Spring 2022 news from St. David's HealthCare
St. David’s HealthCare President and CEO David Huffstutler discusses the healthcare system’s nearly $1-billion investment in Central Texas healthcare infrastructure. Below are some of the inspiring stories of the patients and caregivers who continue to serve our community.
Lucky to be alive after near-fatal brain injury
According to the CDC, more than 64,000 Americans died from traumatic brain injury (TBI) in 2020. TBIs can lead to short- or long-term health problems, and are commonly caused by falls, combat injuries or assault. For Hunter Abel, it was a car crash.
In 2017, 35-year-old Hunter was driving home when he started to feel disoriented and lost consciousness. He woke up from a coma five-and-a-half weeks later at St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center. Hunter learned that he had a stroke while driving and crashed his car into a toll booth. In the five years following the crash, Hunter has committed to near-daily physical and speech therapy at St. David’s Round Rock Medical Center. Just six months ago, he regained the ability to say full sentences again.
Hunter’s main message is this: “There is hope, and you have to be the person who provides it. If you don’t give up, you will get a little better every day.”
The “aha moment” that changed everything
Erica Greathouse was in the midst of her career as a horse trainer and had recently moved to Austin when she discovered that she was pregnant with her first child. She began regular appointments with Dr. John Sherman and received better care than she could have imagined. When it was time to deliver at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital, she came to the facility, and with the birth of her newborn son, Derek, came an “aha” moment. She wanted to be a labor and delivery nurse.
Her husband attributed this idea of hers to hormones and the adrenaline of giving birth, but Erica knew this dream wasn’t going away. The nurses at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital were her superheroes, and they inspired her. They were kind and nurturing, and to this day, Erica says their care changed her life for the better. She never knew she could feel so comfortable, so cared for, by someone who had previously been a stranger. And she wanted to pass that care and love on to other mothers and families.
A year later, Erica became pregnant with her second child. She went through an equally positive experience, and after giving birth to her second son, Eli, she knew it was time to follow her dream. Six months later, she began the long journey to becoming a nurse, including prerequisite classes and nursing school at The University of Texas at Austin. When it was time to apply for jobs, she walked into St. David’s Georgetown Hospital knowing it was the only place she wanted to be. She told the hospital she wanted to work for them, and that she was not considering anywhere else. They took her in with open arms.
That was almost one year ago. Today, Erica and her husband are living the family life Erica dreamed of with their two beautiful children. Derek, now six, has realized that his mother works in the same place he was born, and he loves to brag to anyone who will hear that his mama works to help other mamas.
Erica’s favorite part of the job is being able to experience these intimate moments with her patients and being a part of the biggest moments of their lives. It’s emotional, hard work, and Erica says she is glad she can be there to support these families.
And even a year later, the nurses are still her superheroes.
Running to recovery after a near-fatal crash
Last Memorial Day weekend, 62-year-old Kelly Howard bought a used motorcycle. When he rode it for the first time, he noticed it was low on gas. Kelly parked the vehicle on the side of a frontage road and walked up the street to the gas station. On the walk, an oncoming car hit Kelly, tossing him to the side of the road.
When EMS arrived, paramedics initially thought Kelly was dead. He suffered seven broken ribs and a punctured left lung, and was admitted to the Level II Trauma Center at St. David's South Austin Medical Center, where doctors were able to revive him.
Just weeks later, at St. David's Rehabilitation Hospital, located at St. David’s Medical Center, Kelly was recovering at an incredible pace. He was setting records for how quickly he could run up the stairs and worked on his public speaking so he could continue as a pastor at his church.
Kelly is now back to living his regular life with no limitations. He is also a service professional at a funeral home and runs multiple miles a day.
Expanding life-saving robotic procedures
The endoscopy team at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center and William Bartek, M.D., medical director of pulmonology, recently completed the hospital’s 100th lung screening using a new robotic system with advanced imaging technology. St. David’s South Austin Medical Center was one of the first hospitals in Central Texas to combine the use of CT imaging and robotics to precisely detect early stage lung cancer.
Kelly Coles, a 67-year-old woman, was one of Dr. Bartek’s first patients to experience the benefits of this technology. She was taken to the ER on her 66th birthday for a heart attack. The visit would save Kelly’s life from something completely unrelated – lung cancer. Chest x-rays revealed a spot on her lung that was too small for a standard biopsy, but the new Ion robotic system was able to reach it and allow for treatment of her early stage lung cancer.
“Because the lung is often a difficult place to get biopsies, this new, robotic-assisted approach represents an advancement in the existing approaches to lung biopsies,” Dr. Bartek said. “This system, along with advanced imaging technology, provides us with better access and increased precision, which can produce quicker results and may help avoid additional biopsies.”
Kelly told the Austin American-Statesman last year that she was “very lucky” the cancer was caught so early. She has since quit smoking and will have to receive regular scans to ensure the cancer doesn’t return.
