Allina News

[CardiovascularBusiness, July 26, 2010] In-hospital mortality rates for patients diagnosed with aortic dissection are high at 26 percent, according to a study published in this month’s Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Implementing quality improvement protocols and a multidisciplinary approach to treat this condition can result in a 43 percent reduction in mortality and improve delays [...]

[ABC News, July 6, 2010] Glucosamine has looked like salvation to many people with joint pain, but it proved no better than a sugar pill at reducing pain, disability or improving quality of life in a study of people plagued by chronic lower back pain and degenerative osteoarthritis. Because a quarter of Americans with chronic [...]

[Heartwire, May 25, 2010] Researchers at the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern are excited about a small study known as the Steroid after Ablation (SAAB) trial, lead by Dr. Daniel Melby, a cardiologist with the Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern. Interim results showed that steroid therapy following the ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF) resulted in a [...]

[Medical News Today, April 24, 2010] A 3-year, retrospective study determined that 28.8% of patients with significant coronary artery disease (CAD) who did not undergo complete revascularization had a higher mortality rate than patients completely revascularized. The research team led by Timothy Henry, MD, reviewed angiographs and clinical data from 493 patients treated at the [...]

[Business Wire, April 20, 2010] Allina has selected the Language Access Network (“LAN”) to provide  video language interpretation services to its hospitals. Allina is integrating LAN into the language services program for its Limited English Proficient and Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing patient populations. These services will be delivered via a HIPAA compliant high-speed broadband network. “With [...]

[MedPage Today, April 13, 2010] Lack of insurance and financial concerns keep patients from treating a heart attack like the emergency it is, researchers affirmed. More than two in every five heart attack patients in the study fit into these two groups, they wrote in the April 14 issue of the Journal of the American [...]

[Book of Odds, April 6, 2010] It’s a timeworn theme, dying of a broken heart. The poet of the Psalms recognized that “by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken” (Psalms 15:13). In Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, a broken heart takes Enobarbus. Reports of dying of a broken heart have appeared in recent news, [...]

[MedPage Today, April 6, 2010] Most triathlon participants who drop dead during the competition do so in the water, researchers said. Investigation of 14 sudden deaths among triathletes from 2006 to 2008 showed that all but one occurred during the swimming portion, reported Kevin M. Harris, MD, of the Minneapolis Heart Institute of Abbott Northwestern [...]

[MedCity News, March 31, 2010] Medtronic Inc. has received Food and Drug Administration approval for the company’s second generation diabetes management system that allows patients to better monitor blood sugar levels and adjust insulin therapies. Some experts say a closed loop system might benefit only the most serious diabetic patients, those with complete pancreas failure. [...]

[Massage Magazine, March 25, 2010] A new study shows complementary therapies—including massage therapy—relieve pain as much as 50 percent among a wide range of hospitalized patients. The study shows that an inpatient integrative medicine program—one that includes complementary and alternative medicine alongside traditional Western medical approaches—can significantly address pain. “Roughly 80 percent of patients report [...]

[Medscape Medical News, March 24, 2010] Policies that raise the price of alcohol can reduce consumption, illness, and premature deaths in drinkers and reduce the burden on healthcare systems, according to an article published online March 24 in The Lancet. Mark Willenbring, MD, an addiction psychiatrist at Allina Mental Health Clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, [...]

[Univ. of Minnesota, March 23, 2010] As director of community benefit, Ellie Zuehlke is focused on connecting with the world outside of Allina Hospitals and Clinics. But she was just a few months into her job at the large health system when she noticed something unsettling about the community within Allina. “I was struck by [...]

[heartwire, March 23, 2010] Long-term marathon training and racing might not be as good for the heart as some runners think, a new study suggests. Researchers have shown that long-term marathon runners, those who have completed at least 25 marathons over the past 25 years, have increased coronary calcium and calcified plaque volume. Presenting the results [...]

[MedCity News, March 15, 2010] For years, the medical community has debated the merits of traditional surgery versus relatively new carotid stent therapy. American studies have favored the stent while European trials offered less favorable judgments on the technology. “It’s gone back and forth,” said Dr. David Tubman, director of interventional neuroradiology at Abbott Northwest [...]

[Cardiovascular Business, Mar. 11, 2010] Slightly more than one-third of patients without known disease, who underwent elective cardiac catheterization, had obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) out of nearly 400,000 patients at 663 sites, based on study findings published March 11 in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, in an interview, Timothy D. Henry, MD, [...]

[Minnesota Christian Chronicle, Mar. 10, 2010] Within two months of taking office last year, President Barack Obama lifted the ban on federal funding of new lines of embryonic stem cell research. It was a policy put in place in 2001 by former President George W. Bush. While the debate about the ethics of destroying an [...]

[MinnPost, Feb. 10, 2010] MinnPost columnist and Abbott Northwestern Hospital hospitalist Dr. Craig Bowron, writes this week on the departure of another Allina doctor heading home from Haiti: After spending the last two weeks working in a field hospital in Port-au-Prince, internist and pediatrician Dr. Peter Melchert is heading home today (see two previous posts [...]

[The Hospitalist, Feb. 10, 2010] A concerted effort to reduce patient falls in Minnesota hospitals culminated last year as the Gopher State reported zero fatal falls—a result heavily attributed to hospitalist efforts. A report last month from Minnesota health officials shows that no patients died from falls in 2009. It was the first fatality-free reporting [...]

[MinnPost, Feb. 2, 2010] Every morning a flatbed named despair drives out of the Heartline Ministries compound and into the slums of Port-au-Prince, looking for the injured in need of help. When the truck returns several hours later and slides through the steel rollaway gates that guard the compound, a small medical staff goes to [...]

[MinnPost, Jan. 29, 2010] Earlier this week, the Minnesota Department of Health announced that the number of people with newly diagnosed HIV in 2009 had increased by 13 percent, marking a 17-year high. The increase was driven primarily by an uptick in the number of cases involving males 15 to 24 years old, 88 percent [...]

[MinnPost, Oct. 15, 2009] Three days before the 2009 Minnesota legislative session ended, Gov. Tim Pawlenty used his line-item veto to strike $381 million in second-year funding for General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC), stunning Republicans and Democrats alike. Then the Republican governor unallotted another $15 million, in effect speeding up the demise of the program [...]