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July 20, 2009
Top medical advances vie for marketing grants

Una Hutton Newman is chief marketing officer, Woodruff Health Sciences Center and Emory Healthcare.

Emory Healthcare Marketing is in the process of evaluating proposals and will award grants for FY 2010 to departments offering medical/clinical scientific advances that set Emory apart from its competition. These innovations will be featured on Emory’s new Top Medical Advances Web site at www.emorymedicaladvances.org during FY 2010.

This year’s goal is to highlight Emory’s strategic goal of “Discovery and Innovation.” The RFP process highlights Emory’s innovative edge and identifies clinical strengths. The departments selected will receive funds from marketing that will be used for Web site improvements. Marketing received 18 proposals. Some of the projects being considered:

Radiation Oncology is evaluating several innovative technologies against the current standard of care to improve patient outcomes. These include a study for cervical motion for patients with cancer of the cervix. Currently, Emory is the only facility in Georgia with the Calypso 4D Localization System. The department will also be installing a relatively new technology called VisionRT, which will allow for improved accuracy for the set-up of breast cancer patients.

Emory Healthcare is focusing on marketing procedures using minimally- invasive robotic assisted surgery with the da Vinci Si HD Surgical System, a robot capable of performing a multitude of laparoscopic surgeries. EHC will develop a dedicated Web site to feature departments that utilize the robot, including urology, surgical oncology, gynecology and cardiothoratic surgery.

The Neuroendocrine Pituitary Center provides a regionally unique and differentiated service line to patients with pituitary tumors and/or other complex neuroendocrine diseases and is the only center in Georgia with a pituitary endocrinologist. The department performs 3D endoscopic surgery for removal of the pituitary — the only place in Georgia and only one of three organizations in the nation that perform that surgery. It is also the only center in the world involved in a receptor imaging National Institutes of Health study.

The Department of Radiology would like to highlight its multiple research advancements in Breast Imaging including Stereo (3D) Mammography and a Breast CT machine. The prototype dedicated breast CT system is used to closely monitor the changes in size and blood flow of breast tumors in patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy and is only the second prototype clinical system of its kind in the world. The department will also feature current clinical technologies such as digital screening and diagnostic mammography and breast MRI.

The Emory Voice Center performs awake laser therapy for voice disorders and is the only site in the Southeast that offers KTP laser therapy for vocal chord problems is performed while the patient is totally awake. This includes both benign and malignant growths and a variety of other vocal chord problems — treatment for which previously required full general anesthesia and surgery in the operating room.

Emory’s comprehensive liver program will promote a new liver transplant program and team, innovative liver surgeries and oncological liver treatments, including Laparoscopic Major Hepatectomy, a
new technique for performing major liver resections for benign and malignant hepatic tumors using a laparoscopic approach rather than an open incision approach. Emory is one of only a handful of medical centers in the country doing major laparoscopic liver resections and the only one in the Southeast region.