Secrets of Healthy Workplaces
Mark Tanouye's wake-up call was actually a fire alarm. The 50-something data analyst at American Savings Bank was sitting in a conference room when a fire drill began.
Health & Wellness
Unnecessary Costs and Risks?
Dr. Kazuma Nakagawa was frustrated. Time and again, the neurointensivist at The Queen’s Medical Center saw patients transferred from Neighbor Island hospitals with intracerebral hemorrhage – a type of bleeding in the brain – even when it was clear no…
Actors Make Good Medicine
Did you know that some of Hawaii’s best acting goes on at UH’s schools of medicine and nursing? At UH-Manoa’s School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene, a creative partnership with the Theatre Department has aspiring actors practicing their improvisational skills…
5 Steps to a Fitter You
If 2015 is like most years, fitness goals are at the top of most people’s resolutions list. Fitness instructor and author Tony Rodriguez Larkin offers this guide for you to succeed: 1. Take measurements Keep data on everything you want…
CEO of the Year: Expanding the Queen's Care
The Queen’s Health Systems was facing a difficult and expensive decision: whether to rescue the North Hawaii Community Hospital in Hawaii Island’s paniolo country. The hospital was considering bankruptcy, a path taken by other Hawaii hospitals in the past four…
How Safe Is Your Hospital?
When Barb had outpatient surgery to remove worrisome growths in her pelvic area last November, the biggest difference she noticed from her previous hospital stay wasn’t a fancy new medical device or miracle drug – it was all the talk,…
Deadly “Superbug” arrives in Hawaii
If patients and their families worry about acquiring an infection in the hospital, they’re probably thinking about the drug-resistant staph infection called MRSA. But hospital administrators and health officials say MRSA is no longer a major risk, with more patients…
Skai Ventures: Strategies for Takeoff
Twenty miles west of downtown Honolulu, inside a compact industrial building in Kapolei, engineers decked in white lab coats and safety goggles are carefully dipping silicon wafers into baths under industrial hoods and studying readouts that flash on monitors mounted…
What Happens if Hawaii Legalizes Marijuana?
Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Franklin. Jilly Bean, Lemon Haze and Bubba Kush. Those two types of green are flowing in and out of Colorado’s 200 dispensaries: lots of cash to buy potent strains of cannabis. Nearly $19…
Aloha Medical Mission Heals the Poor in the Philippines
For a week in February, a team of 28 volunteers helped heal some of the poorest people in Tuguegarao and the surrounding region of the Philippines. The visitors from Hawaii’s Aloha Medical Mission and their local partners saw 1,300 patients, performed 22…
Talk Story with Susan Murray of the Queen's Health Systems
Twenty years into a high-powered career as a hospital executive, Murray got tapped for the opportunity of a lifetime: Overseeing the $70 million opening of The Queen’s Medical Center’s 17-acre campus in Ewa Beach, on the site of the former Hawaii Medical…
Hawaii-Born Pill: The Next Wonder Drug?
For centuries, people around the world knew that chewing on the bark of certain willow trees could ease the pain of a toothache or a migraine. By the mid-19th century, scientists in France and Germany had isolated the chemical, salicylic…
Rehab Hospital of the Pacific Reinvents Itself
Restoration is a slow and sometimes painful process for people whose bodies have been battered by strokes, car crashes and other calamities. Helping those people regain their basic skills and abilities is the main goal of the Rehabilitation Hospital of the…
Can the University of Hawaii make millions off its research?
These bacteria are a key part of UH’s plan to double the money it collects from federal grants over the coming decade “Micro-organisms dominate this planet,” says David Karl, director of C-MORE, the UH-based Center for Microbial Oceanography, Research and…
Parting Shot: Diagnostic Laboratory Services
Thursday, 2:17 PM Diagnostic Laboratory Services, Aiea Photographer David Croxford >> Medical laboratory technician Jayson Ababa checks complete blood count samples using an automated hematology analyzer system. DLS tests samples from Hawaii, Guam and Saipan and performs about 37,000…
Box Jellyfish Sting Experience Inspires UH Researcher to Create Effective Treatment
Problem: Box jellyfish kill more swimmers than sharks in Australia and elsewhere in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Stings from the smaller Hawaii species can be painful and debilitating. Controversial “antivenom” treatments have a poor 40-year track record and fail to…
11 Ways to Make Healthy Happen in the Workplace
You already know that healthy employees are good for business, so here are 11 strategies that companies use to keep their workers healthy and productive. 1. Keep germs at bay. “We have extensive signage throughout our facilities reminding everyone to…
What Makes a Psychologically Healthy Workplace?
For 13 years, the Hawaii Psychological Association has been recognizing psychologically healthy companies with its annual awards. Program chair Don Kopf says the organization looks at six criteria set by the American Psychological Association: Employee involvement in decision making on company issues;…
Parting Shot: Sharper Imaging
Tuesday, 1:27 PM Hawaii Advanced Imaging Institute, Honolulu Photographer Kevin Blitz >> Chanel Kaneshiro, lead MRI technician at Hawaii Advanced Imaging Institute, tests a patient in a 3.0T Open MRI scanner. One of only two such devices in the state,…
Innovation: Mammograms with less pain and better results
Problem: Breast cancer strikes one of every eight women in the United States. “Everyone knows someone or is related to someone who has breast cancer,” says Dr. Beth Rhodes of the Breast Care Center of Hawaii. “But, today, (a breast cancer diagnosis)…
Talk Story with John McComas of AlohaCare
McComas has led AlohaCare since 1996. The medical insurer’s largest group of clients are Medicaid/Quest beneficiaries in Hawaii, including families and individuals with incomes at or below 133 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. That’s about 75,000 people. Gov. Neil Abercrombie speaks of transforming…
Fruits & Vegetables Delivered to your Office
When Kara Shibata’s son “graduated” from Central Union Preschool in May, she realized she would miss the bag of fresh local produce that was delivered every other week by Holoholo General Store. “I knew it would be difficult to continue…
Not just poor women, but educated professionals can be victims of domestic violence
Malia Espinda is a survivor. Her friend, Sydney Kline, wasn’t as lucky. The two were once victims of domestic violence. Espinda is now in a healthy relationship and thriving in her career as a legislative analyst at The Queen’s Health Systems.…
Physically Fit, Fiscally Fit
Howard K.F. Lee walks the talk. Literally. The president and CEO of University Health Alliance dropped 20 pounds since January after joining a CrossFit program and overhauling his diet. His cholesterol and blood pressure improved, too. Now he’s armed with…