Becker's Hospital Review

41 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY Cleveland Clinic: Top 10 medical trends, innovations in 2019 By Alyssa Rege A lternative pain management thera- pies and the increased use of artifi- cial intelligence are among the top 10 trends and innovations in medicine, ac- cording to physicians and researchers at the Cleveland Clinic. e institution announced its top 10 medical innovations for 2019 during its 2018 Medical Innovation Summit, the 16th annual event organized by Cleveland Clinic Innovations, the development and commercialization arm of the Cleveland Clinic. e list of trends and innovations was select- ed by a panel of Cleveland Clinic physicians and experts led by Michael Roizen, MD, chief wellness officer of the Cleveland Clinic. Here are the top 10 medical innovations of 2019, ranked in order of importance by the Cleveland Clinic: 1. Alternative therapies for pain management 2. e advent of AI in healthcare 3. Expanded window of time for acute stroke intervention 4. Advances in immunotherapy for cancer treatment 5. Patient-specific medical devices created through 3D printing 6. Virtual reality programs to enhance medical education 7. New tools and technologies for prehospital stroke diagnosis 8. Innovation in robotic surgery 9. Innovation in cardiac surgery, specifically mitral and tricuspid valve percutaneous re- placement and repair 10. RNA-based gene therapies n How a Novant Health hospital reduced infections by 70% By Megan Knowles S alisbury, N.C.-based Novant Health Rowan Medical Center celebrated a 70 percent decrease in hospi- tal-acquired infections since 2016, according to the Salisbury Post. Hospital staff worked to decrease the number of infec- tions in several ways, including hand-washing campaigns that focused on what would be easiest for physicians, said Dari Caldwell, PhD, RN, president of Novant Health Rowan Medical Center. "We really listen to our team members," Dr. Caldwell said. "When we went with a real focus around hand washing and we would talk to our team members about it, they would show us it would be a lot easier to wash our hands if we had a hand-washing dispenser here where we didn't have one. We really listened to our front-line team around where they needed the hand-washing devices." Other infection control methods included receiving an ultra- violet disinfection system, switching cleaners and reducing urinary catheter use. Hospital staff also began investigating why patients had an infection. "We started monitoring any time we did have an infection," Dr. Caldwell said. "We would do a root-cause analysis to see what happened, how did this happen, how could it have been avoided and so forth." Dr. Caldwell said she wants patients to know the care team is knowledgeable about how to keep them from getting infections. n What keeps CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield up at night? Pandemic flu By Mackenzie Bean C DC Director Robert Redfield, MD, cited a global flu pandemic as a serious and "very possible" fear that keeps him up at night, according to CBS News. Dr. Redfield discussed the possibility of another flu pan- demic during an interview with "CBS This Morning" co- host John Dickerson. "You know, people ask me what keeps me up at night," Dr. Redfield said in the interview. "And the thing that keeps me up at night is just what you brought up, pan- demic flu. … I think it's very possible." The 1918 flu pandemic sickened about 500 million peo- ple worldwide and caused 50 million deaths. The CDC previously said a pandemic could resurface if a strain mutated or developed directly from an animal flu virus. The agency cited the lack of a worldwide vaccine and humans' weak immunity as the major contributing fac- tors for a potential pandemic. Dr. Redfield cited vaccination as the most important tools the U.S. has to minimize the flu's effects this season. "Our best preparation for [a] pandemic is to optimize our response to seasonal flu. … But, John, I think that … re- mains a serious possibility," Dr. Redfield said. The CDC estimates 80,000 Americans died from the flu during the 2017-18 season, which represents the high- est death toll in at least 40 years. n

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