Dancing the night away – for a good cause

On Friday, Dec. 4, we hope you will break out your blue-suede shoes for a good cause.

Members of the Hurst-Euless-Bedford community will gather to kick off the holidays right and dance the night away at the annual Texas Health HEB Holiday Gala, themed “Blue Christmas” this year. Proceeds will support the Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford Bluebonnet Retreat.

The Bluebonnet Retreat gives patients living with cancer a chance to “get away” from the reality of facing treatments. Participants get to know each other through crafts and outdoor activities, find fellowship with others facing similar experiences and celebrate life. The camp is offered free to participants and is supported through endowment earnings, charitable donations, and the Gala.

Though this is the 24th annual Texas Health HEB Holiday Gala, this year’s event will be more of a come and go cocktail party vibe without any auction to take away from the mixing and mingling. Guests are invited to relax, have fun and kick off the holiday season all while supporting a worthy cause.

Tickets cost $150. The event will be held at 7 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 4, at the Dallas Marriott Las Colinas. For more information, call Cathy Sheffield at 817-317-5252 or visit TexasHealth.org/HEBGala.

Healthy chili for fall football

With cooler weather, tailgate parties and fall arriving, the sound of homemade chili is very inviting. In order to have healthy meals, red meat is usually limited. So I had to have an alternative -- using turkey, this is a great recipe for White Chili!! It takes about 30 minutes to make and it tastes great. So here it is:

1 pound ground white turkey meat
1 chopped white onion
2 tsp. chopped or minced garlic
2 cans Great Northern beans
2 13 1/2 oz cans of low sodium chicken broth
2 cans of chopped green chiles
1 tsp. of cumin

First drain the beans in a colander. Use a small amount of canola or olive oil in a large pot. On medium heat, add onion and garlic; saute until translucent. Add turkey and brown.

Add the beans, chicken broth and green chiles. Cook on low-medium heat for 15 minutes. Add cumin before serving.

This is a great meal particularly if you add a salad and some old fashioned cornbread. I make my cornbread with a mix, skim milk and egg whites, but I still use my great grandmother's iron skillet. The very best way to have cornbread that is crisp on the outside and tasty on the inside, is to put the skillet with about 1/8 cup of oil, in the oven while it is heating up. Cook according to the mix directions and add a little Smart Balance or Promise to the cornbread and you have a completely satisfying comfort food meal.

Mary Lou Wilson, RN, BSN
Director, Women's Services
Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford

Simple screening tools still valuable

I'm mad!

The reason I'm mad is because my best friend was diagnosed with a mammogram that identified breast cancer several years ago when she was between the ages of 40 and 50. This week the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) announced "updates in its recommendations on screening for breast cancer in the general population. They judged that, although women in their 40s and women in their 50s benefit equally from routine screening mammography, women in their 40s experience greater harms from screening than women in their 50s. The harms assessed by the USPSTF were radiation exposure, false-positive and false-negative results, over-diagnosis, pain during procedures, and anxiety, distress, and other psychologic responses." This task force may very well control whether insurance will pay for screening mammograms.

If you examine the members of the Task Force, not one of them is an oncologist, radiation oncologist, breast surgeon, or breast radiologist. That means they haven't seen the faces of the women who are diagnosed with cancer; they haven't seen the relief of women knowing that they are cancer free for another year. Before I came to Texas Health Resources, I worked in a breast center and saw hundreds of women from ages 19 to their 80s diagnosed with breast cancer. Most of the under 40 aged women identified their own cancer by noticing lumps on self breast exam or a clinical exam from their physician. The USPSTF has also recommended that self exams and clinical exams are not helpful. So tell these women that these simple measures weren't valuable.

These inexpensive screenings cost between $125 - $200. What a minimal cost!! There are better ways to save money in health care than to recommend taking away simple screening tools. The mortality rate of breast cancer has decreased since the use of screening mammography. If you want to view websites that are trustworthy about breast cancer, go to www.komen.org or the American Cancer Society website - www.cancer.org.

