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NICU coming to local hospital this fall

A neonatal intensive care unit is scheduled to open in the fall at Saint Anthony Medical Center, 1201 South Main Street.

The 12-bed unit, slated to open in November, will be housed in the hospital’s maternity department, called the Birth Place. Staff will include neonatalogists and specially trained nurses.

“This is something we have wanted for years,” said Carol Schuster, vice president of patient services. “With our number of annual deliveries now up to around 1,600, we are able to justify the need and better serve our parents and their babies.”
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Helping the law to protect health care and citizens

(Photograph by Tony V. Martin.)

Sharon Stanzione grew up in Crown Point, Indiana and says that she always thought she would either become an actress or a lawyer in life, so she decided to combine the two and become a trial lawyer. “I get to use some of my thespian skills in my law work, during opening arguments and closing arguments,” says Stanzione.

Today she is a partner and shareholder with Johnson & Bell, Ltd., with offices in Chicago and Merrillville, Indiana and is licensed to practice in both Indiana and Illinois.

Stanzione attended Purdue University and majored in English and philosophy, graduating in 1993. She obtained her law degree from Indiana University in Bloomington in 1996. She was brought by her firm to the Northwest Indiana location to open a medical law branch in the region. “I concentrate my practice in civil trial and appellate litigation. I have dedicated my entire legal career to representing the medical community including hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers, doing so exclusively for the past 14 years. I was brought in to spearhead Johnson & Bell’s medical malpractice and health care law section in Indiana. Since then, the office has grown exponentially,” says Stanzione.

Her work has helped to establish law in the state of Indiana. She says, “I have successfully tried many difficult cases, and have argued on appeal to the Indiana Court of Appeals and the Indiana Supreme Court, resulting in published opinions that have helped shape Indiana health care law. Just recently, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled in my client’s favor on a case of first impression in Indiana. This case has been published and has created favorable law for health care providers by protecting them from liability for reporting suspected child abuse and neglect.” Read the rest of this entry »

An expert in EMR settles in the Midwest

(Photograph by Tony V. Martin.)

While he was still in high school in Plaistow, New Hampshire, Joe Merry started his career in emergency medical services with the second largest EMS company in the United States.

“I grew up north of Boston and, when I was 18 years old, I started working for American Medical Response,” Merry recalls. “I held various positions in the organization and received a well-rounded view of emergency medical response.”

The expertise Merry gained from his time with AMR included the areas of safety and rescue, billing and communications. He also learned how important community involvement is, he says.

“American Medical Response is very community-oriented. It was hugely important to me in my life,” Merry says. “It was corporate, too, so I learned about corporate organization.”
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Marketing Representative Michelle Weatherford-Towle gives a tour on the second floor of the new Total Home Health Services facility that recently opened in Munster. The facility on Ridge Road is the culmination of the recovery effort the business has gone through since the flood of 2008. (Photograph by The Times.)

Total Home Health Services not only rose from the flood waters of September 2008, the agency has grown to serve patients in seven Northern Indiana counties and recently opened a sister office to provide home health care in four Illinois counties.

Originally located in the basement of the Munster Med Inn in north Munster, the business lost everything when the nearby Little Calumet River rapidly overflowed its banks on September 14, 2008.

“We put all our computer equipment and records on tables thinking the water wouldn’t reach that far,” recalled administrator Holly Pacholski. Rapidly, however, the flood waters filled the basement and covered much of the Med Inn and Hammond Clinic’s first floor.
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Saving the lives of many by saving the one at the center

(Photograph by Tony V. Martin.)

Experience is often the best teacher. Kevin and David Lee say that’s true when it comes to the nationwide companies they run—Intervention Services & Technologies Inc. and Sober Solutions, based in Lowell.

The brothers’ expertise in the fields of addiction intervention, treatment and recovery is now internationally recognized. Yet, it was their personal experiences with David’s own decade-long drug addiction and his cycle of repeated treatment and relapse that has made Kevin and David Lee not only credible, but successful. The entire Lee family’s eventual shift in how they reacted to David’s addictions has also shaped the brothers’ drive to educate families about how to be part of the change that’s needed so those addicted to drugs and alcohol can successfully make the journey into sobriety.

