New president at Ascension 7 Serene retreats for staff 8 PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION
FEBRUARY 15, 2023
Robots wheel their way into staff support roles at hospitals By LISA EISENHAUER
The robots maneuvering through the corridors of Mercy Hospital Jefferson don’t even turn many heads anymore. For five years, the 3-foot-tall autonomous devices have been beeping their way down the halls at the 251-bed hospital in Festus, Missouri. They deliver meals to units, pick up and drop off laundry, tow trash to an outdoor dumpster, and shuttle medications and supplies. The hospital’s six robots together logged 5,500 miles last year. In January, Chesterfield, Missouri-based Mercy began a phased expansion of the robots to seven of its other acute care hospitals in Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The TUG robots are made by Pittsburgh-based Aethon. The company does the mapping and programing required before the robots go live and it monitors their operation remotely once they are in service.
Life abounds in multigenerational apartment complex on college campus
Two Trinity Health hospitals are piloting the use of Moxi robots like this one for deliveries.
By PATRICIA CORRIGAN
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3D prints let visually impaired mom-to-be ‘see’ son’s ultrasound
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Bailey Nielsen
By JULIE MINDA
It’s a much anticipated pregnancy milestone for countless expectant moms: seeing their baby for the first time — on a video monitor — when they have their second trimester ultrasound. But for Ashton Johnson, a visually impaired woman pregnant with her first child, her 20-week ultrasound at an Omaha, Nebraska, clinic late last year was a bit frustrating. She has a genetic condition that prevents her from seeing images that lack sharp contrast, so it was impossible for her to discern as a baby the ill-defined black, gray and white pixels that she saw on the ultrasound monitor. Her husband, Logan Johnson, narrated what he saw on the screen — the baby
VOLUME 39, NUMBER 3
From left, expectant mother Ashton Johnson and her husband Logan Johnson view a 3D print of their baby’s ultrasound from their obstetrician Dr. Katie Sekpe, who looks on. Sekpe practices with CHI Health Clinic Women’s Health, part of CommonSpirit Health.
Local retirees, single mothers and their children and retired members of the School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province all are making a home together at Trinity Woods, a four-story apartment complex on the verdant 80-acre campus of Mount Mary University in Milwaukee. From all accounts, the intergenerational living arrangements are a grand success. Trinity Woods opened in December 2021 as a three-way partnership between Milwaukee Catholic Home, a retirement community that offers independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing care on its Milwaukee campus; the School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province; and Mount Mary University, a private Catholic university for women sponsored by the Notre Dame order. Milwaukee Catholic Home manages Trinity Woods. “Our board, which includes some School Sis- Fulcher ters of Notre Dame, is very intentional about honoring our ministry of service to others in the Roman Catholic faith tradition,” said David Fulcher, chief executive of Milwaukee Catholic Home. “The genesis of Trinity Woods was to provide housing for some of Continued on 4
‘Tranq,’ a street drug fanning out across the U.S., is fresh horror of opioid abuse syndrome XYLAZINE INFILTRATES STREET DRUG SUPPLY
By LISA EISENHAUER
Head start on health equity A boy learns about oral health from a dental student at an event at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. The historically Black academic health sciences college is one of a trio of initial recipients of grants from the new Ascension Foundation. All three grant recipients are training upcoming generations to tackle health disparities. Story on PAGE 3
Dr. Zachary Risler can count on treating at least one patient every shift in the emergency room at Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia who is either in the midst of an acute drug overdose, in need of care for recalcitrant wounds caused by injecting street drugs or dealing with another medical condition that has been spawned or worsened by substance Risler abuse. Most likely, he says, many of the patients have injected opioids cut with xylazine, a drug known on the street as tranq. Xylazine is a veterinary tranquilizer and painkiller with no approved uses in humans. It is widely present in opiates sold on the street in Philadelphia. Routine toxicology tests done by hospitals don’t screen for xylazine, so Risler and his colleagues look for the clues that point Continued on 5
WHAT IS XYLAZINE? Xylazine has federal approval for use in animals as a sedative and Known on pain reliever. the street as “tranq.”
PHILADELPHIA: THE EPICENTER OF TRANQ From 2015 to 2020, the percentage of all drug overdose deaths involving xylazine increased from 2% to 26% in Pennsylvania.
Repeated exposure to xylazine may lead to severe, necrotic skin ulcerations.
In 2021, 90% of street opioid samples in Philadelphia contained xylazine.
A WAVE OF WOUNDS Xylazine is not safe for use in humans and may result in serious and life-threatening side effects that appear to be similar to those commonly associated with opioid use.
SIGNS OF GROWTH ELSEWHERE Xylazine was involved in 19% of all drug overdose deaths in Maryland in 2021 and 10% in Connecticut in 2020.
Sources: U.S. Food and Drug Administration; National Institute on Drug Abuse; Philadelphia Department of Public Health.