2003 Salute to Health Care Awards: Chamber honors four recipients

by Maria Hoover

Inside Business Editor

mhoover@sbj.net

Four honorees have been selected for the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce's 2003 Salute to Health Care Awards.

Two organizations Community Hospices of America and Mid-America Transplant Services and two individuals Dr. Norman P. Knowlton III and Dr. Kevin D. Wallace will receive awards during the Oct. 14 Salute to Health Care event.

Brad Bodenhausen, senior vice president of public affairs and communications at the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, said this is the 19th year the chamber has presented the awards. Bodenhausen said nominees must be direct providers of health care service. They also must demonstrate leadership in promoting efforts to improve the health of Springfield residents, they must have shown longevity in health care, pioneered a field, brought about a significant change and gone beyond the scope of their jobs to make the Springfield area a healthier place.

This year, there were a total of 26 nominees.

"The way we do that (is) we carry over nominations for a couple of years, so there were some new ones plus those that came in and haven't been selected in the previous two years," Bodenhausen said

Recipients are determined by a 10-member selection committee of chamber members, some of whom are past Salute to Health Care Award recipients.

"They have a difficult task, I think, each year, because there are so many good nominations that come forward," Bodenhausen said.

There's no pre-set number of honorees each year, he added.

"It just really depends on who stands out in that particular year among the nominations," he said.

Mid-America Transplant Services

Lonnie Boyd, vice president of regional services for the local office of Mid-America Transplant Services, said the organization provides organ and tissue donation services for Springfield hospitals and to a service area that includes Bolivar, Branson, West Plains and Rolla.

The local office, at 3854 South Ave., is part of a larger organization that, as a whole, serves part of Missouri, the southern third of Illinois and about 10 counties in northeastern Arkansas.

A big part of what the organization does is educate people about the option of organ and tissue donation, and for that, Boyd said, there are no boundaries.

"In terms of public education, public awareness, there are no lines on the map. We'll talk and visit with and educate anybody anywhere, about donations," Boyd said.

Mid-America Transplant Services uses all traditional media outlets newspaper, television, radio and billboards to spread its message about organ and tissue donation, Boyd said.

That message is not only providing information about organ and tissue donation, but also encouraging individuals to make their decisions on the issue and tell their families about their wishes. That's important, Boyd said, because most of the donations that Mid-America Transplant Services is involved with are those made upon someone's death.

A lot of the organization's donor families also become some of its strongest supporters and volunteers, often telling their own personal stories about organ donation.

"It's not just the benefit of the transplant recipients and their families. There's also a tangible benefit to the donor families," Boyd said.

In the last year, Boyd said, the organization has focused a lot of its efforts on encouraging people to sign up on the Missouri Donor Registry, which now has about 2 million individuals on it.

With the registry, Boyd said, the organization now has a benchmark to gauge whether anyone's listening to its message. Volunteers spread that message at local schools, health fairs and larger events, including the Ozark Empire Fair.

At the 2003 Ozark Empire Fair, Boyd said, local volunteers signed up about 500 people to the Missouri Donor Registry.

"That gives me something to hang my hat on, in terms of, how effective was that particular effort?'" he said.

Dr. Norman P. Knowlton III

Knowlton, an internist with CoxHealth's Diagnostic Clinic, is past president of the Missouri State Medical Association.

"I represented Springfield at the state level in health care for the last 15 years. I was secretary to the medical association for 10 years, then I was president of the medical association, so I dealt with the legislature up there for the last 15 years," he said.

His representation of area residents for health care issues covers a wide variety of topics, including Medicaid, Medicare, tort reform, prompt pay and insurance companies.

Rather than naming specific issues for which he's helped to bring about change, Knowlton said what's most important is "that southwest Missouri had a voice. Because St. Louis and Kansas City obviously dominate the state as far as legislation."

Knowlton graduated from high school in St. Louis, completed his undergraduate work at the University of Colorado and returned to Missouri to complete his medical training at Saint Louis University. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Missouri-Columbia and came to Springfield in 1978. He was chief of medicine at St. John's for 23 years, and he's been at CoxHealth's Diagnostic Clinic for two years. Knowlton also has been involved with the Greene County Medical Association.

As far as what brought him to Springfield, Knowlton said, "I like the health care environment and I like being away from the large cities. And it's a good place to raise a family."

