes your hand, looks you in the eyes and says, “Thank you for saving my life.” Those moments are what get me through the bad days when I think I can no longer persevere in this profession that I love. And over the past few years, there have been a lot of bad days.
More Money for Mental-Health Programs Gets Bipartisan Support in Many States
WSJ
UW Health, the health system for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reported that its pediatric emergency department saw more than 40 patients a month who required psychiatric care in 2022, up from about 15 a month in 2012.
Immunocompromised worry they’re getting left behind again
Axios
“With no mitigating measures in place and now no #Evusheld, immunocompromised patients are at even higher risk. Better meds must arise to make this world safe for all,” tweeted University of Wisconsin-Madison anesthesiology associate professor Bill Hartman.
As suicide rate keeps rising in Wisconsin, concentration in rural areas raises alarm
Green Bay Press-Gazette
Chris Frakes is the group director of the Southwestern Wisconsin Community Action Program, an anti-poverty agency. Every three years, it does a community needs assessment for the five counties it oversees. In 2017, Frakes had heard so many stories of farmers struggling to get by, she expected them to reach out for help. But few did.
The silence and the growing farm crisis led to the program getting creative about upstream prevention. In 2021, it received nearly $1 million from the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health to target farmers’ mental health over a five-year period.
Study: The pandemic took a toll on school staff’s mental health
Spectrum News
Noted: A new study led by Matt Hirshberg, a scientist at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, dove into the toll it took on their mental health.
Through fetal surgery, UW Health works to save babies before birth
Wisconsin State Journal
UW Health became one of about two dozen U.S. centers doing a range of fetal surgeries after Lobeck, who was trained in the specialty, arrived in September 2021. Six months later, UW Health opened its Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment Center in collaboration with UnityPoint Health-Meriter.
UW Health children’s hospital seeks patient pooches to calm patients
Wisconsin State Journal
Can your pooch snuggle and follow basic commands? If so, UW Health’s American Children’s Hospital offers a new opportunity for canine comforting and cuddling.
Prairie du Sac girl travels 1,000 miles for $2.7 million surgery to rebuild immune system
Wisconsin State Journal
Dr. Christine Seroogy, a UW Health pediatric immunologist who oversees Maddie’s care, praised Odor’s dedication to his daughter, who is his only child … Maddie is the first UW Health patient to be sent to Duke for the procedure, Seroogy said. Upon returning from Duke, she will likely go back to UW’s children’s hospital for a while before being sent home. It takes six months to a year for the T-cells to develop.
UW-Madison researchers study psilocybin’s effects on opioid, meth users
The Capital Times
Through two new clinical trials, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison hope to better understand how opioid and methamphetamine addictions can be treated using a different drug: psilocybin.
Mental health ER visits among children nearly triple at UW Health in past decade
Wisconsin State Journal
UW Health saw more than 40 children a month who needed psychiatric care last year, up from about 15 children a month a decade earlier, the organization said Thursday.
Air pollution worse and more dangerous to urban dwellers with asthma, new study finds
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: Dr. Daniel Jackson, a professor of pediatrics and medicine in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, helped conduct the study and he noted “pollution exposures” were the culprits in 30% of the asthmatic children tested.
“Ultimately, we’ve known for a long time that children in urban environments are more likely to have asthma attacks,” he said. “Clearly, the exposures there are quite different. (When) compared to other places in the country, there’s far more pollution associated with diesel and auto traffic.”
‘We’ve lost track of who we are’: How one group is helping people support farmer mental health
Wisconsin Public Radio
The group (Farm Well Wisconsin), founded in 2020, is funded through a five-year grant associated with the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Through trainings, community members work on building empathetic listening skills, connecting people with resources and discussing issues related to farm culture.
‘They cleared the windscreen’: Prince Harry opens up about psychedelic use as research continues at UW-Madison
CBS 58
Quoted: For roughly a decade, professionals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been researching the impacts certain psychedelics, including psilocybin, can have on the human brain.
“There are some really encouraging trends that have been noted and encouraging study results that have been published across the country,” said Dr. Chantelle Thomas, a researcher at UW’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. “A lot of people are not aware that this research has been happening for quite some time at the UW.”
Invasive snails become gourmet meal in Wisconsin episode of cooking show
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
There might be a new way to think of one particular species of invasive snail being found in Wisconsin’s water: as a part of a gourmet meal.
At least that’s the approach Minneapolis chef Yia Vang and Titus Sielheimer, a fisheries outreach specialist for the University of Wisconsin Sea Grant, made this summer, when they filmed themselves harvesting and cooking up Chinese mystery snails in northern Wisconsin.
