Florida - February 2012 Archives

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Satilla Health Services, Inc., parent company of Satilla Regional Medical Center, joins with the Jacksonville campus of Mayo Clinic effective March 1. Satilla will be renamed "Mayo Clinic Health System in Waycross." Satilla's integration with Mayo Clinic means health care consumers in Waycross will have access to all of the knowledge and expertise of Mayo Clinic available right in their own community. Satilla and Mayo Clinic have identified several areas in which they share common goals and philosophies, such as preserving and enhancing health care services available to patients in the greater Waycross region. Both organizations are committed to patients receiving the great majority of their health care services in Waycross. The boards of Mayo Clinic and Satilla, as well as the Georgia Attorney General, have approved the integration of the two organizations. At closing, Mayo Clinic will become the sole member, parent organization of Satilla. Kenneth T. Calamia, M.D., currently a physician at Mayo Clinic, has been appointed chief executive officer of Mayo Clinic Health System in Waycross. Robert Trimm, president and chief executive officer of Satilla, has been appointed chief administrative officer of Mayo Clinic Health System in Waycross. "This is a wonderful opportunity to work together with Mayo Clinic in an effort to bring the best health care possible to the people in our surrounding communities," Trimm says. "We're interested in expanding the availability of health care resources locally and ensuring the continuing presence of excellent, community health care for the future."

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A research team led by investigators at Mayo Clinic in Florida has found that a small device worn on a patient's brow can be useful in monitoring stroke patients in the hospital. The device measures blood oxygen, similar to a pulse oximeter, which is clipped onto a finger. VIDEO ALERT: Additional audio and video resources, including comments by Dr. Freeman about the new device, are available online. Their study, published in the Feb. 1 issue of Neurosurgical Focus, suggests this tool, known as frontal near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), could offer hospital physicians a safe and cost-effective way to monitor patients who are being treated for a stroke, in real time. "About one-third of stroke patients in the hospital suffer another stroke, and we have few options for constantly monitoring patients for such recurrences," says the study's senior investigator, neurocritical care specialist William Freeman, M.D., an associate professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic. "This was a small pilot study initiated at Mayo Clinic's campus in Florida, but we plan to study this device more extensively and hope that this bedside tool offers significant benefit to patients by helping physicians detect strokes earlier and manage recovery better," he says.