Clinician's Roundtable

Host: Bruce Bloom, DDS, JD Guest: Loren Walensky, MD, PhD Dr. Loren Walensky, Assistant Professor of Pediatric Oncology at Harvard Medical School and Medical Director of the Program of Cancer Chemical Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute discusses the biology of cell death and how a new chemical technology is yielding a host of new tools to study and treat diseases, like cancer, that are characterized by an imbalance of cellular life and death.

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Tim Dugan, MBA Almost every day, you hear or read about people working more for less, and doctors are no different with employers, insurers and government payers looking for ways to slow rising health costs. So how do doctors maximize revenue in this challenging environment? Tim Dugan, co-founder of private equity firm Water Street Healthcare Partners, one of the largest such funds focused solely on the health-care industry, tells the Chicago Tribune's Bruce Japsen about private equity and how it works with doctors to improve their revenue.

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Tim Dugan, MBA A new trend is emerging in medical diagnosis. It's called point-of-care diagnostics. Tim Dugan, managing partner and co-founder of Water Street Healthcare Partners, one of the nation's largest private equity funds focused solely on health care, tells the Chicago Tribune's Bruce Japsen about moving diagnostic tests to the patients' bedside and the point of care.

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Tim Dugan, MBA With the volatility of the stock market and still low interest rates, private equity continues to have a greater role in the health care industry. But can private equity improve patient safety outcomes with the entire industry under pressure to improve quality? Tim Dugan, co-founder of Water Street Healthcare Partners, a private equity fund focused solely on the health care industry, tells the Chicago Tribune's Bruce Japsen about what private investment has to offer for quality in medical care.

Host: Susan Dolan, RN, JD Guest: Constance Dahlin, MSN, APRN Join Constance M. Dahlin, an advanced practice nurse and Co-Director of the Outpatient Palliative Care Service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, as she discusses the uniform palliative care guidelines.

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Ronald Myers, MD Collaboration is a theme that pop-up regularly in discussions about how to improve our healthcare system. The Pennsylvania Cancer Control Consortium, an example of just one collaborative healthcare effort has created a statewide blueprint for all sectors of Pennsylvania—public, academic, private, and volunteer, to work together to meet the growing challenge of cancer control. Join host Dr. Larry Kaskel learn more about this consortium with our guest Dr. Ron Myers.

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Ronald Myers, MD Its common knowledge that colon cancer screening is underutilized. Can primary care physicians and healthcare professionals impact their patients choice to get screened and to follow through with the screening? Join host Larry Kaskel discuss these issues with our guest Dr. Ron Myers who recently completed a study on how healthcare professionals can increase colorectal screening amongst their patients.

Host: Larry Kaskel, MD Guest: Timothy Henry, MD Not all hospitals are equipped with staff or equipment to perform percutaneous coronary intervention on an emergency basis. However, in an emergency situation, critical decisions must be made: Take a patient to the nearest medical center that can provide fibrinoloysis or take the extra time to get them to a medical center who can perform PCI. What are the current protocols in place to make this often times life/death decision? Join host, Dr. Larry Kaskel talk with Dr. Tim Henry, Director of Research at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation about his recent paper entitled, 'Design of a Standardized System For Transfer of Patients with ST-elevation Myocardial Infarction for Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.'

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Richard Anderson, MD From employers and insurers to the federal Medicare program, the focus on medical errors by those paying for health care is unprecedented. But Dr. Richard Anderson, chairman and chief executive of Napa, Calif-based national malpractice carrier, The Doctors Company, tells the Chicago Tribune's Bruce Japsen that strides can be made in the move to patient safety, and physicians can have a leadership role.

Host: Bruce Japsen Guest: Richard Anderson, MD Potentially better rates in the wake of tort reform that have capped certain damages are more in the offering than in recent years, but is the momentum going to continue to spread across the country in states where tort reform has stalled? Dr. Richard Anderson, chairman and chief executive officer of Napa, Calif.-based national malpractice insurance carrier, The Doctors Company, tells the Chicago Tribune's Bruce Japsen about the state of tort reform in states across the U.S.