Geisinger hosts critical care seminar at Spring Mills

SPRING MILLS — More than 90 health care professionals attended Geisinger Western Region’s critical care seminar May 8 at the Seven Mountains Wine Cellars, Spring Mills. 

Dr. Brian Simpkins and counselor Michele Davis, of Geisinger, led a panel of speakers that included Gordon Merry, director of the Cabell County, W.Va., Emergency Medical Services; Jerry Mitchell, outreach specialist with the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General; and Kathie Simpson, executive director of the Pennsylvania Nurse Peer Assistance Program.

The seminar was attended by nurses, advanced practitioners, physicians, pharmacists and pre-hospital responders interested in the management of critically ill patients.

Among the topics discussed this year were street drugs and what’s new in treatment and legislation, Pennsylvania’s approach to impaired health care and post treatment for substance use.

 ‘With constant changes in evidence-based practices, it is important for health care professionals to stay on top of things,’ said nurse Sherri Ard, inpatient operations manager at Geisinger Lewistown Hospital’s Intensive Cardiac Care Unit/Intermediate Care Unit. ‘Critical care for a patient is not always a standard ‘by the book’ practice. It is important to recognize subtle changes in a patient’s condition that can lead to a patient quickly deteriorating. The seminar helps health care professionals grow and be challenged as they move beyond the basics with the sickest of patients.’

The critical care seminar is an annual event organized by the Geisinger-Lewistown IMCU and ICCU.