Medical innovations are chaning healthcare/wellness options
Medical research and technology in Tampa Bay are part of the national wellness revolution that includes scientific discoveries, healthy alternatives and medical discoveries. In this month’s Health & Wellness issue, you’ll discover how marine scientists are contributing new medical ideas, as well as what you can do to live longer and stronger. Find out what’s new here.
Telehealth – Your Wellness Doctor Can See You now
Too busy to make it to the doctor’s office? Virtual health visits are gaining real traction. Telemedicine/telehealth systems are the diagnosis and treatment of patients from a remote location, using video with a doctor to gain a preliminary review of an immediate health program.
When you or your child gets sick and you feel the need to get care right away, BayCareAnywhere™ gives you 24/7 access to a doctor so that you can get on the fast track to getting better. All you need is a smartphone, tablet or a computer with a webcam for medical consultation on a wide array of illnesses and infections.
Now, Publix supermarkets and BayCare have teamed up to launch “Walk In Care” that will be available at 26 in-store Publix Pharmacy locations by the end of the year.
The telehealth centers feature private rooms where shoppers can receive non-urgent medical care from board-certified physicians through teleconferencing and medical diagnostic equipment. The process is interactive and user-friendly, allowing patients to easily enter their symptoms and use medical tools such as thermometers, otoscopes, blood pressure cuffs and high definition cameras to help doctors make an accurate diagnosis. If needed, Publix Pharmacy support staff are available to assist patients.
Tampa General Hospital also offers an extensive telehealth program. Patients, using an app on their mobile devices or computers, can explain their symptoms and hear the medical opinions and advice of a board-certified doctor. Doctors will consult with patients via voice and video in real time tgh.org/services/virtual-care.
Pediatric Innovations & Wellness Care
Johns Hopkins All Childrens Hospital is known for providing outstanding pediatric care for infants, children and teens as well as overall outstanding care and education. There are many innovative programs that caught dR’s attention.
Pediatric Biorepository is a proactive health management tool that was established in 2013. This program assists pediatric doctors in processing, cryopreserving and storing blood, tissue and other biospecimens used for archival and hypothesis-driven clinical research, as well as maintaining health validation markers for the patient.
This collaboration will make a huge difference in researchers working together beyond the walls of one institution. The result is the promotion of sample networks and enhanced research collaborations in child health that provide education and training in biorepository science with a special emphasis in pediatrics.
New Hope For Cancer Patients
Moffitt Cancer Center’s compassionate quality care is enhanced by its robust portfolio of clinical trials – including focusing on all types of cancer related diseases and conditions, and many of the related side effects of treatment. As a result, Moffitt has become firmly established in the forefront of cancer research.
If Moffitt’s “tumor board” believes that a patient could potentially benefit from participation in a clinical trial, they identify appropriate studies and fully educate the patient to help him or her make an informed choice about whether to enroll. For more about clinical trials, call 1-888-MOFFITT.
Training To Be The Best In Wellness
USF’s Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute will have a new home in Jeff Vinik’s Water Street development, but it’s already front and center in its use of technology to train health professionals.
The USF Health CAMLS facility is a three-story, 90,000 square foot facility including 39 surgical stations, hybrid catheterization lab, first-of-its-kind trauma operating room, realistic human patient simulators, surgical simulators and much more. As a testimony to USF’s undergraduate and graduate scholarly research and training, USF senior chemistry major Justin Doherty will present his biomedical research at the April 2018 American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) on research he conducted at the USF Health Heart Institute conference.
Doherty’s research inquiry stemmed from unmet medical needs, where effective chemotherapies for cancer patients are disrupted by treatment-induced toxicity. The goal of his research is mitigating the toxicity to keep patients on effective anticancer treatments.
The new therapy he and his research colleagues chose was a Rapamycin nanoparticle, which simultaneously enhances selfdetoxification capability and inhibits inflammation. Using well-accepted research models, they introduced the nanoparticle as a pre-treatment to a broadly-used chemotherapy, Cisplatin, which, according to his early results, helped alleviate the acute kidney injury associated with Cisplatin treatment.
