It’s a typical Monday morning meeting with announcements and scheduling – until people start getting choked up.   John Gizdic, president and CEO of New Hanover Regional Medical Center, pulls up an email from the son of a patient who underwent open heart surgery but ultimately passed away after weeks in the ICU. The son had written to share appreciation ...

To continue innovating in the field of eye care, optometrist Ed Paul has narrowed his focus. Paul treats patients with vision loss resulting from a variety of causes, but most have age-related macular degeneration (AMD) – by far the largest cause of vision loss.   AMD is a disease Paul calls the “silent stealer of vision.” He cites the National ...

The region’s population growth in recent decades reaffirms the need for quality dental services, providers say. And continued growth projected for years to come leaves space for more solo and group dental practices in the tri-county area.   “There is (opportunity), but you’ve got to be a little creative on how you do it, and everybody has got to fi ...

I spent a lot of time at the hospital’s coffee shop working on this issue. Multiple interviews at New Hanover Regional Medical Center had me going back-and-forth between our office in the Mayfaire area and the South 17th Street hospital. So, caffeine was a good friend. On one of those pit stops, I checked out a history display across from the café. These ...

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Like others in his profession, Wilmington-based commercial real estate broker Paul Loukas keeps an eye on the medical office market in the Cape Fear region.   The prognosis from Loukas and various local brokers is that the market’s current growth trends could continue because of a number of factors.   “Demand for medical office space has changed d ...

The health care landscape is rarely static, and this year is no different.  From changing models of payment to potential legislative overhauls, health care could see the impacts.  Here are just a few of the issues providers, payers and patients are keeping an eye on.   1 - Medicaid Expansion  So far this legislative session lawmakers have not moved ...

I have a confession to make: I am not an economist and as much view the world, its problems and solutions through the lends of scarce resources and opportunities and often make judgements in dollar terms.   But this single-lens perspective is no different than a physical therapist who thinks everything can be solved with stretching, a chiropractor who says spinal al ...

On any given day, MedNorth and CommWell health centers could be saving area hospitals a significant amount of money. That’s because the two centers provide care to a population in Southeastern North Carolina that might otherwise turn to hospital emergency departments for primary care.   “The ER is such an inappropriate starting point” for health ca ...

Shelbourn Stevens became President of Novant Health Brunswick Medical Center in 2012, but he’s been with the Winston Salem-based health system since 1990.   He came to the area when Novant took over management of the former Brunswick Community Hospital facility in 2006. They moved from that site in 2011 to a newly opened 74-bed hospital in Bolivia. The hospita ...