Dr. Alejandro Badia

Hand specialists are also experts in microsurgical techniques, having undergone additional, rigorous training in repair of the hand’s minute blood vessels and nerves which requires the use of an operating microscope.

MIAMI (PRWEB)
January 23, 2020

“It’s complicated.” The phrase may apply to some human relationships but certainly holds true for the complex architecture providing function to a person’s hand, wrist, arm and shoulder. “Which is why patients should contact an experienced upper-limb specialist – not just an orthopedic surgeon — when anything goes wrong up or down this superhighway of interconnected bones, joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles and nerves,” says renowned hand and upper-limb surgeon Alejandro Badia MD. Dr. Badia and many of his colleagues note that our patients are often unaware that the specialty of hand surgery even exists and often ask, “What type of issues do you treat?”. This fact even led to the development of ISSPORTH (International Society of Sport Traumatology of the Hand), where a group of colleagues in Europe noted that many elite athletes seemed unaware of the specialties’ importance when it came to assessing and treating their sports-related wrist or elbow issues. Badia served as the international societies first president in 2011-12.

Of course, orthopedic surgeons, in general, address injuries and diseases of the musculoskeletal system. However, “hand specialists are also experts in microsurgical techniques, having undergone additional, rigorous training in repair of the hand’s minute blood vessels and nerves which requires the use of an operating microscope” explains Dr. Badia. Arthroscopic and minimally invasive techniques involving the wrist, hand and elbow are also the domain of the hand surgeon, and like Badia, many also focus on the shoulder due to its importance in controlling the entire upper limb function by placing the hand in space.

Badia completed fellowships in hand and trauma surgery following four years of orthopedic and surgical residency at New York University, preceded by a general surgery internship at the historic Bellevue Hospital.

German philosopher Immanuel Kant referred to the critical importance of the human hand by calling it “the visible part of the brain.” The same description could hold true for the wrist, arm and shoulder, which provide the necessary fulcrums and levers to give the hand motion and the strength to grasp, hold, lift, turn, work and play. The shoulder, for example, is one of the most complex joints in the body, powered by a collection of muscles and tendons (rotator cuff) and able to assume as many as 1,000 different positions.

The capabilities of the upper limbs are what set aside humans from other animals, states Dr. Badia, whose professional memberships include the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) and multiple international orthopedic, hand and arthroscopic surgical societies. The human thumb function specifically separates us from other simians, for example.

“Considering the upper anatomy’s importance to overall quality of life, why wouldn’t patients contact an available surgeon who specializes in the care of the upper extremity for treatment of problems, including pain, that affect the function of their hand, wrist, arm or shoulder?”

Emergence of hand and upper-limb surgery as a subspecialty of orthopedic surgery is fairly recent, dating primarily to World War II when large numbers of battle-related hand injuries brought together a variety of specialists – general, orthopedic, vascular and plastic surgeons, as well as neurosurgeons – to treat and return function to soldiers’ hands. This multidisciplinary approach served as a model for development of special centers – and, later, professionals — for care of the hand.

Today’s rapid, ongoing changes in medical and surgical procedures for musculoskeletal disorders and development of new biomaterials — like tissue-engineered substitutes as replacements for skin or tendon grafts – to repair joints, ligaments and muscles make subspecialization within the field of orthopedic surgery almost mandatory. “No one physician can know and learn about study findings and advancements affecting every area of the skeleton,” Dr. Badia says.

As founder and medical director of the Florida-based Badia Hand to Shoulder Center and OrthoNOW®, a walk-in orthopedic care clinic, Dr. Badia speaks from experience, having become internationally known for his treatment of a wide array of upper-limb disorders and injuries, including complex trauma, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, ulnar nerve entrapment, shoulder impingement, wrist disorders, distal radius fractures, post-injury reconstruction and outpatient upper limb joint replacement. His patients have included well known sports professionals and corporate executives from Europe, South America and even Asia.

“Musculoskeletal pain is a leading reason why people visit doctors,” Dr. Badia says. “That’s why it is important patients select the right specialist to ensure quick, accurate diagnosis and receive the optimal therapy for resolving their problem.”

