Lee Health and Cleveland Clinic announced they will enter into an agreement to share best practices that will optimize patient-centered care for residents of Southwest Florida.

Cleveland Clinic and Lee Health have established a strategic alliance to enhance and improve care in Southwest Florida. Collectively, the two organizations will explore opportunities for service line affiliations and strategic initiatives that can improve quality and efficiency of care through clinical and operational enhancements.
 
This strategic alliance establishes a framework for how the two health systems will work together as they assess opportunities to share best practices and enhance existing clinical or operational projects or establish new ones. As the two organizations move forward, they will lay groundwork for potential further areas of collaboration in the future.
 
“The alliance with Cleveland Clinic opens up many possibilities for future collaboration, programs and activities that will enhance the excellent care we are already providing to our patients,” said Larry Antonucci, M.D., MBA, President and CEO of Lee Health. “Together with the physician community we will establish new ways to elevate the medical care available throughout Southwest Florida.”


Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center receives the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines- Stroke Gold Plus with Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Quality Achievement Award. The award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke/brain attack patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.



An advanced form of radiation therapy available at Miami Cancer Institute may extend overall survival and improve quality of life for patients with inoperable pancreas cancer. The ViewRayTM MRIdian MR-Linac technology safely delivers an unprecedented high dose of radiation over just five consecutive days directly to the tumor using continuous real-time MRI scans. The images ensure millimeter accuracy and also allow for treatment to be adapted daily to account for changes in the patient’s internal anatomy. Known as MR-guided stereotactic ablative radiation therapy (SABR), this state-of-the-art treatment is painless, completely non-invasive and requires no anesthesia or needles. Miami Cancer Institute was the second cancer center in the U.S. to begin treating patients with this technology in April 2018.

Investigators from Miami Cancer Institute recently published the first clinical outcomes of chemotherapy followed by MR-guided SABR on an MR-Linac for inoperable pancreas cancer in Practical Radiation Oncology using nearly twice the radiation dose that is safely deliverable on a standard radiation delivery machine. The study included 35 patients ranging in age from 34 to 89 years and reported that one year after SABR nearly 90% of patients had their cancer controlled locally and almost 60% of patients were alive, both of which are favorable compared to historical outcomes with lower radiation dose. Some patients who initially had inoperable pancreas cancer ultimately were able to undergo successful surgery because of excellent response after SABR.
 
“A significant number of our patients have surpassed the expected survival for this deadly disease, with many alive several years after their initial diagnosis,” said Michael Chuong, M.D., director of MRI-Guided Radiation Therapy at Miami Cancer Institute and a radiation oncologist specializing in gastrointestinal cancers. In fact, Dr. Chuong is encouraged that patient survival beyond two years after initial diagnosis may be more than doubled through the use of ablative radiation dose versus lower radiation dose. He anticipates publishing long-term survival outcomes in the near future.
 
Dr. Chuong notes that not only has the efficacy of MR-guided SABR been excellent for pancreas cancer, but it also has been very well tolerated, with only about 3% of patients experiencing serious side effects and the majority experiencing little to no side effects. “It is remarkable that we have seen such little treatment toxicity given the incredibly high radiation dose that is delivered to tumors in the pancreas that are surrounded by ― and sometimes literally touching ― the stomach and intestines,” he said. “Patients are in and out within about an hour. They go back to work or play golf, and do their normal activities.”
 
 


Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital welcomes fellowship trained electrophysiologist Fahad Ali, M.D.

Dr. Ali earned his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degree with honors and gained unique experience by practicing medicine in different parts of the world including Asia, Europe and USA. After completing his internal medicine residency, Dr. Ali completed fellowship in cardio-vascular medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network in Pennsylvania and completed advanced fellowship in Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology at University of Maryland.
 
 


St. Mary’s Medical Center & Palm Beach Children’s Hospital hosted the first Immertec Medoptic technology virtual event for in service surgical training featuring Dr. John Asghar, orthopedic spine surgeon on staff at the Paley Orthopedic and Spine Institute. It is the only fully immersive 3-D, virtual technology surgical training platform, allowing surgeons to virtually scrub into a live procedure in a safe and socially distant way from their home or office through a VR headset.

With this technology, surgical instructors are able to provide more accessible training opportunities for practicing surgeons interested in gaining exposure to innovative techniques, procedures or devices. Trainees can follow the surgeon’s instructors for upcoming learning opportunities. This device allows surgeons to gain exposure to advanced surgical techniques for consideration in their current practice. This exposure has the potential to minimize unnecessary suffering in their patient population from increased access to the highest standard of care.
 
Medoptic has three features: the core 3D teleconferencing technology, the mobile scheduling app and VR headsets loaned to trainees prior to the event. The platform streams live 3D, 4K video with audio conferencing for collaboration and communication in real-time. The technology captures multiple video feeds including a stereoscopic 3D video, encodes the feeds, and remotely transmits the videos to a VR headset in under 200 milliseconds so remote surgeons can observe, communicate and interact as if they were physically present.