Katy Lifestyles and Homes magazine Oct 2009: Business1

Pam Owens, the golf fitness professional at The Houstonian Golf & Country Club, spent five days with Argentinean visitors Gustavo Oliva, owner of the Ines Gorrochategui Tennis Academy in Cordoba, Argentina, and personal trainer Bernardo Bonnet.

The tennis academy in Argentina has a comprehensive health club, but the golf athletics program is in the developmental stages. Owens taught Oliva the programs, assessments and exercises of the Titleist Performance Institute ’s Golf Fitness Academy. Oliva and Bernardo observed Owens as she trained junior golfers and adult golfers as well as participated in “Golfletics,” a group golf fitness class taught by Owens.

Angel Cabrera, 2009 Masters Tournament champion, was first trained by Owens this past June when she designed a fitness program that he will continue to do when at home in Cordoba. Oliva will begin using some of the functional equipment specific for golf fitness training along with the TPI exercises for training Cabrera and other golfers in Argentina.

CHRISTUS St. Catherine Hospital received the Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Achievement Award from TMFHealth Quality Institute, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Texas. TMF established the awards program in partnership with The Texas Hospital Association, Texas Medical Association, Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals and Texas Osteopathic Medical Association.

The Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Awards honor Texas hospitals that are performing quality initiatives aimed at improving outcomes in patient care by recognizing those hospitals that have improved their performance on specific national quality measures.

The awards acknowledge hospitals for improving care related to acute myocardial infarction or AMI (heart attack), heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care. These clinical areas have been designated as national health care priorities by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and The Joint Commission, an independent nonprofit, standards-setting and accrediting body in health care.

The awards recognize hospitals that are active in quality improvement and have made the required improvement on a composite scoring system, called the Appropriate Care Measure. For acute care hospitals, the ACM consists of 24 quality indicators: eight AMI, four heart failure, seven pneumonia and five surgical care measures. Critical access hospitals used an ACM score based on 11 quality indicators: four heart failure and seven pneumonia measures.

Out of 227 participating Texas hospitals, 27 have met the criteria and were presented with the Texas Health Care Quality Improvement Award of Excellence and 66 were presented with the Quality Improvement Achievement Award. Hospitals receiving these awards were recognized at a special ceremony in Austin.

Hospital, recently performed surgery on a 35-year-old female with breast cancer who was in the middle of her chemotherapy regime. Chemotherapy can diminish the body ’s ability to heal, making surgery more risky. The patient needed to have her ovary removed. Dr. Webb was very attracted to the SILS approach. The surgery seemed to be this patient ’s best option. Normally, the physician would need to make three or four incisions. With this method, only one small incision was needed.

Dr. Webb was able to insert the port within about 5 seconds once he established his incision. “The incision is very much like a Hassan cut down, which is a routine approach to initial entry for laparoscopic cases, ” says Dr. Webb. “The incision itself was about 20mm, or less than 1 inch. I’m excited for several reasons. First, the post op scar was pretty much invisible since it was hidden in the folds of the umbilicus. The ability to perform advanced laparoscopic procedures and leave the abdomen unscarred will be a huge draw for many of my patients. Second, and more specific, the clinical outcome of having only one incision was a decided benefit. ”