'healthcare' posts

Kevin Brown


Marcel Loh

SEATTLE, April 1, 2013 – Swedish Health Services today announced that Chief Executive Kevin Brown is leaving Swedish to take a new position as CEO of Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta.

Your mental and emotional health are just as important as physical health—it’s difficult to have one without the other. As we here in the Pacific Northwest face a very apparent shift in seasons from summer to fall, the concept of change and adjustment is all around. Learning to adjust to the change in weather offers important lessons in dealing with the continual changes we face in life.

If you’re a native or adopted Washingtonian, seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is probably not a new concept to you. This type of depression occurs during the fall and winter months when there is less natural sunlight. It is a yearly affliction that is slowly creeping up on many of our friends and neighbors. Treatments like light therapy and anti-depression medication can help, but what if your changes in mood isn’t SAD? What if your changes in mood aren’t from changes in season?

As we all know from our own personal life experiences, change happens and whether we know it or not, it’s happening all the time. Some changes are small and we are able to “go with the flow;” other times, change can really throw us for a loop. So how do you deal with life-altering change and make the most out of it?

Change ...

SEATTLE, Oct. 23, 2012 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating a multistate outbreak of fungal meningitis and joint infections. It appears the outbreak is due to the contamination of an injectable steroid medication called methylprednisolone acetate produced by the New England Compounding Center (NECC). Swedish has never carried the methylprednisolone acetate product produced by NECC.

When you don’t feel good or you get hurt, it often feels like an emergency. You want the pain and discomfort gone…now! But the emergency room may not be the right place for you. So where do you go?

Think of urgent care as the middle ground between the ER and your primary care doctor's office. In other words, urgent care clinics like the one that just opened at Swedish/Redmond are the perfect spot for those “feels like an emergency but isn’t” moments.

Consider urgent care for:

1. Illness: If you have ...

SEATTLE, Sept. 13, 2012 - In light of how unique it is that Swedish's three chiefs of staff - Drs. Mary Weiss (First Hill, Cherry Hill and Ballard campuses), Michelle Sinnett (Edmonds campus), and Lily Jung Henson (Issaquah campus) - are all women, Washington Healthcare News recently published a related article titled 'Swedish Shatters any Vestige of a Glass Ceiling' by Swedish's Chief Medical Officer John Vassall, M.D.

SEATTLE, Sept. 11, 2012 - As they do each year, Seattle magazine and Seattle Met magazines published the results of their annual Top Doctors surveys in their July and August 2012 issues, respectively. To recognize the more than 300 Swedish-affiliated providers who were nominated by their peers for each survey, here is information about both efforts.

We’ve all had our issues with healthcare—from trying to read through your bill to understanding the instructions your doctor is telling you to navigating through automated phone trees finding someone who can answer your health questions. There are many frustrations that we as patients deal with. Now imagine you’re missing one of your five senses, such as hearing. All of a sudden, those challenges seem much bigger.

A recent study published in The Lancet medical journal suggests that people who are deaf or hard of hearing have worse healthcare and less access to health services. And it makes sense when you think about it.

1. Hearing loss is not often a “visible” handicap so healthcare providers may not know their patients have it. Patients may not even know they have hearing loss!
2. Even if patients do know they have hearing problems, most healthcare providers do not have training on how to effectively communicate with people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
3. Lastly, those frustrations we just talked about keep many of us from accessing healthcare the right way. People who cannot hear well may experience even more difficulties which could keep them from going to the doctor or asking the questions they need to have answered.

The effect on healthcare quality and access for people who are deaf or hard of hearing ...