Tag Archives: Michael Faas

Metro Health – University of Michigan Health expands stroke program

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Metro Health – University of Michigan Health announces significant new clinical capability to provide comprehensive care for patients suffering from stroke with the hiring of three experienced, highly-trained specialty physicians.

 

Chief Medical Officer Peter Hahn, M.D., MBA, said expansion of the stroke physician team is evidence that “Metro is strengthening its comprehensive stroke care for the community and serving as a specialty referral center for the region.”

 

The new Stroke Center physicians include:

 

Augusto Elias, MD, the director of Neurointerventional Radiology, is fellowship trained in neuroradiology and neurointerventional radiology at the University of Michigan Medical Center, and is board certified in radiology and neuroradiology. He completed his residency in diagnostic radiology at the University of Michigan Medical Center.

 

Jeffrey Fletcher, MD, the director of Neurocritical Care, is fellowship trained in Critical Care Medicine at the University of Virginia. Board certified in neurology and vascular neurology, he completed his residency in neurology at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

 

Ravi Shastri, MD, is fellowship trained in neuroradiology and neurointerventional radiology at the University of Michigan Medical Center, and is board certified in radiology and neuroradiology. He completed his residency in radiology at the University of Arizona Medical Center.

 

These physicians join an established neurology team consisting of Kipp Chillag, DO, and Jordan Taylor, DO.

 

Any patient who presents with stroke symptoms is met by a team comprised of emergency physicians and staff, neurocritical care, neurologists, neurointerventional radiology, and neurosurgeons to assess and meet all needs.

 

Recently, Metro Health treated a patient who was found on the floor of their bathroom on a Saturday morning, unable to move, and showing signs of a stroke. Dr. Augusto Elias performed a minimally invasive catheterization and mechanical thrombectomy to remove a blood clot from the brain. Two days later, the patient was able to walk out of the hospital. Following outpatient occupational and speech therapy at Metro Health, the patient was cleared to drive and return to work within two months.

 

“A stroke is a ‘brain attack’. Two million brain neurons die every minute during a stroke,” said Dr. Augusto Elias. “As part of our comprehensive care, we collaborate with primary care physicians to educate the West Michigan area about having a sensible diet, controlling blood pressure and having a low glucose intake, so we can prevent these devastating diseases from happening.”

 

According to the National Stroke Association, more than 800,000 people suffer a stroke each year in America, and 80 percent of strokes are preventable. The American Heart Association recently announced new guidelines that a blood pressure of 130/80 is characterized as “stage one hypertension.”

 

Physicians in Metro Health’s neurology team support primary care physicians by meeting with patients showing neurological symptoms and conducting neural imaging to diagnose, and then working closely with the patient and doctor on a treatment plan.

 

Michael Faas, President and CEO, Metro Health – University of Michigan Health, said the expansion in neurology builds upon an already strong program which received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®

 

Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Award.

 

Get With The Guidelines® sets specific quality measures to ensure hospital teams follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based  guidelines with the goal of speeding recovery and reducing death and disability for stroke patients. To receive these awards, Metro Health – University of Michigan Health had to provide patient care at or above certain achievement indicators for 24 consecutive months.

 

Faas added, “The growth in our comprehensive stoke program, which includes new technology and specialty physicians to supplement our staff of neurologists, neurosurgeons and rehabilitation specialists, is just another example of the benefits of our affiliation with University of Michigan Health. Our physicians are committed to providing comprehensive stroke care covering all areas including prevention, acute care and rehab.”

Metro Health president & CEO announces transition plan for retirement

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Michael Faas

By Jennifer Hoff

Metro Health – University of Michigan Health

 

Michael Faas, President & CEO of Metro Health – University of Michigan Health announced his retirement today.

 

Mr. Faas began in his role at Metro in July of 1994 and has just completed his 23rd year. Some of the more important milestones of his tenure include:

 

  •   Establishing an early Physician Hospital Organization (PHO) which has now evolved into a CIN (Clinically Integrated Network).
  •   The first mid-size community hospital in the U.S. to access EPIC – the gold standard electronic medical record now serving over 50% of all U.S. hospitals.
  •   Employing the first doctors at Metro (currently 225 providers employed).
  •   Establishing the first neighborhood outpatient facilities (putting doctors andhospital services into neighborhoods, now 18 locations).
  •   Relocating Metro Health Hospital to a new site 8 miles from Grand Rapids toWyoming. First hospital in the state to relocate more than two miles from original location.
  •   Establishing choice in the west Michigan market by affiliating with theUniversity of Michigan.
  •   Creating Metro Health Village (dedicated to protecting the environmentthrough LEED projects). 

