Advancing Your Health

Every day inside and outside of Emory facility walls our staff and care team members make it their priority to live our mission to serve humanity by improving health. That mission is carried out in obvious ways through the direct partnership between our patients and care team, but also in less obvious ways, by improving our community’s access to top quality patient-centered health care. In late 2011, we improved access to everyday health care services by partnering with the CVS MinuteClinic to provide health care at 31 locations across the metro Atlanta area without an appointment. As we brought in the New Year, we welcomed the newest member of the Emory Healthcare family, ...]

Mark your calendar for the Emory Johns Creek Hospital Community Health Festival Saturday, May 19, from 8 a.m. to noon. We will have something for everyone at this fun, family-friendly event: kids’ crafts at the Kidz Zone, free health screenings, an opportunity to meet and talk with our physicians, fire safety and K-9 demonstrations by the Johns Creek Fire and Police Departments, and tasty treats from local vendors. We are pleased to welcome the Johns Creek Chamber and the Junior League of Gwinnett and North Fulton Counties aspartners for this event. The Festival kicks off Saturday morning with the annual 5K Scrub Run at 8 a.m. Proceeds from the 5K Scrub Run benefit the Emory Johns Creek Hospital 5K Fund, which provides life-saving AEDs (automate external defibrillators) to [...]

You may be surprised to see some new construction at The Emory Clinic (TEC).  Construction began on Friday, April 27, 2012, to improve patient access to Buildings A, B and C in anticipation of construction of the planned Emory University Hospital bed tower.  The project, which will mostly affect the valet area next to Buildings A and C, will add lanes to make valet parking easier and faster and improve self-parking by creating an elevated, “conditioned” (heated and cooled) bridge from the main Hospital/Clinic parking deck to TEC  Buildings A and B, as well as leading to the hospital. Pedestrians will no longer have to compete with cars that are trying to enter the valet area in front of Building A. If you are a patient and have [...]

High quality health care provided in a safe, patient- and family-centered environment is the foundation of Emory Healthcare’s mission. At Emory Healthcare, we’re committed to transparency in communications with our patients, recognizing your right to be informed about all aspects of your care, treatment and service. With that said, we want to inform our community of a recent situation that may impact some of our patients. Emory Healthcare has determined that 10 backup discs containing information on surgical patients treated between September 1990 and April 2007 are missing from a storage location at Emory University Hospital. Upon discovery that the discs were missing, an extensive search and investigation was initiated and is continuing. It is important to note that there was no actual or attempted breach or “hacking in” of Emory’s electronic medical records or other systems. Our investigation into the matter has determined that the discs were removed between [...]

Emory Johns Creek Hospital has a new da Vinci® robot, and the second grade students at State Bridge Elementary School have helped us name it! At the beginning of April, the second graders were invited to participate in our “Name the Robot” contest. They colored in pictures of the robot and suggested fun names for it. They also learned how the hospital uses this revolutionary robotic technology for surgery. Johns Creek High School’s Robotics Seminar students chose the winning name for us from among the entries. The “Name the Robot” contest winner will get a behind-the scenes tour of one of Emory Johns Creek Hospital’s operating rooms, and everyone in the winner’s class will receive acoupon from Chick-fil-A. A prize is also [...]

Men under the age of 40 now have one more reason to hit the gym. According to a recent Emory University study, increased physical activity is associated with better sexual function in men under 40. The study, published online in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, assessed the association between physical activity and erectile function in young, healthy men ages 18 to 40. Previous studies have suggested that erectile dysfunction in men under 40 is correlated with increased cardiovascular risks. “The men in our study who exercised more seemed to experience a protective benefit against erectile dysfunction,” says Wayland Hsiao, MD, co-author of the study and assistant professor of urology, Emory University School of Medicine. “We hope that early screening for ED may [...]

Two years have passed since the New York City Health Department announced its national initiative to reduce American’s salt intake twenty percent by the year 2015.  Being sited as the catalyst for increased blood pressure, heart attacks and stokes, salt in some circles is seen as public enemy number one.  Just last September the Department of Health and Human Services announced its own national campaign against heart attacks (and indirectly sodium intake) called Million Hearts. This national initiative has set the ambitious goal to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. But is salt really the problem?  Yes and no.  Salt consumed at the recommended serving size of 2300 mg a day is fine for seventy percent of the population who are not [...]

With Adele singing at the Grammy awards this weekend, news reports have resurfaced the singer’s laser vocal cord surgery.  While she did not have her treatment at Emory, Emory’s Voice Center is one of only 12 in the nation and the only one in the Southeast that offers laser surgery for the treatment of laryngeal (voice box) conditions.  Specifically the potassium titanyl phosphate (or KTP) laser is used to avoid damaging the delicate tissues of the vocal folds during surgery. Initially it was developed to treat port-wine stains caused by broken blood vessels, but it has since received FDA approval as a treatment for vocal disorders, including abnormal blood vessels, such as varices and ectasias, which often plague singers.  Most recently, it is being used as a treatment for larynx cancer in combination with anti-cancer therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy. “The laser basically works by [...]

When the Urology Department of Emory Healthcare started offering no-scalpel, no-needle vasectomies as part of their men’s health treatment options, our ears perked up. Obviously, as the name implies, this type of vasectomy procedure allows doctors to forego the scalpel and needle combination used in traditional vasectomies, but what is used in their place? And what are the benefits? To get our questions answered, we went straight to the source, Emory’s own Dr. Wayland Hsiao, who is one of the surgeons performing the procedure. Our questions for Dr. Hsiao (and his answers) are below: What exactly does it mean when we say no-scalpel, no-needle vasectomy? Can you describe the procedure? A vasectomy is a procedure in which when the outflow of sperm through the vas deferens is interrupted to stop the outflow of sperm. It is a permanent form of male contraception. The procedure has no effect [...]

As we bring in the New Year, we’re excited about all the new things on the horizon for Emory Healthcare and the many communities with whom we collaborate to provide high quality health care. We recently, for example, announced on our blog that we have partnered with the CVS MinuteClinic to provide health care at 31 locations across the metro Atlanta area without an appointment. That was very cool news for our community. Today though, we take great joy in being able to bring in the New Year with a huge announcement, and one that our community will truly benefit from in a major way-- Emory Healthcare has now joined forces [...]