HARTFORD HOSPITAL’S WELLNESS MAGAZINE • Winter 2017 ROUNDS Advanced Care for ACHING HEADS ALSO: Bone & Joint Institute Takes Shape Philanthropy Paving the Way for Innovation And More Fall 2016 ROUNDS Hartford Hospital’s Wellness Magazine contents welcome Page 3 Advanced Care for Aching Heads to Rounds Magazine Page 6 Hartford Hospital News Thank you for taking the time to read Rounds and learn about Hartford Hospital and some of the Page 12 Philanthropy Helping to Pave Way outstanding programs, services and educational for Hartford Hospital Innovations opportunities we offer. Staffed by more than 7,000 highly skilled physicians, nurses and other health- Page 14 care professionals, Hartford Hospital is a regional Bone & Joint Institute: Taking Shape, and Shaping the Future destination for innovative and complex care. Each year, thousands of patients are transferred to our hospital from other hospitals to Page 16 receive the very high level of care our staff provides. Avon Cancer Center Offers Our hospital has a long legacy of healing and serving our Innovative Care community. Hartford Hospital was founded in 1854 by community Page 17 members who believed their city needed a hospital to provide a Laughing Gas for Labor Pain higher level of care than could be provided at home. Our hospital Page 18 performed the first successful heart transplant in the state; pioneered Research Studies the use of robotics in surgery; and established the state’s first Page 19 air-ambulance service, LIFE STAR. We operate the region’s only Welcome, New Physicians Level One trauma center, and our Institute of Living, a psychiatric Page 20 hospital, is known worldwide for its research and innovative Calendar Of Events treatments. And our cancer center is an integral part of the Hartford HealthCare Cancer Institute, the first member of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Alliance, bringing world-class standards of cancer care and clinical trials to our patients. Rounds Advisory Board: Our hospital has been recognized for excellence by U.S. News & Adrienne Bentman, MD John Greene Jr., MD World Report, the National Cancer Institute, Healthgrades, Becker’s Stuart Markowitz, MD Hospital Review, the American Heart and Stroke Associations, Andrew Salner, MD Anthem, Aetna and many more prominent organizations. David Whitehead In this issue of Rounds, you’ll learn about our Headache Center, Editorial Team directed by one of the most experienced headache specialists in Debra Durbin, Michaela Donnelly, the nation, as well as the progress of our Bone & Joint Institute, Helayne Lightstone, Allison Mahon which will be a national destination for musculoskeletal care. Designer You’ll also read about our renovated labor and delivery rooms, Karen DeFelice which provide a more soothing environment for new mothers and Writers their babies. Garret Condon, Debra Durbin, Annie Emanuelli, We hope this issue of Rounds gives you a feeling for the exceptional Karen Hunter, Noreen Kirk, Hilary Waldman expertise and compassion of the Hartford Hospital team. Photography Chris Rakoczy Sincerely, Calendar Coordinator Kat Ryan Hartford Hospital 80 Seymour Street • Hartford, CT 06102-5037 Stuart K. Markowitz, MD 860.545.5000 • www.hartfordhospital.org President, Hartford Hospital & Senior Vice President, Hartford HealthCare 2 ROUNDS welcome Advanced Care for to Rounds Magazine ACHING HEADS The Hartford HealthCare Headache Center opened in fall 2015 under the leadership of Medical is unique in the region, offering advanced, Director Dr. Brian Grosberg. “Our mission is to create and grow a state and nation- personalized care and — most important ally recognized, comprehensive, multidisciplinary head- — relief from chronic pain. ache program that provides highly individualized care,” Grosberg says. “Our passion is taking care of people.” Many of us experience minor headaches from time Grosberg came to Hartford HealthCare from the to time and think little of it. But roughly 45 million world-renowned Montefiore Headache Center in New Americans suffer from severe, chronic, recurring York City, where he served as co-director. He also served headaches. For these people, the pain is a burden that as program director of its Headache and Facial Pain affects every aspect of their lives, and relief can be hard Fellowship, educating physicians planning to specialize to find. Fortunately, effective headache relief is available in headache medicine. He is board-certified in neurology right now, right here in Connecticut, at the new by the American Board of Psychiatry and Hartford HealthCare Headache Center. Neurology and board-certified The Hartford HealthCare Head- in headache medicine by ache Center, which is part of the United Council Hartford HealthCare’s for Neurologic Neuroscience Institute, Subspecialties. Continued on page 4 Winter 2017 3 Advanced Care for ACHING HEADS Continued from page 3 Grosberg has been the recipient of several prestigious on nonpharmaceutical ways to reduce pain. awards for his work, including the Clinical Headache Fellowship Award from the American Headache Society. A Full Range of