Just because a patient sees a hand and upper-limb surgeon – or any orthopedic surgeon, for that matter – does not mean surgery will be the recommended course of action. Conservative approaches, including anti-inflammatory medications, corticosteroid injections, splinting, physical therapy, or recommended stretching and home exercises, are often first line of treatment for many musculoskeletal conditions.

Surgery is only required when debilitating pain or disease persists, says Dr. Badia, who is also expert in use of alternative, nonsurgical approaches like orthobiologics – the harnessing of a person’s own biologic substances, including blood platelets and adult (mesenchymal) stem cells — to mitigate inflammation, relieve chronic musculoskeletal pain and repair orthopedic injuries when standard therapies fail.

Dr. Badia’s advice to patients:

• Do the research. Learn about the training and experience of specific doctors and clinics before selecting.
• Match the specialist with the problem. Consider a 2nd opinion with an upper-limb specialist should the problem involve the hand or upper extremity.
• Ask questions about treatment options.

Enhance the potential for treatment success by following the specialist’s directions.

“As specialists and subspecialists in orthopedics, we do more than mend bones and fix joints,”

Dr. Badia adds. “We apply the latest therapies to treat a myriad of disorders affecting nerves, muscles, ligaments and other structures of the musculoskeletal system.”

Alejandro Badia, MD, FACS, internationally renowned hand and upper-limb surgeon and founder of Badia Hand to Shoulder Center and OrthoNOW®, a walk-in orthopedic care clinic. He is a member of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, American Association for Hand Surgery and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and an honorary member of many international professional hand societies. Dr. Badia specializes in treating all problems related to the hand and upper extremities, including trauma, sports injury, joint reconstruction, nerve injuries and arthroscopic surgeries. Go to OrthoNOWcare.com and drbadia.com.

Attendees to the 2020 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference help define the future of healthcare in America

Providers must find ways to improve efficiencies, leverage technology to reach more people at lower cost and employ data to continually sharpen operating practices. – Kevin Fleming, CEO, Loyale Healthcare

LAFAYETTE, Calif. (PRWEB)
January 23, 2020

The 2020 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference took place in San Francisco last week. One of the largest and most influential events focused on the business of healthcare, the conference brings together leaders from across healthcare and financial companies to explore emerging ideas and technologies and learn from some of the industry’s most innovative and successful practitioners.

Last year, we published an analysis of conference highlights based on insightful commentary from Dan Michelson, CEO of Strata Decision Technology writing for Becker’s Hospital Review. In 2020, Mr. Michelson and Becker’s have again published what I consider the definitive JPM2020 summary titled “The top 10 questions from the 2020 J. P. Morgan Healthcare Conference that every CEO must answer.”

Based on my own experiences at this year’s event, the Becker’s summary presents an excellent starting point for Loyale’s analysis of emerging practices and products affecting hospital finances. Most particularly, the constituency with the greatest influence over hospital financial performance – patients.

The Future is Already Here

In his analysis, Mr. Michelson dismisses the notion that this year’s conference was merely “more of the same”. Quoting futurist William Gibson, he points out that “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” At Loyale Healthcare, our experience in working with some of healthcare’s largest and most successful companies attests to that simple truth.

The markets, technologies, practices, policies and ideas that will transform healthcare are all present – even if nascent. The challenge now is for healthcare providers to identify the path forward that works best for them and their patients. Unless and until that transformation begins to take shape, I expect these themes will continue to dominate the conversation in healthcare.

Last year our analysis, “Creating the Frictionless Healthcare Platform” presented a readiness checklist designed to help hospitals and health systems evaluate their preparedness for a more expansive, consumer-friendly way to do business. The promise of Platform-based business models was prominent again at this year’s event, with the Mayo Clinic being singled out for its strategic decision to embrace the platform model.

The first Mayo platform initiative, as described in this recent article, is the launch of its new Clinical Data Analytics Platform. The first of what Mayo envisions will be many platform-based initiatives, the AI platform will “apply advanced analytics on deidentified data from across Mayo and other organizations and comb scientific literature to gain insights into new treatments that could improve patients’ outcomes.”

The potential of a platform-based business model is not confined to clinical disciplines. From an operating standpoint, platforms hold great promise for the transformation of hospital administration and finance. The Loyale Healthcare platform is one example. Working with companies like HCA Healthcare and U.S. Anesthesia Partners, we’re integrating Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems with dozens of other healthcare technologies, leveraging data to help providers deliver seamless experiences to patients and staff. Platform outcomes include: improved patient engagement, lower operating costs, higher patient revenues and better overall operating performance across the enterprise. These systems all exist today, Loyale unifies them all in a single, user-optimized digital experience that drives results.

