Hospital Liaison

Orlando: We said goodbye to the Chief of Staff, Dr. Doukas, and three of our providers who moved on to bigger & better things, Mr. Hansen, Dr. Phemester, and Dr. Burns.

We welcomed Ms Marcia Johnson, ARNP who is now our sole provider at our new Mon-Fri clinic. Construction of the new Medical Center continues on schedule. Your chapter & National continue to oversee the space and quality of the SCI center. With the new Center, we will increase our long term care beds from 18 to 30 at the Community Living Center. The future of the current VA outpatient clinic is uncertain, but PVA has agreed with other Veterans Service Organizations that it would be proper to maintain it as a veteran’s clinic. Please know that all SCI programs & services will be at the new SCI Center in the new Hospital.

Viera: Still continues to be model SCI center for VISN 8. Our chapter would like to thank Dr. Howard, Chief Medical Officer, for his continued advocacy in maintaining the SCI program in this facility.
Gainesville: Dr. White, Tampa SCI Chief & his staff, agree that the Gainesville Clinic should be designated an SCI Support Clinic. Action has been taken to facilitate this, to be completed, hopefully, by end of 2010. One major advantage is that annual evals could be completed there instead of Tampa.
Lake City: The clinic is in its new location along with the PVA National Service Officer. We’d like to thank Senior Management for providing us the space. The PVA NSO should be full time at this location in the first part of 2010. As soon as the NSO has been named, I’ll get his or her name and contact information to you. Finally, we are continuing to help the M/S spoke to grow its registry and increase their services. You’ll hear more about this program in the coming year.

Jacksonville: We’re waiting for a new facility to be constructed. Then, we’ll establish a new SCI program there.

Daytona Beach: We’re waiting until staffing issues are resolved so we can continue to establish an SCI program at their facility.

Tampa: We welcome Dr . White, the new SCI Chief and thank him for his genuine concern for the SCI spokes assigned to his center. We have monthly meetings to address each spoke and how to improve its programs. We work with him and his staff to find the best way to provide annual evals for veterans in rural areas.

In closing, as always, if you need any assistance, contact myself or Belton Smith.
Outreach: We welcomed our new partnership w/ the ALS Association. We thank them for their kindness in allowing us to have PVA booths at all seven ‘Walk for ALS’ events. We look forward to a continuing relationship with them in 2010.

Outreach

Our main initiative for 2009 was with the Fl. Dept. of Health, Brain & Spinal Cord Injury Program. I’m happy that all caseworkers in all five of their regions have been trained by PVA on the procedures to identify and enroll a newly injured vet into the VA’s specialized services programs. In 2010 we will be helping them expand their resources into the VA System.
It’s been a very busy year and there is more to be done in 2010. Please continue to read the newsletter to see what we’re doing and how you can help. Get involved!

Along with representatives from the Bayou Gulf Coast Chapter and our National Field Director, Dewayne Standifer, I visited the Pensacola Outpatient Facility on 11/18 to discuss their SCI/D Programs and patient care and to tour the facility.
We met Gordon Lawry, Executive Assistant, Assistant Director, SCI Staff Doctor and Nurse and SCI Coordinator Kyle Madigan. Assistant Director Ronald Johnson joined us later. Gordon gave a tour of the facility. It’s the Joint Ambulatory Care Center (JACC), opened in September 2008. It’s 205,054 sq ft, in 3 stories on 25 acres. Building costs were $55,056,000 with furniture and equipment.

The JACC consolidates clinical and administrative functions, previously located in 3 rental offices. It replaced three aging buildings that provided medical and dental care to the active duty service member students at Corry Station. The Navy uses 10 % of the facility for sick call, joint physical and medical rehabilitation and a dental clinic. The VA and Navy admin offices are also there.

The VA offers the following services:
Minor Surgery and Endoscopy/ Mental Health – 27 Treatment Rooms, 4 group therapy areas
Audiology and Speech Pathology – 4 booths / Eye Clinic – Laser Treatment and 12 Exam Rooms/Pharmacy – Automatic Robotic Dispensing Machine Diagnostic Medicine has MRI’s, Radiology, Digital X-Ray, and Phlebotomy with on-site blood tests.

Specialty Clinics – Women’s Clinic, Dermatology, Oncology, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Orthopedics, Urology, Cardiology, ENT, Nuclear Medicine and more. There are C&P Exams with 8 Exam Rooms and also a VSO and Medical Administration Area. This state of the art clinic identifies its primary care team alpha numerically from alpha to lima and is a designated support clinic. Although the Gulf Coast Chapter’s registry has 150 people, only 75 use this clinic. It only meets on Wednesday and there’s no full time SCI Coordinator. He’s stationed at the Biloxi VAMC and covers the entire VA Gulf Coast Health Care System, which includes Mobile, Biloxi, Panama City, Pensacola, Pass Christian and Gulf Port. He drives to the clinic weekly. My impression is he doesn’t spend much time there. The nurse and doc are not full time, but they would prefer to be full time SCI. The doctor is trained in TBI and SCI medicine. We'll be helping them with resources for their current goal of having 175 on their SCI/D Registry. Also, with their usage of the VHA Directive 1176.1 and VHA Handbook 1176.1 to expand their program and assist them with getting their SCI Patients access to the Tampa SCI Center. They are experiencing issues and need PVA's help with the boundaries. They are in VISN 16 and their assigned SCI Centers are Houston and Memphis. The vets wish to use Tampa which is in VISN 8, or the SCI Center in Augusta, which is in VISN 6. VISN 16 leadership is reluctant to allow this because they’re crossing the VA borders and the VERA dollars ($57,400 annually for SCI patents) will have to be split with the other VISNs. A big funds issue, and PVA is needed for resolution.

They spoke very highly of Anthony Steele, PVA National Service Officer who currently covers the facility. We told them we are interested in helping them grow their registry. We explained this could be accomplished via our Outreach Program and the contacts we’ve made with the ALS and M/S Societies, our partnership with the State of Florida Health Department SCI/TBI program to include outreach in the community with local rehabilitation and nursing home facilities.

We asked to have a booth during PAW week and they agreed. So, chapters will supply a veteran and Dewayne will provide an NSO. We agreed on 4/14. Watch the Jan 2010 WIM for more info.
I believe this meeting was beneficial and worth every penny we spent on the trip. If you have questions about it, please contact me at your convenience.

Ken Weas

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