Faas plans to serve into the 2018 calendar year as the search for his replacement is underway. The transition plan is now underway but expect no slowdown in Metro’s growth or moving full speed ahead on strategic initiatives. Faas commented that it was an honor and a privilege to work beside so many wonderful people who always put what was best for the patient and the community first. Those who wrk at Metro Health truly have always had a passion for what they do and how they do it, he said.

 

 

 

Metro Health celebrates affiliation with U-M, looks toward the future

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Metro Health: University of Michigan Health President and CEO Michael Faas (second from the left) stands with some of the officials who attended the celebration on Jan. 5. They included Metro Health: University of Michigan Health Chief Administrative Officer Floyd Wilson Jr. (far left), University of Michigan Executive Vice Dean for Clinical Affairs and President, Clinical Enterprise, David Spahlinger, M.D. (center) and Metro Health: University of Michigan Health Corporate Board Chair Doyle Hayes (far right). (Photo by Joanne Bailey-Boorsma)

By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

Metro Health’s announcement of its affiliation with the University of Michigan had even Lt. Governor Brian Calley saying “Go blue.”

 

“And those who really know me, know that is a hard thing for me to say,” said the Michigan State University graduate. Calley, along with state and local officials joined hospital staff and officers for a celebration Thursday, Jan. 5, of the new affiliation between Metro Health and U-M. The event took place at the hospital.

 

T-shirts were handed out with the new logo that includes the familiar maze-color M with Metro Health and the words University of Michigan Health underneath. Blue and gold balloons adorned the Professional Building as the Godwin Heights High School cheerleaders welcomed people in through the hospital doors and the Godwin Heights High School Band played the U-M fight song.

 

The purpose of the event was to provide staff and elected officials more detail about the new affiliation, which, according to a press release handed out at the event, is not a partnership. According to Metro Health: University of Michigan Health Corporate Board Chair Doyle Hayes, who spoke at the event, Metro Health employees would remain Metro Health employees and the decisions of what’s important to the community will remain with the physicians and members of West Michigan.

 

Wyoming Mayor Jack Poll congratulates Metro Health University of Michigan President and CEO Michael Faas. (Photo by Abigail Stricker.)

“This affiliation brings together a trusted community resource, this is your resource, and the specialty care of U-M national leadership which also brings medical research and innovation,” Doyle said. “This affliction will provide West Michigan with greater access to high quality health care.”

 

Metro Health: University of Michigan Health President and CEO Michael Faas said Metro Health already has begun recruiting and is starting to look at future plans that include expansion of the Metro Village Health, the first of its kind in the nation, and beyond into other buildings outside of the Wyoming campus. Hospital officials have indicated that future plans could be announced later this year.

 

Wyoming Mayor Jack Poll said it has been wonderful to watch Metro Health grow over the past 10 years since it moved to the city, with changes that no one really could have predicted.

 

“Well this is obviously very exciting for the City of Wyoming to see the merger occuring,” Poll said. “Two wonderful organizations that are very well established that are now teaming together to bring better health care to the City of Wyoming.”

Metro Health, U-M affiliation brings more choice to West Michigan

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By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

When Metro Health moved to Wyoming about nine years ago, it was tasked with not being just a boutique hospital in a suburban community, but a catalysis to bring quality care to not only its immediate community of Wyoming but the West Michigan region. With Metro Health’s affiliation with the University of Michigan Health System, Metro Health President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Faas believes the hospital has achieved that.

 

Metro Health President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Faas

“We were faced with trying to clinically integrate and grow while at the same time maintain services and infrastructure that we have,” Faas said during a recent interview about the new affiliation between Metro Health and U-M. “There is having more importance to the community, more market share, more money and new buildings and as these issues kept circling we knew that we needed to get a lot bigger and more significant for some of these things to happen.”

 

To achieve this, according to Faas, Metro Health started exploring the possibility of a partnership with another institution. Metro Health officials first went to non-profit U-M as the hospital had formed a relationship with U-M providing radiation oncology. However, Metro Health ended up courting a few other possibilities including the for-profit Tennessee-based Community Health Systems. The deal with Community Health Systems did not happen and Metro Health officials began to look at other possibilities.

