Well, let’s talk about the SFHHA.

Jaime Caldwell, President

2022 is a year of revitalization. We, like you, have learned what does and does not work during a never-ending pandemic. We all thought that virtual meetings would be our future. I know that most non-profit organizations in early 2020 shifted gears and transitioned to virtual meetings in an abundance of caution and a dearth of information, at that time, on this circulating virus.

In the beginning, this was exciting technology time! Using platforms like ZOOM, Teams, etc., our usual face-to-face, family-style meetings turned into technological wonders (at least, for me). We increased our ZOOM subscription to take advantage of more available options and our aggressive schedule of educational programs was underway. Through the first few months of 2020, when more people than not were working from home, attendance at our virtual events was amazing. Depending on the subject of the programs, attendance was routinely in the 50+ range.

We further pivoted our annual healthcare summit conference to a virtual event bringing in international speakers to talk about the challenges being presented by the COVID-19 response and attendance continued to exceed expectations. Then, realities set in.

Our usual sponsors began to question whether their value expectations were being met when our events were virtual versus face-to-face. At the same time, our Board of Directors, consisting mostly of healthcare professionals, and our medical director were all advising that in the interest of public safety and consistent with the experiences that all our chief executives were having at their hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and medical clinics, we needed to remain virtual. Moreover, our attendance began to decline as our members and friends began to suffer the “too much on my plate,” reality as many had to return to work after having worked from home and staffing realities left little time, or desire, to participate in one more virtual event.

Well, we are two years down the road and are now seeing the Omicron variant, hopefully, burning itself out. What we also know is that over the last two years, we have gained much more knowledge about the many faces of COVID-19 and how to protect ourselves from being infected (masking and distancing) or, if infected, what we need to do individually (vaccination and booster) to minimize the chance that we might require hospitalization.

Yes, 2022, will be a year of revitalization. With advice and counsel from our Board of Directors and our medical director, we will be pivoting yet again to offer more face-to-face opportunities this year. In several planning sessions with our Board, we have identified an exciting array of programs that we believe will hit the mark for our entire membership.

In the coming weeks, look forward to receiving a survey from us asking for your input. What we have also discovered over this last two years is that what seem to be important topics to us, do not necessarily resonate with our members and friends.

2022 will be an exciting year. Cheers!



Dreaming

We are in the throes of change in healthcare. I found an article written many years ago that was future facing and spoke to some changes that we were supposed to be seeing in healthcare. Things like a vaccine against the common cold (2009), human cloning (2009), genetic therapy (2014), most diseases treated at home (2020) and, by 2030, cancer, and heart disease will be wiped out.

I am not sure about most of these predictions, but some almost came true! That got me to thinking, “what are futurists saying is the updated vision of the future of healthcare?” Let’s take a few minutes and see.

The University of California San Francisco sees in the year 2050 game-changing predictions that include universal healthcare for all Americans, a pill to treat obesity, oral male contraceptives, lab-grown organs, AIDS eradication, and interoperability solved (yes, in 2050). Unfortunately, pandemics wiping out millions and superbugs proliferating are also in their future.

While I hope I am still here in 2050 and enjoying all the benefits of this new medical reality, let’s look a little closer to home, say, 2030. I am much more comfortable with these predictions as I can see a clear path to them coming true.

Wearable technology measuring bodily functions becomes more generally available and more affordable. Look at the number of people who already wear wristwatches (1 in 3) that monitor several body functions. The current number of add-ons to your smart phones that allow you to do more advanced at-home monitoring. In the near future, these devices will also routinely monitor body temperature and blood oxygen levels.

Genetic testing and genomic profiling will be widely used to identify inherited mutations and the genomic profiling will be looking for things that you picked up along the way that have nothing to do with your heredity.

Telehealth, I will say no more. The COVID-19 pandemic has identified the need for us to continue to refine how healthcare can be delivered virtually.

All these devices are collecting information and we are going to learn how to use it to our community advantage. How to improve treatment methods, how to alert the general community about health risks, these benefits are all coming.

Finally, the ultimate benefit of all this technology and data analysis is an improvement in health outcome. With better data and analysis, treatments modalities will be more individually prescribed with the additional benefit of making healthcare more cost effective (best treatment modalities the first time).

I saw another article that was “on the edge” but is likely going to be in our George Jetson future (Google it). It said, “A microscopic robot is implanted inside your daughter at birth. Whenever an illness begins, before she feels a symptom, it sends alerts to you and her doctor. Immediately the doctor prescribes genome-based drug therapies concocted for her biology and sends the medication to you by drone. Your health is also monitored by sensory equipment connected to remote specialists. Before you can feel a cancer symptom or travel to a distant hospital for a CT scan or MRI, nanobots collect tissue samples, replace damaged cells with healthy cells and absorb any toxins in your blood. Even your elderly father with Parkinson’s no longer needs to be taken to his neurologist’s office; internal nanobots discharge dopamine in a specific location in his brain.” Say it is so!



