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Techno dreams get some traction

By ROBERT TRIGAUX
Published March 11, 2005

Amid all the local lip service about Tampa Bay becoming a serious player in the bioscience economy, one area hospital and a few partners are taking a concrete stab at creating a cutting-edge facility in cardiology and heart research.

Tampa's University Community Health, a four-hospital company, said Thursday it will open Florida's first all-digital heart hospital and a newly endowed research institute this fall. UCH's Pepin Heart Hospital, under construction on Tampa's East Fletcher Avenue, will feature a comprehensive digital and "nearly" paperless system based on GE Healthcare cardiovascular equipment, online image system and archives, and a patient data base.

Translation: That means patients won't see stacks of manila folders holding their medical records. Instead, physicians and nurses will be trained to input patient data via computer and then gain access throughout the hospital to complete patient records, diagnostic tests and images. Patients will be able to view their records on computer monitors by their beds, receive online cardio-care instructions and, in quieter moments, view movies on demand.

The Tampa hospital will become the nation's third and most advanced all-digital hospital based on GE technology adopted by the first two digital hospitals built in Indiana and Oklahoma.

Also Thursday, Pepin Heart Hospital's affiliated research institute said it received a $3-million donation from Dr. Kiran C. Patel, an area cardiologist-turned-entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist, to help jump start the facility's heart-specific clinical studies in cells, stents and drug therapies. As a result, the research institute was renamed the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Research Institute.

Combined, the new digital hospital and research institute have high hopes to become a national role model for high-tech cardiovascular care, as well as a major contributor to medical advances in the heart field.

The coincidence that the new hospital facility under construction lies across East Fletcher from the elite H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute - Tampa Bay's creme de la creme of anti-cancer treatment and research - was not lost on UCH officials.

"What they do in cancer research is what we want to do in the field of heart disease," said Norm Stein, UCH president.

Commendable goal. Daunting task. Enthusiastic staff. Long hours ahead.

Fourteen months ago, UCH announced it would break ground on a $40-million, 120,000-square-foot hospital to open this spring. Now under construction, the hospital Thursday was described as a $50-million, 125,000-square-foot facility to open in the fall.

Can a digital hospital really work as promised? The business community is only too aware of the myth of the "paperless office" that digital technology has yet to deliver.

At the Pepin Heart Institute, an A-to-Z digital system should mean more efficiency, decreases in patient care and administration errors, shorter stays for patients, and even higher levels of patient satisfaction, say GE Healthcare executives familiar with the track records of the two existing digital hospitals.

Some benefits of digital are pretty basic.

"In a paper world, one of the biggest complaints you hear from the health care workers is they can never find the chart," Peggy Tipton, chief operating officer of Oklahoma Heart Hospital and GE's second digital hospital, told the Associated Press last fall. If the Oklahoma system crashes, the hospital's staff simply goes back to making notes on paper.

Brandon Savage, a medical doctor and GE Healthcare Information Technologies manager involved with the Tampa project, acknowledged the cultural challenge of shifting doctors from a medical system intensely dependent on paper to an all-digital system.

Savage said GE chose UCH to showcase its digital systems not because it was looking for new technology, but because the staff was looking to improve productivity and the quality of patient care.

"They had a clear vision and we were impressed with the staff," Savage said. Part of that vision, the GE executive said, includes the research institute and the potential to leverage the digital hospital system to screen patients for clinical studies or drug tests.

The GE name and clout has not gone unnoticed among Tampa Bay's economic development leaders. The Tampa Bay area is - how shall we put this? - starved when it comes to big corporate players.

No less important, in its own way, is Patel's $3-million donation. For all the considerable wealth in the Tampa Bay area, business leaders bemoan how few individuals contribute substantial sums to worthy economic causes. Patel has emerged through this donation and others as an important role model for the region.

That the new hospital is near Moffitt and situated on the edge of the University of South Florida only adds to the bioscience allure - and perhaps the pressure to deliver research that can be commercialized. USF president Judy Genshaft is the Tampa Bay area's biggest proponent of pursuing an aggressive bioscience strategy to help build the regional economy for the future.

I know, the hospital's not even open yet. But it's taken a solid step on the long, long path to world-class status.

Robert Trigaux can be reached at trigaux@sptimes.com or 727 893-8405.

[Last modified March 11, 2005, 01:23:21]