“I’m a recovering drug addict and alcoholic,” David Lee says unblinkingly. “Getting me to agree to treatment was easy. I was in over 20 rehab treatment programs.” But, it wasn’t until his family stopped allowing him to manipulate them, that David says, the message of sobriety finally got through to him.
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Resetting the agenda to help kids with Down Syndrome

(Photograph by Tony V. Martin.)

Jennifer Heath, interim administrator at Barker Woods Enrichment Center in Michigan City, began her work helping children with special needs after she and her husband Jerry’s lives crossed paths with the center.

Heath, who grew up in South Bend, Skokie, and then Michigan City, attended Indiana State and PNC and studied marketing, but she says that career vision changed when she had her first child. “I came into a totally different area than what I intended, but that all changed when I had my oldest daughter, Libby, who was born with Down Syndrome,” says Heath. “I studied about Down Syndrome, I learned about it and I became involved with Barker Woods Enrichment Center. I served on their board for eight years before I began working there,” Heath says.

Barker Woods Enrichment Center provides childcare and preschool services for children of all abilities, specializing in serving children with special needs. They also provide pediatric occupational and speech therapy services for children. The facility was started by a group of parents whose children were not welcomed in the public school system during the 1950s.
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Preparing medical information personnel for the future

(Photograph by Tony V. Martin.)

Linda Galocy understands college students and the impact that higher education has on people’s lives. Attending college and getting at least one degree were part of her parents’ expectations, the Dyer native and current Schererville resident says.

“My father, Davie Rietman, has an MBA,” she says. “When I was a senior at Lake Central High School, my mom, Margaret Rietman, sat down with me to talk about my future. She guided me into what has become my career.”

After high school graduation, Galocy enrolled at Indiana University Northwest to major in health information services and received an associate’s degree. She completed her bachelor’s degree in this field in 1992 at Indiana University/Purdue University in Indianapolis. Marriage and children came next. Galocy and her husband, Matt, lived in Chicago for a while, but when they had their first child, Max now 9, they opted to move back to Northwest Indiana. Max’s sister, Lauren now 6, came along three years later.

The Galocy family has made the health care field their focus. Matt is a nurse practitioner while Linda Galocy is clinical coordinator and lecturer at IUN in the Health Information Management program. This two-year program prepares students to be medical coders and to work in the management of health information and with medical records.
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Porter Health System CEO Jonathan Nalli talks to a crowd Thursday during the 13th Innovators Cafe, themed ”A Culture of Excellence: Fostering Innovation Through Evidence-Based Practices.“ (Photograph by The Times.)

The evidence that evidence-based practices used at Porter Health System work is in the numbers.

Once evidence-based practices were put in place in treating congestive heart failure, Porter ranked in the top 10 nationally for treatment. Since 2007, Porter Health System has had a 25 percent decrease in the number of patients heading to Chicago or elsewhere for treatment, thanks to evidence-based practices, said Jonathan Nalli, Porter Health System’s CEO.

The foundation of the system is on listening and using data. While that may not sound “sexy,” Nalli told a packed auditorium at Porter Hospital in Valparaiso it is what works.
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Front row, from left: Joe Allegretti, Capital Campaign chairman; and Hoeppner Wagner and Evans LLP members Kevin Keough, Robert Dignam, William Satterlee III and Joseph Jaskowiak. Back row, from left: Robert Corbin, Saint Anthony vice president-general counsel; and David Ruskowski, Saint Anthony president.

From the BusINess inbox—The BusINess editors are committed to keeping you informed about the latest news in NWI. Here’s today’s submission from the Saint Anthony Medical Center:

Members of the Merrillville-Valparaiso law firm of Hoeppner Wagner and Evans LLP donated $5,000 on September 14 to the Saint Anthony Medical Center Capital Campaign, which is raising funds to build a new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and has funded construction of a new complex to house St. Clare Health Clinic and the Prenatal Assistance Program. The campaign, which has a goal of raising $4.5 million, which includes matching funds from a private donor, began in 2008 and will end December 31. It so far has raised some $3.2 million.

South Suburban College is offering nursing professionals more courses to build on their skills to remain marketable and advance their career dreams.

“There are four nursing programs here at SSC,” said Dean of Nursing Marjorie Roache. “Each program block builds upon the previous one, providing students an opportunity to build their skills, education, and accreditation as they go.”

That’s especially important at a community college, where the average age of a student is 33, and many students are looking at a second career.

“Older students have different needs and priorities,” Roache said. “So having a program like ours makes it easier on them by providing flexibility.”
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