• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Holy Family Hospital Opens Continence Facility

Posted on: Monday, 18 July 2005, 03:01 CDT

Holy Family Hospital has opened a facility dedicated to treating people of all ages who suffer from incontinence. The facility, developed and equipped at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars, occupies a secluded space on the North Side hospital's main floor where the radiology department formerly was located. It includes two large procedure rooms, a nursing station, and a dictation area for physicians.

It's similar in size and services to a facility that Sacred Heart Medical Center opened about two and a half years ago in a temporary space on its own campus, and that it moved last year into that hospital's new Women's Health Center.

Dr. Shane McNevin, a colorectal surgeon who practices at both hospitals and came to Spokane only three years ago, was a key proponent of establishing the two facilities, which are being operated under the joint name of Providence Continence Center. McNevin is the de facto medical director of both centers. Both hospitals are members of Providence Health Care, a regional network of 13 healthcare organizations located in Spokane and Stevens counties.

"The whole idea is for it to be a multidisciplinary evaluation process," involving urologists, gynecologists, physical therapists, specially trained nurses, and a surgeon, McNevin says.

Response from the public to the continence centers has been encouraging, due partly to growing awareness about incontinence treatments and a diminishing reluctance by sufferers to discuss or deal with what traditionally had been considered an embarrassing problem, he says.

"We're probably taking care of 10 to 15 new people a week between the two (locations), and that's just for me. Urologists have more on top of that. It's overwhelming in volume at this point," McNevin says.

"I think the last three years the word has gotten out to primary- care practitioners" about the specialized services available for patients who suffer from incontinence, he says. Also, he says, "I think it's getting to be something that's easier to talk about. More people are seeking treatment."

McNevin believes he's the only physician in the region who specializes in fecal, or bowel, incontinence. Because of the sheer number of patients, his practice currently is scheduling clinic visits four to six weeks in advance and surgeries six to eight weeks in advance, he says. He estimates he's averaging 20 to 25 surgeries a week.

"We're at about an operating capacity that can't get too much business without another surgeon. We've been recruiting for a while. It's a tough market to recruit it."

The Holy Family center is equipped to diagnose and treat both urinary and bowel incontinence, which refer to the involuntary release of urine or stool, respectively. The latest available national figures indicate that at least 13 million Americans suffer from urinary incontinence, and an estimated 10 percent of those sufferers also have problems with bowel control.

"It's a symptom, not a disease," says Richard MacDonald, director of peri-operative services at Holy Family and the administrator whom McNevin first approached about setting up a continence center there.

The varying types of incontinence are the result of underlying disorders, MacDonald says. Among the causes for it are birth defects, pelvic or spinal cord injuries, neurological disease, multiple sclerosis, infection, medication side effectives, and degenerative changes, he says.

Psychosocial problems inevitably accompany the physical discomforts of being incontinent, according to background information about the condition provided by the hospital. People who are incontinent often will avoid or curtail certain activities to avoid "being discovered," the information says.

An estimated 80 percent of incontinence sufferers are female, and the largest share are women between 40 and 60 years of age, but the condition isn't a natural consequence of aging, so people of all ages can be affected.

Despite some progress in erasing the stigma, MacDonald says people still "are a little bit hesitant about going to a doctor and saying, 'I have a urinary problem.' It's kind of a hidden thing."

What they need to understand, he says, is that a range of treatments are available and that simple steps, such as changing diet, taking medications, or undergoing behavioral therapies sometimes can resolve the problem.

In other cases, the center uses special equipment to do urodynamic testing, which explores possible physical reasons for voiding disorders, and for biofeedback, which serves as a neuromuscular retraining tool.

All of the testing is done on an outpatient basis, and no sedation is required, MacDonald says.

"There are people out there who have a problem and don't know it's a problem. We want to help them get back to normalcy, " he says. "There are recourses for ,pepple to take, and that's what we're trying to do here."

McNevin says surgical options, when warranted, can include direct repair of the sphincter muscle. "We can never get it back to what nature had right the first time, but we can get it close," he says.

Holy Family plans to hold an open house for its new continence center on June 30 to help raise community awareness about the condition and the services offered there, MacDonald says. Part of the center's long-term focus, he says, will be further educating the public about incontinence.

Copyright Northwest Business Press Inc. Jun 16, 2005

Source: Journal of Business; Spokane

More News in this Category