HJBR Nov/Dec 2020

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE I  NOV / DEC 2020 61 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalBR.com If the first study holds true, this research could help medical experts better understand why people are affected so differently by COVID-19. It could allow people at high risk to make more informed choices about where they go and how they interact with others, or even change how we prioritize vaccinations. In addition, it could help identify people who may be infected with COVID without showing symptoms, allowing them to take extra precautions not to spread the virus. Woman’s Hospital is Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence AwardWinner Press Ganey announced that Woman’s Hospi- tal is a Guardian of Excellence Award® winner for the sixth consecutive year, ranking in the top five percent in the country in outstanding inpatient experience. Woman’s is the only hospital in Baton Rouge with more than 25 beds to earn this honor and one of only 15 in Louisiana. “This year has been a challenging one for all of us in healthcare, and patient experience has looked a little different due to many of the precautions in place to protect against COVID- 19,” said Barbara Griffith, MD, president and CEO of Woman’s Hospital. “Our staff has gone the extra mile to ensure our patients are still receiv- ing the positive experience they have come to expect fromWoman’s despite many new policies and regulations.” Despite limits to hospital visitation due to COVID-19 concerns, patients have responded well to the extra bonding time it’s allowed with their baby. Breastfeeding rates at Woman’s also increased by 10% from January to April as com- pared to the average 2-4% annual increase. Press Ganey, a leading provider of patient expe- rience measurement and performance analytics for healthcare organizations, gives this award annually to the top organizations who have achieved the 95th percentile or higher for any of a set of designated survey measures, including likelihood to recommend, overall rating, and/or teamwork. Woman’s exceeds state and national averages in all measurement categories. Celebrate Life Car Parade Honors Cancer Survivors Celebrate Life is an annual event held for patients of the Breast & GYN Cancer Pavilion, a partnership between Woman’s Hospital and Mary Bird Perkins-Our Lady of the Lake Cancer Center. Due to COVID-19 safety concerns, there was a new twist on this year’s event to celebrate women living with breast and GYN cancers. Patients were invited to participate in a special car parade around the Woman’s Hospital campus on Sept. 25. Patient families as well as Pavilion and hospital employees lined the route to show sup- port for survivors as they passed by. Baton Rouge General Earns Top Distinction for Bariatric Surgery Baton Rouge General (BRG) announced that it has been named a Blue Distinction Center+ for Bariatric Surgery by Blue Cross Blue Shield. “We’re proud of what we have achieved for patients, especially when it comes to lower rates of complications post-surgery and fewer hospital readmissions,” said Jonathan Taylor, MD, medical director of the bariatric program. Blue Distinction Centers+ for Bariatric Sur- gery provide a full range of bariatric surgery care, Barham’s first study, published in the Interna- tional Forum of Allergy & Rhinology, was con- ducted in July and included 100 patients who had tested positive for COVID-19 then recovered. Based on the taste strip test, the results showed that 100 percent of the patients requiring hospi- talization were classified as non-tasters. “It was at that point we could see that taste dis- turbance, specifically global loss of taste, appears to correlate with the clinical course specific to each individual,” Barham said. “We took these results and built a second, broader study that would allow us to test people before they con- tracted COVID-19 and predict which group they may fall into based on their taste test results. Over time, we are monitoring the group and whether or not our predictions are correct.” The test itself is quick and easy and is conducted by placing four tiny strips of paper on the tongue, one at a time. After each strip, Barham and his team asks the person to report flavor and inten- sity on a scale of 1-10. For example, the strip could taste very bitter or mildly bitter. Based on their ability to taste each strip, people are classified into one of the three taster groups.