St. David’s South Austin Medical Center also offers a number of other robotic procedures and is home to some of the most state-of-the-art medical technology available, in partnership with the Texas Institute for Robotic Surgery. Robotic services include orthopedics, open heart and lung surgery, complex GI surgery, surgical oncology, general surgery, colorectal surgery, and urology.
Read more about Kelly’s storyA chance encounter leads to another lease on life
Two years ago, a chance encounter at a motocross park in Lockhart saved a young man’s life.
When the COVID-19 pandemic started, 25-year-old Emily Ellisor took up motocross—a fun activity that happens outside and socially distanced. Through motocross, Emily met Trevor Manning, her husband’s coworker, who had a rare kidney disease called Alport Syndrome and was in need of a transplant. When Emily and Trevor got to talking, she felt compelled to help him by giving him one of her kidneys.
Emily had the full support of her husband, but Trevor was hesitant to take a kidney from someone he just met. After months of testing, they learned that Emily’s kidney was a near-perfect match for Trevor.
Emily and Trevor underwent surgery on November 17, 2020, at The Kidney Transplant Center at St. David’s North Austin Medical Center. The transplant was successful, and Dr. Jaqueline Lappin, Trevor’s transplant surgeon, checked on him every day.
“My whole life, I’ve wanted to help people. I went to school for firefighting, and nothing that I’ve ever done will amount to helping someone the way Emily helped me,” Trevor said.
93-year-old able to dance again thanks to her “angels”
Ernestine is a 93-year-old cardiac patient who loves one thing above all else: dancing. But her narrowing aortic valve made it difficult to keep up with her passion every day – until she underwent a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedure at Heart Hospital of Austin.
Because of her age, Ernestine is not eligible for open-heart surgery, and there is no medicine to fix her condition. Fortunately, the TAVR procedure, which is minimally invasive, allows doctors to insert a catheter through a blood vessel or small incision in the leg and replace the aortic valve.
Ernestine has needed several procedures over the past few years to keep up her active lifestyle, which also includes baking, yard work, and playing with her great-grandchildren. She calls the staff at Heart Hospital of Austin, her “St. David’s Angels.”
Bringing integrated, community-centered care to Taylor, TX
Lone Star Circle of Care opens innovative community health center
Lone Star Circle of Care hosted a ribbon cutting and open house on February 25 for its newest clinic at what used to be Taylor West End School, which was built in the 1920s. Despite the cold, the community showed up in coats and scarves to celebrate the opening of the clinic in Taylor, Texas.
The clinic sits at the center of eastern Williamson County, which has been identified as a health equity zone, an area where disparities in income, wealth and access to resources lead to worse health outcomes. Behavioral health, stress and well-being remain a top health priority in the county along with chronic disease factors and the accessibility and affordability of healthcare.
“The opening of this clinic is an intentional and unique example of bringing care to where people are living, working, worshiping and playing,” said Edward Burger, PhD, President and CEO of St. David’s Foundation.
Lone Star has transformed Taylor’s former West End School, closed in the 1980s, to provide health care and community-based services to eastern Williamson County. The City of Taylor recognized the need for access to an integrated community-based health service model and donated the facility to Lone Star to renovate, demonstrating the value of private-public partnerships to address community health equity.
“The West End School building has always been a benefit to the Taylor community, from its days focused on education to its new life providing health care and community-based support services,” said Jon Calvin, CEO of Lone Star Circle of Care. “We are grateful that City leaders entrusted us with this revitalization project.”
The clinic serves to remodel what care looks like by creating a hub for health that is built for the specific needs of a community and imbeds social services within its structure. There are nine exam rooms and two behavioral health offices which will serve an estimated 5,000 adult and pediatric patients annually. St. David’s Foundation provided capital funding to support the renovation of this site, and is excited to support this clinic hub going forward. This model of care is closely aligned with the Foundation’s strategic priorities, focused on serving rural residents with physically co-located health and social service programs that are aimed at improving health for vulnerable children, their families and aging populations.
Programs will include Head Start and Early Head Start, a Meals on Wheels program, a senior center, and urban farming. This clinic itself will offer primary care along with expanded behavioral care, including trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy and parent-child interactive therapy.
St. David’s Foundation believes in supporting clinics to serve as community hubs for health and reducing the impact of social determinants of health, which are the conditions outside of the healthcare system that impact health outcomes and risks. Community health centers hold a unique position to address non-clinical factors such as transportation, housing, and food insecurity, and connect underserved populations to needed services.
“This project is the embodiment of how clinics can function as community hubs for health through a model of care that focuses on the ‘whole person,’” said Jesse Ancira, member of St. David’s Foundation Board of Trustees and former mayor of Taylor. “Lone Star Circle of Care’s Taylor West End School Clinic is a bold and inspiring asset for Taylor and its surrounding community, and we look forward to seeing the impact of all of the work to advance health equity, eliminate barriers, and create opportunities that promote optimal health across our region.”