In the News

Such upstream efforts attempt to stave off bottlenecks have become common at hospitals like Hennepin Healthcare, where people are stuck in emergency rooms because mental health treatment programs don’t have room for them, said Dr. Eduardo Colón Navarro, chief of the Department of Psychiatry.

Part of that educational process is recognizing that “if one puts aside their bias or stigma toward people with addiction and just look at the facts dispassionately, I think people will see there is an epidemic and we have the opportunity to save lives,” Dr. Charles Reznikoff, an addiction specialist at Hennepin Healthcare, told an editorial writer. “There are many ways to save lives, but making naloxone universally available is clearly one way to do this.”

“But it’s truly been in the past few weeks that we’ve seen it take off in the U.S.,” said Hennepin Healthcare’s Dr. Hannah Lichtsinn. “That’s also when we’ve been seeing cases in general go up locally.”

Nneka Sederstrom, chief health equity officer, Hennepin Healthcare – and Tyler Winkelman, MD, co-director health, homelessness, and criminal justice lab, Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute; past-president, Minnesota EHR Consortium – General member.

“As I was working the HCMC story, I was really hoping that folks would get a really deep look at what healthcare looks like. These are people that are giving, sacrificing so much to take care of you. And I wanted them to see that sacrifice, and i wanted them to see that there are people outside of that, too.” – Alex Kormann, Star Tribune photographer.

Hennepin Healthcare’s forensic nurse manager Breanna Heisterkamp said the hospital system does see quite a few of drugging cases.

“I do think it does happen more frequently than any of us are probably comfortable with,” Heisterkamp said. “I know I’m not comfortable with it happening at all, but we do see a fair amount.”

Breanna Heisterkamp with Hennepin Healthcare’s HART program interviewed.

“For many, many years, surgeons thought it was a way to stay in business,” joked Dr. Richard Zera, a surgical oncologist at Hennepin Healthcare.

Dr. Gavin Bart, division director of addiction medicine at Hennepin Healthcare, says e-cigarettes can also more easily deliver nicotine than traditional cigarettes.

“Kids in a disposable vape can carry around the equivalent of half a carton of cigarettes in their hand in a vape pen. To have one thing in their hand that’s containing that amount of nicotine that they can basically smoke in an unrestricted manner becomes really dangerous in terms of the amount of nicotine they are being exposed and the level of nicotine addiction they can develop.”

“Melatonin is a little bit of a gray area,” Hennepin Healthcare pediatrician Dr. Krishnan Subrahmanian said. Subrahmanian said some studies show children on the autism spectrum, with ADHD, and/or diagnosed with sleep disorders may benefit from using melatonin.

“If we’ve heard of a couple of cases, there’s probably going to be a lot more,” said Kirk Hughes with Minnesota Poison Control.

Dr. Krishnan Subrahmanian is a pediatrician for Hennepin Healthcare and said his clinics reflect the trend the Minnesota Department of Health is reporting.

“You know, we’ll see a lot of burn injuries, and we’ll also see a lot of house fires,” says Charlie Sloane who is Deputy Chief of Operations at Hennepin EMS. “Especially around Thanksgiving, people trying to deep fry a turkey in their garage and didn’t prepare it properly. We’ll definitely see that stuff around the holidays.”

He says they also respond to a number of falls.

“We’ll see people slipping and falling and they might have a broken ankle, a broken hip, a broken wrist,” says Sloane. “We see a lot of orthopedic injuries.”

Hennepin Healthcare responded to incidents this year at its emergency department intake unit in downtown Minneapolis with a security guard, but the solution is problematic, said Josh Gramling, the health system’s director of occupational health and wellness. The presence subdued some people but agitated others, he said.

Hennepin Healthcare has been holding related summits to foster interest in the industry among kids of color for a couple of years, according to Dr. Nneka Sederstrom, Hennepin Healthcare’s Chief Health Equity Officer. Saturday marked the “first iteration of joining men and women together,” she said, adding, “And I think this is our eighth version of the youth summits.”

“We want to make sure these young people see themselves in any of the spaces that are at Hennepin Healthcare, and we want them to know that we believe they can become what they see,” Hennepin Healthcare Chief Health Equity Officer Dr. Nneka Sederstrom said.

“There is someone that we want to make sure we bring up and acknowledge. Ali, if you’d like to join me up here,” Mattison said. “For all that you do, we want to make sure we acknowledge you and surprise you with two tickets to [an upcoming game].”

Once near death at HCMC in Minneapolis, firefighter is now bringing patients to the hospital.

At the Hennepin Healthcare Center of Diabetes and Endocrinology in downtown Minneapolis, 66-year-old Mark Harris tries to recall his medication intake and sleep schedule from the past week.

Laura LaFave, an endocrinologist at the center, listens attentively while seated at a computer desk, looking at metrics of Harris’ blood sugar levels extracted from the Bluetooth-connected continuous glucose monitor (CGM) he wears daily. Harris’ glucose levels are low, which leads LaFave to pry deeper into how his insulin pump is functioning.

“If available, it can reduce the risk of severity of RSV disease for children,” said Stacene Maroushek, Hennepin Healthcare Pediatric Infectious Disease expert. “Right now, we do have a limited supply.”