Newsletter [July 15, 1976]

              The Future Evolution of Hospitals
Over the next period of years hospitals will
change. The extent of that change, one may
only speculate.
Many predict hospitals will evolve as a
health care center, educating the populous
and researching the health trends of its
population and of its area to provide
pertinent health information and facts for its
community. A hospital will be viewed by its
area as an institution responsible for the good
health of its entire area rather than as a place
that one goes when in poor health. Good
health will become a continuum and hospitals
will deliver medical care in this continuum
and not be relegated only to eposodic care.
In the future each hospital may develop its
own department of epidemiology to study the
incidence, distribution, and control of disease
in the population of its area. These facts will
help them determine the greatest needs for
their region, whether it is ambulatory care or
self care units or the other extreme -
ICU/CCU. This department will evaluate
public health facilities, preventive sciences,
and environmental health. Environment,
lifestyles, and heredity will become just as
important to good health as health care
services.
Hospitals will also be concerned with the
effects of changes occurring in our nation
such as the basic changes in birthrate, family
size, population migrations, ethnic changes,
age, diminution of raw materials and energy,
and in general moving from an economy of
plenty to scarcity. "Changes in the work
(Continued on page 3)
New Controller
Snow skiing in his hometown of Denver,
Colorado, is a favorite sport of Wesley Long's
Controller Eduard Koehler. He came to WL
on April 20 from Rex Hospital in Raleigh,
where he was controller for five and one-half
years. Mr. Koehler is Secretary of the N.C.
Chapter of the Hospital Financial Management Association, and received his masters
degree in Business Administration from the
University of Santa Clara, California. Koehler lives in Greensboro, with his wife and
their children, Regina, 3V2, and Michael, 20
months. In talking of his wife's home town of
Beaufort, N.C, Mr. Koehler remarked it was
the third oldest chartered town in North
Carolina. In a local gravesite, some of the
tombstones date back to the Indian wars
prior to 1750.
GREENSBORO, N. C.
WESLEY LONG COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
JULY 15, 1976
ULTRASOUND
The dark areas are the substructures beneath the skin surface. The image is created because
the substructures 'returned' the sound waves that were being transmitted through the body.
The above picture defines a baby in the abdomen of its mother. The light colored circle
outlines the baby's head as seen in the vertex presentation.
Diagnostic Ultrasound, a new unit in the
department of Radiology, provides another
method of examining structures beneath the
skin surface.
The unit contains a transducer which emits
a small burst of sound for 1 one thousandth of
a second, five times that above the range of
human hearing, and then listens for 999,999
parts of a second for the returning sounds.
The "echoes" are recorded on a screen and
then photographed for record keeping.
The main feature of this unit is its ability to
produce visually, cross sections of the
patients body, either longitudinally or
traversely. This enables the physician to see
each cross-section of an organ or abnormality. In the case of a kidney tumor, pictures
are made of the various cross sections of the
tumor at varying thicknesses so the
physician is able to see if the tumor is fluid
filled or solid. In the kidneys, the tumor could
be cancerous if it were solid.
The Ultrasonic examination has proven
invaluable for use in the investigation and
evaluation of pregnancies because sound
travels best in fluids and a fetus contained in
the amniotic fluid enables excellent sonic
transmission for visual study. It is also
desirable as a technique during pregnancy
because of its low risk factor since it uses
sound to produce the images instead of
ionizing radiation. This exam aids in
diagnosing early pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, multiple gestation, and placental
location. Other uterine or ovarian masses and
IUD position may also be delineated.
Other uses involve the evaluation of the
heart and vasculature, such as the mitral
valve disorders and left ventricular pathology, including valvular stenosis or insufficiency. Echocardiography has also become
an important tool for evaluation of ventricular contraction and stroke volume, infor-
(Continued on page -4)
$98,000.00 Grant
W. Roger Soles, President of Jefferson-
Pilot Corporation and General Chairman of
Wesley Long Development Fund, announced
in June that a grant of ninety-eight thousand
dollars had been made by the Advisory Board
and the Trustees of the Kate B. Reynolds
Health Care Trust to Wesley Long Community Hospital to establish an Out-Patient
Surgical Unit. These grants are primarily
recommended for innovative programs which
promote improved delivery of health care to
needy people. Grants are also recommended
to programs which will improve the delivery
of health care to the people of North Carolina
on a regional basis as contrasted to local
programs.
This surgical unit expects to offer the community a much needed
service at a substantial
savings to the patient.
A patient may be admitted in the mornings,
have the required surgical procedure, and be
able to return home
that same afternoon,
allowing a shorter hospital stay that will
result in lowered cost to the patient. Because
the unit is hospital based it will be able to
give the continuity of care and the
comprehensiveness of care that only a
hospital can offer.
According to Mr. Soles, one major
advantage of the surgical unit arrangement
will be that the unit should free the main
hospital beds allowing those patients who
require major surgery the use of the beds.
Those requiring minor surgery benefit from a
shorter hospital stay where the complicated
cases are not as likely to interfere with the
carefully managed, efficient routine.
The eight bed unit planned for an area
beside the Operating and Recovery Rooms is
estimated to have a total project cost of
$98,000.00 and will be able to perform such
surgical procedures as dilation and curett-
(Continued on page 5)
SOLES