For Springfield, the biggest challenge on the health care front is the evolution of managed care, Knowlton said.

"I think that both Cox and St. John's are premier facilities, but I think it's important that they work together in delivering health care for southwest Missouri," he said.

Community Hospices of America

Jan Badgett, vice president of community services at Community Hospices of America, said that in addition to the Springfield office, other southwest Missouri offices are in Branson, Mountain Grove, Joplin and Monett.

"We provide care for patients at the end of their lives. This includes nursing services, which would include pain and symptom management. We help with personal care. We have social workers who help with community resources that may be available to patients that they're not aware of," Badgett said.

In 2002, the Personal Evaluation Tool, created by Community Hospices of America CEO Rick Williams for hospice patients' use, received the Governor's Technology Award. The tool is a software system that operates on a personal digital assistant and enables patients to enter information about their pain and symptoms, and communicate with caregivers.

A separate company, PET Systems Inc., was formed to handle the software and its development for other uses in the health-care arena. The company is now working to develop hardware to make those other uses possible, said John Sherwood, CEO of PET Systems Inc.

Community Hospices also has counselors and support staff who offer bereavement services for patients' families for up to one year after the patient's death.

"The criteria for admission to hospice is that the patient is at the end of their disease process and that they not desire to seek any type of curative treatment. They are just seeking comfort measures," she said.

Physician approval is required for admission into hospice, and the doctors have to certify that, to the best of their knowledge, if the disease runs its normal course, the patient in question has six months or less to live.

"The patients do know that, and they've opted to seek comfort measures and have quality of life for the life that they have remaining," she said. "They have exhausted every sort of treatment that is available to them, or they've just said, I've had enough .'"

Hospice has visiting nurses who help with medical needs and certified nurses aides help with personal care issues such as bathing. Nonmedical volunteers are available for patients who want one, to do things like read, sit with the patient, bake cookies or other things that friends might do, Badgett said. There also are chaplains available through hospice.

"We try to help patients meet all their physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual needs," she said.

Community Hospices of America has been serving area residents for 24 years. While it used to be perceived as something available only to cancer patients, people are now learning that it's available to anyone at the end stages of any disease.

"I've been with this hospice organization for over 15 years, and I see definite change in the community and their acceptance," Badgett said. "Death and dying are being spoken of now. We have programs on TV about end of life, and I think people are taking more control of their life at the end of life and I think hospice is becoming more of a way for people to prepare for the end of their life."

Dr. Kevin D. Wallace

Wallace has been practicing dentistry in Springfield for 13 years. During that time, he has worked to improve the availability of dental care for area children. He is one of the founders of the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile, also known as the "Tooth Truck," and the dental clinic at the new Jordan Valley Community Health Center.

"The funny thing is, I'm actually a prosthodontist and most of my practice is over 65," Wallace said.

Initially, when Wallace got involved with organized dentistry, he said one issue he was concerned with was the lack of dental care in nursing homes.

"I worked with that for a couple of years and realized real quickly that was an equally, or maybe even a bigger problem with kids. And the other thing is, quite frankly, people have much more empathy and compassion when it comes to the children than they do the adults. So my goal was, in a couple of years, to take care of that problem and get back to the adults," Wallace said. "And as you can tell, 13 years later, we're still dealing with it, with no real end in sight."

Wallace said there are a lot of issues behind the reason why access to child dental care continues to be a problem.

"That's been one of the things that I've been trying to do for the last several years, is to try to convince everybody that it's not just a problem that dentists need to deal with," he said.

Wallace said if the community feels things like dental care are important, then it needs to understand that there's a cost that goes along with it.

"It's not really dental coverage and I want to try to stress this most likely it's the lack of every one of us who has a job of any type and pays taxes, of being willing to pay the taxes to support this. Let's face it, most of these people can't afford coverage no matter what the cost is. That's why they're on Medicaid. So the coverage is being provided, or not being provided, by you and me," Wallace said.

Wallace noted that it literally costs dentists more to treat Medicaid patients than if they were treating no one at all.

"And society at some point has to say, It's our problem, too,'" Wallace said. " I think that's what's happened with both the Tooth Truck and the Jordan Valley Dental Clinic is the state and federal government, and most of all, the local community, has gotten behind this with time and finances and support of all different kinds, and that's what's really making the difference."