Are Healthcare Leaders Asking the Right Questions?

Mr. Michel’s analysis frames his observation of, and conversations at, the JPM2020 conference with ten questions shared by industry executives, many of which are embedded in this year’s conference content. These ten questions, along with our own qualifiers, follow:

1. Will we think differently and truly leverage our platform? As discussed above, are we prepared to invest financially, culturally and strategically in the platform model? Do we believe platforms represent our best path to sustainable success?

2. Market share: Are we leveraging a share of cup strategy? Are hospitals taking a big picture approach to knowing and serving “their markets?”

3. Are we a holding company or an operating company? Are hospitals and health systems realizing the scale and benefits of mergers and acquisitions?

4. Do we have employees or a team? How will hospitals overcome healthcare’s operating silos to develop an enterprise-wide, cross-disciplined approach to care?

5. Physicians: Are our physicians optimistic or pessimistic? What are providers’ plans to overcome systemic flaws that can lead to burnout and turnover?

6. Customer: Do we treat sick patients or care for consumers? Are providers practicing a B2B or B2C business? Are patient relationships a critically valuable business asset? The answer, if you don’t already know, is yes.

7. Data: Will we make data liquid? How will you use data to understand your business, make better decisions and improve care and performance?

8. Cost: Are we serious about reducing the cost of care and delivering value? How will you respond to the call for improved affordability?

9. Capital: Do we have an “asset-light” strategy? Are there ways to leverage existing assets to broaden markets and deliver more services?

10. Performance: Do we want our team to build a budget or improve performance? Are you wasting valuable time and effort on outdated, non-performing business practices? Are there better ways?

Each of these questions prompts crucial self-analysis for healthcare leaders and their teams. In my view, they’re the right questions. That’s partly because they reach across the industry and enterprises to address all of the most vexing issues facing healthcare. Also because these are precisely the kinds of questions that led Loyale’s clients to search for and select Loyale.

Because our domain expertise resides in the areas of healthcare revenue cycle and patient engagement, let’s take a closer look at questions 1, 3, 6 and 8, specifically as they pertain to patients’ financial experiences and provider financial outcomes.

Question one, “Will we think differently and truly leverage our platform?” is addressed above. Loyale clients are motivated by a desire to integrate disparate, disjointed systems and processes to deliver more holistic experiences that benefit team members and patients. Some are even exploring wider business implications for developing platform-enabled, revenue-generating shared services.

Question three, “Are we a holding company or an operating company?” addresses a frustration that’s all too common as consolidation in the healthcare industry continues to accelerate. The best results are achieved by providers who are ready to make the hard decisions, implementing enterprise-wide standards and protocols designed to improve efficiencies and drive growth. Loyale clients demonstrate this concept by implementing our platform technology across their entire ecosystems – delivering superior patient (and staff) financial experiences throughout each patient’s care journey – in every setting, every time.

Question six, “Do we treat sick patients or care for consumers?” confronts the largely transactional nature of provider-patient interactions. We’re all consumers of healthcare. Some more, some less. But when asked, most of us agree that, while the clinical dimension of care is usually good or even exceptional, when it comes to the administrative and financial dimensions of care, the experience deteriorates dramatically.

With as many as half of Americans avoiding or delaying care because they’re afraid they can’t afford it, this egregious disconnect impairs a provider’s ability to compete for patients and to improve the probability of being paid for it. Healthcare is the only industry where the consumer lacks basic information to make informed decisions. Loyale clients are working to fix that. From pre-treatment price transparency to personalized, interactive payment plans. Loyale is making it possible for providers to connect with patients the way many of today’s most successful B2C companies connect with their customers.

Question eight, “Are we serious about reducing the cost of care and delivering value?” underscores something we have written about extensively over the last year. No healthcare-related issue has had a higher profile in the public eye than healthcare affordability and its adjacent issues – surprise medical bills and aggressive collection tactics. Despite the rhetoric of the current U.S. presidential campaign, few if any presenters or attendees at JPM2020 expressed any serious concern about the possibility of Medicare for All or some other single-payer model being adopted in the foreseeable future.