Mary Lou Wilson, RN, BSN
Director, Women's Services
Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford

Hospital installs electronic record system

Ever wonder what it’s like to take 1,500 computers online at the same time in an industry where the work never stops?

Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford recently implemented an electronic record system that brings all the hospital’s new records onto the computer, from patient health histories to physicians’ orders and lab and radiology reports.

The initiative required thousands of hours of training for Texas Health HEB employees and physicians on the medical staff. And so far all those hours in the classroom learning how to best utilize the electronic system has paid off.

“I would say the implementation has gone very well,” said Dr. Bob Rowland, chief medical information officer at Texas Health HEB, who is one of the leaders of the conversion. “This is a massive undertaking, but the end result will be a great benefit for our patients. Electronic systems are the wave of the future in health care and will enable our patients to benefit from having their records available when they visit any of Texas Health’s 14 hospitals after all of our hospitals are on the system next year.”

Employees from other Texas Health hospitals that have already installed the electronic system also have come in to help with the implementation. Termed “superusers” these employees were on hand to help answer questions and ensure a smooth transition for Texas Health HEB employees, physicians on the medical staff and our patients.

Six days into the transition, 78 percent of the medication orders are being entered electronically, which helps to reduce errors, Dr. Rowland said. “The support from physicians has been invaluable to a smooth transition to the electronic system.”

Helping service men and women every day

Most Americans will take a moment to recognize and honor veterans today either privately or publicly.

But at Texas Health Fitness Center HEB our commitment to active duty military members has taken a tangible form.

Imagine coming home from serving your country. You’re used to routine of frequently being in the gym and working out with your fellow service members. Coming home you are thrilled to see family and friends, but it throws you out of routine. So what do you do? Do you join a gym for the two weeks of your leave? Keep a membership while you are gone? Neither is very feasible.

To help members of our military when they are on leave, Texas Health Fitness Center HEB would like to invite any active duty members of the military who are home on leave to use the fitness center for free during their time at home.

“We recognize that exercise is important for individual’s minds, bodies and spirits and want to help our service men and women to stay current with their exercise when home on leave,” said Mike Lofland, director of the Fitness Center. “This is just one way we can give back for the sacrifices these individuals make each day for our country.”

To find out more about this offer, please call 817-267-9191.

Support group leader turned pain of losing a baby into a way to help grieving parents

It is estimated that more than a million babies a year die in our country during pregnancy, at birth or within the first year of life.

On the first Thursday night of each month, Lynne Moffatt, Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford Board of Trustees member, can be found welcoming parents to Share, a face-to-face support group for those who share the experience of losing their baby through miscarriage, stillbirth or neonatal death.

Lynne remembers the overwhelming grief and isolation she felt as she left the hospital without her baby girl in October 1979. She longed for someone to talk with that truly understood what she was going through. Thirty years ago, you didn’t talk about it in public and there were no support groups, so the yearning remained. Eventually Lynne met another young woman who had a similar experience and they decided to do something to honor their own babies, as well as to help the healing of others going through the loss of a child. They started the Share support group at Texas Health HEB in 1982 and have been listening to and supporting young parents ever since.

Lynne says the support group can be powerful for two reasons, “Listening to similar stories of other people and telling their own, parents come to realize they are not alone in this experience. The second reason is that when newly bereaved parents see others who have experienced some healing, having discovered some tools for coping, they are able to see hope for themselves, that they have a future even though they can’t see it yet.”

Lynne believes losing a child will make parents either bitter or better. She is committed to helping parents find their way toward being better, more compassion people as they heal from this terrible pain.

The Share group meets on the first floor of the hospital from 7-8 pm each 1st Thursday of the month. For more information about the Share support group, contact the Department of Pastoral Care at susanbriggs@texashealth.org or at 817-848-4811.