Published: August 29, 2007 11:12 pm      

‘We will survive,’ Windber medical chief vows

WINDBER — Through an hour of videos and speeches about Windber Medical Center’s history and its expanding array of innovative programs, the message remained simple, leaders said.

“We will survive,” hospital President F. Nicholas Jacobs said at the hospital’s annual public meeting Wednesday in the Arcadia Theater in Windber.

Less than a month after finalizing a breakup with Conemaugh Health System, Windber Medical Center faces challenges competing in the shadow of the far-reaching system, Jacobs admitted.

The first challenge comes in the form of $3.5 million computer system upgrade necessary to take over information technology work now done by Conemaugh.

Survival will come through Windber’s increasing focus on preventive personalized medicine made possible by combining the strengths and innovations of Windber Medical Center with its Joyce Murtha Breast Care Center and Windber Research Institute.

“If there was a place where the highest science came together with the most intense human touch, what might that place look like?” Jacobs asked.

“Dream with us as we describe the future of women’s health care.”

Plans to bring the state-of-the art technology of Windber Research Institute together with the personalized approach of the breast-care center and Windber’s home-like Planetree Hospital philosophy are designed to attract patients from a large area.

“This center is not a dream,” Jacobs said. “It is a reality that exists in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. Over 50,000 women crossed our threshold last year alone. And when they did, they discovered an ambi-ance that includes walls of fountains, fireplaces, healing garden labyrinths and beauti-ful wooded hills.”

By using the research institute’s examination of diseases at the molecular level, comparing the cells to those of healthy patients, doctors will be able to individualize preventive medicine and develop programs based on patient’s medical history, genetics and other factors, Jacobs said.

The institute and hospital are working with like-minded hospitals, companies and universities to study things such as music therapy, yoga, acupuncture and Tai Chi. It was one of the first hospitals to embrace the Dean Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease.

“Take all these pieces we have and bring them together and package them,” Jacobs said.

“It’s something that nobody else is going to be able to duplicate, so we don’t have to compete locally.”

People are discovering Windber, Dr. James Eckenrode, chief operating officer, said. He noted the hospital’s 60 percent increase in surgery last year.

He credited Dr. Kim Marley’s introduction of lap-band bari-atric weight-loss surgery and expansion of minimally invasive laproscopic surgery to Windber.

“You can have that done here,” Eckenrode said. “We have a very low infection rate and a low rate of complications.”

Board Chairman Ted Hollern said he is optimistic about Windber’s future.

“I am confident that Windber Medical Center will not only survive, but will continue to be the innovative medical center in the region – and maybe in the country,” he said.