Treatments Grosberg has applied his expertise and experience The center offers an array of therapies, some of which to assemble and personally train a team of headache are offered at only a few places in the country. One is specialists who also see patients at the Hartford intravenous (IV) therapy. Patients with headaches that HealthCare Headache Center. They include Dr. Abigail are particularly difficult to treat — or pregnant patients Chua, physician assistant Sheena Doyle and nurse who can’t take oral medications — can come into the practitioners Renee Kane and Andrea Murphy. Other office and receive IV medication to help break the clinical team members include infusion and triage nurses headache cycle and offer rapid relief. Sarah Fiedler and Christina Fraley. Grosberg describes “We are the only facility in New England with the all of them as “nothing short of superb — the most capacity to offer it in this fashion,” Grosberg says. compassionate, knowledgeable and patient-oriented The center is one of only 60 sites in the country able specialists I’ve ever worked with.” to prescribe transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, Plans call for the Hartford HealthCare Headache for headache. TMS is a painless, noninvasive treatment Center to become recognized as a one-of-a-kind center that uses a hand-held device to deliver magnetic pulses and a regional and national destination site for headache believed to create electronic currents in the brain that treatment and prevention. A significant number of help treat migraine. Studies have shown that TMS may patients already are traveling from a number of other also be effective in preventing headache and reducing states to obtain care at the center. headache frequency and severity. Biobehavioral treatments such as biofeedback, Headache Care: It’s Personal cognitive behavioral therapy, relaxation training and Before their first visit, patients complete a detailed stress management are also available. These treatments questionnaire about their health and headache history, have proven effective both on their own and as adjuncts lifestyle and more. Grosberg and his team of specially to medication. trained headache specialists review the completed ques- Depending on the patient’s individual needs, Grosberg tionnaires in advance and again on the patient’s first visit. and his team may recommend injection therapies. These The questionnaire, Grosberg says, helps ensure that are administered in the center. They include Botox, which “patients will experience a comprehensive approach, with is effective in treating chronic migraines; nerve blocks, an explanation of the type of headache they have and which use local anesthetics and sometimes steroids to a treatment plan tailored just for them, because no two provide immediate relief from headaches; and trigger people have the same type of headache.” point injections, which treat headaches, neck and shoulder A priority is involving patients in their own care. When pain by relaxing muscles that contribute to pain. it comes to developing an individualized treatment plan, These treatments and a variety of oral medications give Grosberg says, “The other headache specialists and I the center’s providers and patients a range of choices for always look to partner with patients. I tell patients, ‘If relieving pain. Treatment is adjusted over time based on the you’re not comfortable with the plan, neither am I.’” patient’s response. Each patient keeps a detailed headache The team also looks at the whole person, not just the journal so his or her experience can be reviewed at each visit. headache. The individualized treatment plan takes into consideration all aspects of the person’s life to maximize Looking Ahead treatment effectiveness. Grosberg sees the center continuing to grow as a hub of People who suffer from chronic headaches may provider education and headache research. Additional experience stress, anxiety and depression as a result. locations will be established late this year to make The center also has a licensed psychologist, Dr. Brooke the center’s exceptional care more readily available to Walters, who is specially trained in both headache patients throughout Hartford HealthCare’s service area, medicine and sleep medicine. One of only a handful something no other program in the country has done. of psychologists with such expertise, Dr. Walters helps Grosberg’s collaboration with a leading researcher at patients deal with emotional issues and works with them Harvard Medical School will enable patients to receive 4 ROUNDS At Long Last, Relief Sarah Hughes began suffering severe headaches For decades, Hughes had been treated for migraine when she was a junior in college. or cluster headaches. Grosberg determined that what “The pain was extreme and absolutely debilitat- she actually had was a less common type of head- ing,” Hughes recalls. “When I’d been in bed for three ache called hemicrania continua. With the correct days straight, my roommates decided to drive me diagnosis, Hughes and Grosberg were able to develop home to my parents.” a targeted treatment plan.