Former CEO of shuttered Milwaukee abortion clinic opens new site in Rockford
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Noted: Christensen said he chose to open a clinic in Rockford because it would provide a closer option for women in the Madison area than Chicago-area abortion clinics. Rockford is about an hour and a half south of Madison.
He said he also envisioned the yet-to-be-opened surgical clinic as a potential training location for OB-GYN residents in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. The Dobbs decision created new hurdles for OB/GYN residency programs across Wisconsin, because the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education requires them to teach abortion-related procedures or face losing accreditation.
UW Health doctor sanctioned for role in orthopedic surgery death
Wisconsin State Journal
The Wisconsin Medical Examining Board last month ordered Dr. Molly Day to take six hours of education in communications and root cause analysis after the Oct. 11, 2021 operation, in which the patient died shortly after his shoulder surgery began.
Overdose cases seen in emergency departments remains large, UW Health doctor shares recent trends observed
Channel 3000
According to Dr. Elizabeth Salisbury-Afshar, an addiction medicine physician at UW Health and associate professor of family medicine and community health at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, one of the reasons people could be calling for emergency care less could be because they don’t want to get in trouble during an overdose situation.
UW Health: Overdose visits in emergency departments remain large
Channel 15
UW Health emergency departments saw a decrease in 2022 from the number of opioid overdose visits from 2021, a difference of 631 down to 583. However, the hospital reported seeing an increase in the previous two years leading up to 2022.
‘New era of treating Alzheimer’s’: Wisconsin doctors, researchers celebrate FDA approval of new drug
CBS 58
Quoted: Dr. Cynthia Carlsson, Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said Leqembi targets deposits of proteins in the brain called amyloid. Amyloid is believed to contribute to the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease.
“What was impressive about this study is that it improved the amyloid levels in the brain, lowered those. It improved their cognition, improved their function, improved their quality of life, all of these things we really care about, as well as, what the brain looks like,” Carlsson said.
Carlsson told CBS 58 the drug is primarily given to people with mild Alzheimer’s symptoms intravenously every two weeks.
She said side effects can include increased risk of micro bleeds and swelling in the brain.
“The results from the clarity study showed pretty vigorous responses across all of these outcome measures, which we hadn’t seen for a therapy like this before,” Carlsson said.
Drug shortage challenge hits SSM Health, UW Health
Wisconsin State Journal
But while the shortages require more work to find alternative drugs, sizes or formulations to use, pharmacists at SSM Health and UW Health say they’re minimizing the effect on patients.
UW-Madison engineers use carbon nanotubes to better protect against brain injuries
Wisconsin Public Radio
University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have developed a new shock-absorbing foam made from carbon nanotubes aimed at reducing traumatic brain injuries in U.S. soldiers. The material has been shown to absorb shock 18 times better than existing military helmet liners and could also offer athletes better protection against concussions.
In order to tackle big issues like brain injuries on the battlefront, UW-Madison associate professor of engineering and physics Ramathasan Thevamaran thinks small — as in micrometers. He and fellow engineers at the university have developed a way to make flexible carbon tubes, around a thousand times smaller than a human hair, into a new type of ultra-shock-absorbing foam.
UW-Madison researcher says drone-delivered defibrillators can save lives
Wisconsin Public Radio
When a heart stops, survival rates fall with every passing minute. A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher thinks minutes and lives can be saved in rural areas with fleets of autonomous drones equipped with defibrillators.
And saving lives is in UW-Madison assistant professor and researcher Justin Boutilier’s blood. When he was growing up in Canada, his mother was a nurse and his father was a paramedic and firefighter.
UW, Meriter hospitals penalized for readmissions, St. Mary’s not
Wisconsin State Journal
UW Hospital and Meriter Hospital are receiving small penalties from Medicare this year for having too many readmissions of discharged patients, while St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison is not being penalized.
Wisconsinites feel the effects of national veterinarian shortage
Wisconsin Public Radio
Quoted: Mark Markel, dean of the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, said many vets are no longer willing to work the brutal hours they did in the past.
“If veterinarians used to work 70 hours a week or 80 hours a week, and now they’re working 40, we’ve got a workforce shortage by almost half — even if we’re seeing the same number of patients,” he said.
UW Health updates facility names
WKOW-TV 27
As we head into the new year, UW Health facilities are getting some new names.
This is being done to make the names more intuitive and help patients and their families better able to find their way around, according to a release from the hospital system.
UW Madison Joins National Harm Reduction Research Network
WORT FM
In 2021, over 107,000 people lost their lives to opioid addiction across the country. Public officials across the country have been working to address the issue for years, but a new nation-wide harm reduction research network is looking to find new ways to address the problem.