 

“We knew one day it could happen,” Faas said of Metro Health’s affiliation with U-M. “We had favored that one the most because we felt it was the best match. Good things came to fruition for all the right reasons.”

 

In fact the affiliation between U-M and Metro Health is not that unusual especially as hospital officials deal with the many challenges in health care from reform efforts to becoming more clinically integrated. Just recently, Grinnell Regional Medical Center in Toledo announced negotiations with UnityPoint Health Des Moines and University of Iowa Health Care. Several hospitals in the Upper Peninsula have similar partnerships.

 

While Wyoming City officials have not had any meetings with Metro Health or U-M on the affiliation, City Manager Curtis Holt said he sees it being a great thing for the community, especially since health care is one of the fastest growing industries.

 

“I have said ever since Metro Health came to Wyoming that it is a great addition to the City of Wyoming,” Holt said. “They do a great job. I think they are beneficial to our community and to our residents which is the most important thing.”

 

Holt said he is cautious over the dollar value that the new affiliation will bring to the city since it is a non-profit venture and collection from this type of development is limited. The city could benefit from the spin off ventures such as restaurants, stores, commercial businesses and other small industries that develop from the affiliation, he said, adding that he is looking forward to meeting with Metro Health officials in the coming weeks to discuss Metro Health/U-M’s plans for the future.

 

“I believe that [Metro Health] has been so focused on getting this affiliation in place, and now that it is, they can start to focus on how they are going to make a difference in the community,” Holt said.

 

Which is exactly correct according to Faas. Now that the affiliation is in place, plans will begin to move forward on various projects which will include the building up of the Metro Health Village. However, the biggest change area residents will see is that for the first time in awhile, there will be a real choice in health care services in West Michigan, Faas said.

 

“U-M has been providing health care to all the residents of Michigan for more than a century,” Faas said. “Now with this relationship with Metro Health, U-M health care is more accessible, more convenient, and less expensive then everyone driving to Ann Arbor.”

Metro Health announces affiliation with U-M Health Services

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By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma

joanne@wktv.org

 

With an eye toward providing more medical services and increasing health care options in West Michigan, Metro Health this week officially announced that the affiliation process with the University of Michigan Health System has been completed.

 

In June, Metro Health and UMHS signed a letter of intent for an affiliation. In September, both institutions approved the affiliation agreement with final regulatory approvals needed. More announcements about the affiliation and its impact are expected in the new year.

 

“We are a sister organization to them,” said Ellen Bristol, Metro Health director of internal communications and media relations. “Our governance will be by the University of Michigan regents, but we are still Metro Health. It means our employees are still Metro Health employees and U-M employees are still U-M employees.”

 

Physicians, executives and community members from West Michigan will continue serving on Metro Health boards and committees, working closely with University of Michigan leaders.

 

“The new affiliation will offer greater access to U-M services and physicians,” Bristol said. “There will be more choices offered and the hospital is able to deepen its services.”

 

The new logo for Metro Health which shows its affiliation with U-m Health Services.

U-M and Metro Health began working together in 2009 when U-M started providing radiation oncology at The Cancer Center at Metro Health Village. Clinical relations continued to develop in pediatric cardiology and pediatric endocrinology, all of which helped to pave the way for the affiliation, said Marschall Runge, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president for medical affairs, dean of the U-M Medical School and CEO of the U-M Health System.

 

“We are excited to further expand U-M services in West Michigan and to provide access to the highest quality care available to more Michigan residents,” Runge said. “Working together, we will improve the health of our patients and our communities.”

 

Metro Health President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Faas said the affiliation marks a new chapter in Metro Health’s history, “one that builds on the incredible legacy which began in 1942 when 23 osteopathic physicians opened Grand Rapids Osteopathic Hospital. I can think of no better way to honor our founders than to ensure Metro Health is able to to grow and continue serving patients of years to come.”

Metro Health Receives State Approval to Perform Elective PCI

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metro health building

 

Metro Health has received approval from the state of Michigan to perform Elective Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, or PCI, services in its cardiac catheterization laboratories at Metro Health Hospital.

 

Metro announced today that it has received approval from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to perform this life-saving service, restoring blood flow through heart vessels by using catheters with balloons and stents, without on-site Open Heart Surgery (OHS) services. The decision clears the way for Metro Health to expand services for its patients throughout West Michigan.