A Month for Thanksgiving

While the last couple of years have been challenging, November is the month to say, “Thanks.”

We have many things for which we can be thankful. That the vaccines to prevent or lessen the symptoms of COVID-19 were developed in record time using production processes already developed in the creation of other previous vaccines.

We can be thankful for not only the success in creating these COVID-19 vaccines, but their subsequent effectiveness and overall safety. Now, similar to flu vaccines, we know that COVID-19 vaccines effectiveness wanes with time and annual booster injections might be in our future (as it has been for flu vaccines for many, many years).

We can be thankful to the scientists who have worked tirelessly to develop other drugs now used to lessen the symptoms of COVID-19. Drug infusions and now pill regimens that have saved countless people who have contracted COVID-19.

We can be thankful for the men and women who, throughout this pandemic, went to work in hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices, and pharmacies despite the risk to themselves and their families. These clearly are the heroes identified by the pandemic.

We can be thankful for the healthcare professionals and average Americans who used their positions to advocate for the use of COVID-19 vaccines despite the threats and vile comments they received.

We can be thankful for those medical professionals who put off retirement to meet the challenges of the last two years.

We can be thankful for the Americans who continue to be thoughtful about their own health and the health of others and continue to wear masks in public situations and to attempt to remain socially distanced and to use good hand hygiene.

We also can be thankful for our statesman politicians who continue to use their positions to advocate for what is best for Americans; their continuing efforts to cut through the political rhetoric and to talk about the science of vaccinations.

I am thankful that I am allowed the opportunity to take advantage of science by getting my annual flu vaccine (already done) and, as of one week ago, to take my booster dose of the Moderna vaccine to help keep me safe. I have a granddaughter and a grandson on the way and I need to be there for them! It is my responsibility to stay healthy.

While this is a month of thanksgiving, I am also aware that almost 740,000 Americans have lost their lives to this pandemic and for them I feel sadness. We cannot get them back and we also cannot fill the holes left in the hearts and minds of their children, grandchildren, wives, husbands, and parents.

Please, help me be thankful and let us try and end preventable deaths. Vaccines have been with us for a long time, and they have dramatically reduced the numbers of childhood deaths to formerly common and now not too common diseases. Reach out and ask your doctor for advice…be thankful you did.



SOUTH FLORIDA HOSPITAL AND HEALTHCARE ASSOCIATION – A MESSAGE FROM OUR PRESIDENT

We must keep our eyes on the future while at the same time being mindful of the rearview mirror and what has happened behind us. Namely, over the ages, influenza has been a much bigger problem around the world. While “COVID-19 has now killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic did — approximately 675,000” over time influenza has taken a serious toll in terms of total deaths. Moreover, like the worldwide scourge of a century ago, the coronavirus may never entirely disappear from our midst.

Vaccine safety has been of paramount importance since the creation of the first vaccines. With COVID-19 vaccines, we have seen that safety on display every day with growing numbers of vaccinated individuals experiencing minimal side effects and lasting protection. Please, do everyone around you a favor, get one of the approved COVID-19 vaccines, and let’s stamp out this virus. In addition, influenza vaccines have even a longer history of imparting lasting protection. Now, let us get back to influenza.

You can do what I did, use your favorite search engine, and search for “seasonal flu predictions” and you will see several pages of articles with typical titles such as this, “HEALTH AND SCIENCE, Health experts are anxious to prevent a ‘catastrophic’ winter flu season.” Last year, because of the extraordinary measures that most of us took to remain safe from contracting COVID-19, there weren’t that many flu cases. That is good news, and bad. It was good news because it showed us what using the big three could do in terms of minimizing exposure to the virus (masking, distance, and hand cleanliness) and bad because natural immunity to influenza wanes over time and we have likely used up what immunity we had.

To put this into perspective, we have seen an estimated 42.3 million COVID-19 infections since this virus first showed up in the U.S. In comparison, just over the years 2017-2020, we have experienced an estimated 119 million symptomatic illnesses that lead to 56 million medical visits and 117,000 deaths. Over the last ten years, there have been 359,000 deaths attributable to influenza.

Trust me; hospitals do not want to see you as a patient if there is any way for you to prevent it. As luck would have it, there is a way that you can prevent it, go and get your flu vaccine! The vaccine is tried and true and has been around for years. It infers temporary protection against getting the flu and, if you still get the flu after being vaccinated, your cases will be minor requiring just home rest or, maybe, a doctor’s visit. Yes, only “cents” for your protection and dollars of savings if you are able to avoid becoming a statistic. Schedule your appointment for your flu shot today … don’t wait.