Today, UW Madison announced that they are joining a new nationwide network to research and evaluate harm reduction services.
Dr. Ryan Westergaard is a professor of medicine at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, and is leading UW Madison’s research wing of the initiative.
In praise of the monthly water bill
The Hill
The cost of delivering safe, clean tap water to every household and business in a community is massive. In fact, it may be among the most expensive of all human undertakings. That is why only the wealthiest countries have achieved it at high rates and why 2 billion people on our planet still lack it.
Co-authored by Manny Teodoro, an associate professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
2022 was a ‘historic’ year for abortion. Now, advocates on both sides are looking ahead to next year.
Wisconsin Public Radio
Noted: According to an analysis of a national study by the University of Wisconsin Collaborative for Reproductive Equity, health care providers have not performed any abortions in the state since the fall of Roe vs. Wade.
“In April and May of 2022, Wisconsin abortion providers reported 590 and 620 abortions, respectively. In July and August, those numbers fell to zero,” it said.
UW Health issues statement after doctor found dead in Rock River
Channel 27
UW Health confirmed Thursday that Dr. Billie S. Lin had been with the hospital system for more than two decades.
UW Health plans outpatient surgery center on Madison’s Far East Side
Wisconsin State Journal
UW Health plans to build an ambulatory surgery center attached to its hospital on Madison’s Far East Side, a move that comes after a prominent UW doctor resigned after proposing such a facility and as other providers are planning similar centers in the area.
Booster rates fall short of health officials’ goals before holidays
Wisconsin Public Radio
Quoted: Dr. Ajay Sethi, a professor of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said BQ.1 can be treated with Paxlovid, an antiviral drug. But in some cases, people with severe cases of COVID-19 may need to receive monoclonal antibodies, or injectable medical treatments at a hospital.
Sethi emphasized that masking remains one of the safest ways to protect yourself and the community against the virus.
“As people gather for the holidays, you know, getting a rapid test and verifying whether you could be infected is a good idea. And if you have any symptoms, stay home,” he said.
‘Cats will be cats’: UW study finds cats don’t have preference for medication flavors
Spectrum News
Cats can be incredibly picky and sassy when it comes to their food.
But with medication flavors, they have little preference, according to a recent study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Arianna Huffington’s Word Of The Year And Why It Matters For Workplace Mental Health
Forbes
Quoted: Professor Richard Davidson, professor at the University of Wisconsin, has shown that we can actually train ourselves to be happier through practice in very tangible and measurable ways by giving ourselves the resources to deal with the ups-and-downs of life.”
What older Americans need to know before undergoing major surgery
CNN.com
Quoted: Ask your surgeon, “How is this surgery going to make things better for me?” said Dr. Margaret “Gretchen” Schwarze, an associate professor of surgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. Will it extend your life by removing a fast-growing tumor? Will your quality of life improve by making it easier to walk? Will it prevent you from becoming disabled, akin to a hip replacement?
Schwarze, a vascular surgeon, often cares for patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms, an enlargement in a major blood vessel that can be life-threatening if it bursts.
Here’s how she describes a “best case” surgical scenario for that condition: “Surgery will be about four to five hours. When it’s over, you’ll be in the ICU with a breathing tube overnight for a day or two. Then, you’ll be in the hospital for another week or so. Afterwards, you’ll probably have to go to rehab to get your strength back, but I think you can get back home in three to four weeks, and it’ll probably take you two to three months to feel like you did before surgery.”
Among other things people might ask their surgeon, according to a patient brochure Schwarze’s team has created: What will my daily life look like right after surgery? Three months later? One year later? Will I need help, and for how long? Will tubes or drains be inserted?
SOS: With UW Health signature, PA’s debt burden looking lighter
Wisconsin State Journal
The only thing standing between physician assistant Carrie Riley and the promise of some $5,000 in student debt relief was a monthslong overdue signature from her former employer.
UW Health expert offers advice for keeping children safe while driving in winter weather
CBS 58
As holiday weekend travel gets underway, an expert at UW Health in Madison is sharing some steps to keep children safe on the roads.
If you want to warm up your car before heading out for the day, try to move the car outside of the garage to avoid the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. Then, ensure that the vehicle’s tailpipe is not blocked with snow or ice.
Vehicles should also be inspected to ensure any child’s car set or booster seat is installed correctly, while remembering that bulky clothing or winter coats will impact the fit of a safety harness on a child.
