It is the beginning of a new era at Parkview Regional Medical Center. Constructions plans are underway to modernize the Fort Wayne 400 bed hospital by instating state of the art technology into the system.

Some of the grand plans include reconfiguring rooms and outlets to make optimum use of advanced medical equipment. Rooms will come equipped with strategically centered windows so patients can be monitored by nurses at all times. Wireless technology will allow contact to be made between patients and medical personnel whenever necessary, and there will be smart sheets in every room that monitor patients automatically.

Aside from advanced technology and medical equipment, the hospital is putting in comfortable beds and furniture for family members who want to spend time with their loved ones. On a different note, special educational rooms will be set up to instruct patients on proper care after leaving the hospital, as well as rooms for the nurse to use when taking their breaks.

These plans have been carefully thought out and discussed for more than a year now. The goal of the hospital is to make patients feel at home and while getting the best care and service possible.

A team of highly specialized doctors from Stanford Hospital were flown to Iraq by the Medical Alliance for Iraq this past winter to help create a formal system for emergency medicine. After visiting many health care facilities there, the doctors were shocked by the abysmal state of medical care and equipment they found. In fact the most advanced piece of medical equipment available was an oxygen tank that was being used on an asthmatic patient.

A thorough examination of the current system was done and shocking results became apparent. The Iraqi first response system lacks ambulances and a 911 system so patients are not stabilized before getting to the hospital. Once inside the facility, there is no way of evaluating what is wrong with the patient, so often times treatment does not reach the patients in time. The emergency rooms are extremely overcrowded, and there is not enough medical equipment or personnel to go around.

The American doctors spent weeks touring Iraqi hospitals and training Iraqi doctors in both basic and advanced medical techniques. This included the proper use of medical equipment such as testing for internal bleeding by using a portable ultrasound machine.

The team of doctors started the process of updating the Iraqis on current medical literature and procedures after being cut off from international medicine for so many years. Now the goal is to keep making progress by building better facilities and training doctors so the Iraqi health care system can stand on its own.

73 year old George Woods has become the first man in Canada to be fitted with a remote heart monitor. He received the new wireless defibrillator last week at the Hospital in Newmarket.

The tiny device continuously tests monitors his heart and alerts medical staff to any changes or potential problems.

His nurse says that with this patient monitor, Mr Woods would only need to go to the hospital if the transmitted reports show a problem that can't be fixed remotely.