Providers and the pharmaceutical industry, therefore, must find ways to improve efficiencies, leverage technology to reach more people at lower cost and employ data to continually sharpen operating practices. At Loyale, we’re working with healthcare enterprises and specialty providers to bring patient financial practices into the 21st century – with price transparency, interactive self-serve or full-service payment planning, patient financing and personalized digital communications on a clinically integrated “digital front door”. All so patients can get the care they need at a payment they can afford.

I am pleased to report that, based on our experiences with Loyale clients and with many of the forward-looking people I met with at this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, leaders are indeed asking the right questions. And the promising future whose elements are already present is slowly but surely coming into view. We’re proud to be a part of that future and look forward to sharing our progress at JPM2021.

Kevin Fleming is the CEO of Loyale Healthcare

Loyale Patient Financial Manager™ is a comprehensive patient financial engagement technology platform leveraging a suite of configurable solution components including predictive analytics, intelligent workflows, multiple patient financing vehicles, communications, payments, digital front doors and other key capabilities.

Loyale Healthcare is committed to a mission of turning patient responsibility into lasting loyalty for its healthcare provider customers. Based in Lafayette, California, Loyale and its leadership team bring 27 years of expertise delivering leading financial engagement solutions for complex business environments. Loyale currently serves approximately 12,000 healthcare providers across 48 states. Loyale recently announced an Enterprise level strategic partnership with Parallon including deployment of its industry leading technology to all HCA hospitals and Physician Groups.

Dr. Jeffrey Schildhorn NYC Orthopedic Surgeon

I get to put people back together and help them get their lives back. I just want to communicate that message, and maybe even help people who may never step foot in my office.

NEW YORK (PRWEB)
January 23, 2020

Park Avenue based orthopedic surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Schildhorn is celebrating the launch of his new website jschildhorn.com. Dr. Schildhorn is excited to bring this new digital portal for patient education to his existing and future NYC patients. Dr. Schildhorn is a graduate of Duke and attended medical school at Temple University. With over 12 years of hands-on experience, Dr. Schildhorn has built his reputation through word of mouth and professional referrals. Dr. Schildhorn is a lauded trauma surgeon and also operates on many wrist and ankle fractures.

For over a decade he has also excelled at shoulder hip and knee replacements. At his NYC practice, he routinely performs a wide variety of arthroscopic procedures which include sports medicine based ligament reconstruction. His key focus is on appendicular procedures, and he has earned a reputation as a go-to surgeon for shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and ankle issues. An avid, life long athlete himself, he has made it a point to get his patients not only fully recovered, but able to live their lives as they did before surgery. His goal has always been to restore function and return his patients to their pre-injury level of performance.

“I knew I wanted to communicate with my patients, and people looking to research their pain and injuries using new media and multimedia.” Said Dr. Schildhorn. He goes on to add “I wanted to allow patients to get to know the practice and what I do as an orthopedic surgeon even before coming to the office. To provide resources and understanding of injuries and the types of procedures that we do, and to know what to expect from the recovery process. I love my job, I get to put people back together and help them get their lives back. I just want to communicate that message, and maybe even help people who may never step foot in my office.”

Dr. Schildhorn’s message is simple, he understands that surgery is a big deal to most people. Today, medical and specifically surgical procedures are advancing at a breakneck pace. No matter how simple the procedure, Dr. Schildhorn understands that having any type of surgery is always somewhat inconvenient. Anyone can tolerate the short term pain associated with a surgical procedure. Deciding whether surgery is absolutely necessary depends on a patient’s goals and the amount of time and energy they are willing to invest in the process. Regardless of the simplicity of a given procedure. Dr. Schildhorn hopes that his new website can help ease some of the anxiety that may come with arthroscopic surgery.

Additionally, there are several options aside from surgery that can help relieve pain and aid in healing joints and skeletal tissue. The most popular among them being PRP and stem cell therapy. While Dr. Schildhorn offers these and other procedures at his Park Avenue practice, in some cases these modalities may simply serve as a stopgap, while the surgeon works with the patient to plan a comprehensive surgical and rehabilitative program.

To learn more about Dr. Schildhorn visit his website https://jschildhorn.com

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