Rishelle Eithun, a UW Health pediatric injury prevention manager says, ” … but definitely making sure that when we’re traveling, they’re making sure they’re sitting up nice and tall, and they’re not falling to the window to take a nap, those are you know some of those risks we try to stay away from if we could.”
University of Wisconsin System spent $240K of federal COVID-19 relief money on unallowable expenses, audit finds
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The University of Wisconsin System spent nearly $240,000 of federal COVID-19 relief money on expenses not allowed under federal criteria, a new nonpartisan state audit found.
The $239,200 in misspent funds identified by the Legislative Audit Bureau on Dec. 22 represent less than 1% of the $564 million that UW System received in federal money to help navigate through the pandemic.
Kathleen Gallagher: Could Wisconsin be the center of a regional medical physics hub? The stage is already set.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Quoted: At the heart of Great Lakes medical physics research is the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Medical Physics. It was the first such department in the country and is the largest in terms of faculty members and graduate students, said Brian Pogue, department chair and a professor in the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
“We have close to 100 grad students working on medical imaging technologies,” Pogue said. “We have an army.”
Medical Physics’ faculty are among the university’s top royalty recipients and have developed world class technologies like the tomotherapy radiation technique, the ubiquitous pinnacle radiation treatment planning software, and lunar bone mineral densitometry to detect osteoporosis.
UW Health nurses file appeal to WERC ruling on union organization
Channel 15
UW Health nurses fighting to organize a union Thursday announced it had filed an appeal to a recent decision by the state’s labor relations board, which backed the health system’s stance that it is not required to recognize nurses’ efforts to organize if it does not want to.
UW Health nurses appeal WERC union decision
The Capital Times
UW Health nurses are asking a Dane County judge to review a decision from a state commission hampering their efforts to have their union recognized.
UW nurses’ union appeals ruling that the union doesn’t have to be recognized legally
Wisconsin State Journal
The UW Health nurses’ union is arguing a state agency erred in its decision last month and failed to consider “undisputed facts” before ruling the hospital didn’t legally have to recognize the union.
Wisconsin sees 2 major hospital mergers finalized back to back
Wisconsin Public Radio
Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison Economist Alan Sorensen said mergers may give hospitals more leverage in negotiations with insurance companies.
He said insurance companies want to pay as low a price as they can negotiate, while health care providers want to get paid as much as they can negotiate.
“Those negotiations are enormously important for the bottom lines of these companies,” Sorensen said. “A lot of times what’s driving the mergers is that (hospital systems) feel like if they’re bigger, they’ll do better in those negotiations, they’ll have more bargaining power, they’ll be more indispensable to the insurance company.”
If health systems can negotiate for higher rates, he said, it could raise prices for patients.
“If the insurance companies have to pay higher prices to the hospitals, some of the increase is going to get passed through to the consumer in the form of higher insurance premiums,” Sorensen said.
‘Great concern’: Invasive group A strep cases spiking in parts of US — CDC is investigating
Fox News
“We are seeing an increase in invasive Streptococcus pyogenes (Group A strep) bacterial infections here in our area, mostly following respiratory viral illnesses like Influenza A and RSV,” said Conway, who’s also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Study finds Indigenous people face high financial burden of Alzheimer’s disease, related dementias
Spectrum News
A new University of Wisconsin-Madison study finds that Indigenous people face high health and financial burdens from Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
Researchers said it costs $880 million to $1.9 billion annually in additional health care-related costs for dementia diagnoses among Indigenous people.
“Taken together, this work exemplifies the potential benefits of offering programs to prevent, accurately diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s and related dementias among Indigenous adults,” said Adrienne Johnson, assistant professor of medicine, UW School of Medicine and Public Health, and lead author of the study, in a press release.
Deaths on public roadway eyed in new WI farm-related fatalities report
Wisconsin State Farmer
Quoted: “Farm fatality numbers remain alarmingly high, and because a farm is like any other dangerous industrial workplace, the types of hazards are many,” said John Shutske, Ph.D., professor and agricultural safety specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Many continue to be concerned with the high number of deaths on public roadways. Clearly, as farms get bigger and farmers need to spend more time on the road moving from farm to farm/field to field, we are going to see more and more risk on roadways.”
Growing number of UW System campuses installing opioid overdose kits
Wisconsin Public Radio
As opioid deaths surge in Wisconsin, a growing number of universities are making the overdose reversal drug naloxone publicly available in dormitories and other campus buildings.
This fall, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW-La Crosse, UW-Eau Claire and UW-Parkside installed opioid overdose rescue kits called “Nalox-ZONE” boxes aimed at preventing opioid overdose deaths. They join UW-Oshkosh, which installed the boxes in late 2021.