 

For more than a decade, Metro Health physicians have been performing the procedure on the most critical patients, those suffering a heart attack when they enter the hospital. Now, Metro Health will be able to offer this service to its patients who enter the hospital with chest pain or other conditions prompting diagnostic procedures which lead to elective, or scheduled non-emergent, PCI.

 

Previously, Metro Health patients requiring elective PCI had to be transferred to facilities that also offered back-up OHS services. A change in state regulations, prompted by quality data showing that PCI programs without OHS services in other states and Europe have quality indicators as high as those programs with OHS services and acceptance of the practice by the American College of Cardiology, made it possible for MDHHS to approve the Certificate of Need, or CON,  request.

 

“Being able to offer elective PCI to our patients without transferring them to other institutions is a win for patient care and something patients have asked for,” said Paul Kovack, a cardiologist at Metro Heart and Vascular. “This decision will help us keep patients in their medical home and provides choice to patients. Additionally, it will cut down on unnecessary duplicate testing, costly ambulance transfers and delays in care, making care more timely and less costly.”

 

The MDHHS decision comes after a long effort to update Michigan PCI regulations to mirror those of other states and countries that have long allowed elective PCI without OHS backup.

 

“The CON process is valuable in holding down costs for Michigan residents, but it can be challenging to update regulations to reflect new medical research,” said Michael Faas, president and CEO of Metro Health. “It is a delicate balancing act to keep up with medical advances and hold down healthcare costs. We are pleased with this patient-driven decision and know that Metro Health patients will benefit from this update and our ability to provide the services they need, when they need them.”

 

PCI, also known as angioplasty, is a non-surgical procedure that uses a thin flexible tube, or catheter, to access blood vessels in the heart which are narrowed or blocked by plaque buildup, or atherosclerosis, and reopen them. The procedure is performed by an interventional cardiologist who gains access to blood vessels in the heart through the femoral artery in the groin or the radial artery in the wrist. A small balloon is then inflated to push away the plaque, thus opening the blood vessel for blood flow, and a stent can be placed to keep the plaque pushed to the walls of the blood vessel, thus maintaining the blood vessel open for blood flow.

 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for more than 600,000 deaths each year.

 

The PCI procedure lasts from 30 minutes to several hours and provides patients with a number of benefits:

  • Increased blood flow through the blocked artery
  • Decreased chest pain
  • Increased ability to be physically active

Metro Health settles with former employee, hospital gets $1 million judgment

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generic-metro-healthMetro Health Hospital has announced it has come to a settlement agreement with a former employee that includes a one million dollar judgment in favor of the hospital.

 

In the consent judgment received and filed by the Kent County Circuit Court last month, Laura Staskiewicz agrees to the one million judgment against her and dismisses her complaint against Metro Health Hospital thus ending the countersuit filed by Metro Health against Staskiewicz.

 

In April of 2015 of Metro Health and President and CEO Michael Faas of illegal and unethical conduct in connection with the potential sale of Metro Health to an out-of-state for-profit company. That sale, involving, Tennessee-based company Community Health Systems, has since fallen through.

 

Staskiewicz eventually voluntarily dismissed all of her allegations against the organization and Faas. In a press release, hospital officials noted that Metro Health did not pay any money to Staskiewicz to give up her claims.

 

Metro Health countersued Straskiewicz for damages caused by her release of confidential and misleading information about the organization. Straskiewicz agreed to the one million judgment against her to settle the case, according to the press release.

 

“I am pleased that the truth in these matters has been revealed,” Faas said in a released statement. “We are focused on the future and growing Metro Health. Serving patients has always been and will always be our top priority.

 

I would like to thank our Board, leadership team and the many employees who invested a great deal of time and energy to defend Metro against these claims. Aggressively defending ourselves was not the easy thing to do, but it certainly was the right thing to do. Our reputation in the West Michigan community is critical to our mission of improving the health and well-being of our patients,” continued Faas.

 

The Staskiewicz judgment is the second seven-figure judgment awarded to Metro Health against former employees in the last several years. Both million dollar judgments awarded Metro Health damages incurred in defending itself from false claims.

 

“This is beyond a complete and total vindication, it’s also an indication of how we will defend the integrity of Metro from frivolous, vicious and unfounded attacks,” said Doyle Hayes, chairman of the Metro Health board of directors. “We cannot tolerate baseless claims that take away focus from our mission of improving the health of our community. Senseless attacks against the organization are attacks against the entire community.”