Healthcare heroes.

• Author: Christensen, Lisa
• Position: Cover story

For most healthcare professionals--and especially the heroes we are honoring in these pages--healthcare isn't a just career, it's a lifetime of service and sacrifice. Becoming a practitioner means completing rigorous education that can last from a few weeks for a certified nursing assistant to well over a decade for a physician. It means a lifetime of long hours, working through holidays and, often, well into the evening hours. It means interrupted dinners and 3 a.m. emergency calls.

And whether you're an administrator, a healthcare practitioner or even a volunteer, serving in healthcare also means you must work within the constraints of a complex bureaucracy and miles of red tape--and somehow still manage to provide the best care possible to your patients.

Please join us as we pay tribute to our 2015 Healthcare Heroes and recognize their efforts in providing quality care, pioneering new technologies and processes, reaching out to the community and raising the standard of care for the entire state.

Innovation in Healthcare

Brian Erich Caplin

Chief Science Officer

Fluoresentric, Inc.

Unhappy with the industry standard for testing nucleic acid amplification, a common procedure for detecting pathogens, genotype testing and other uses, Brian Caplin developed a breakthrough in molecular diagnostics, XCR. While the decades-old tests take 40 to 60 minutes, XCR amplification and detection occurs in less than five minutes. The reduced turnaround time helps doctors get a clinically actionable result in critical testing areas, helping to improve and target care.

Upon making the breakthrough, Caplin took his recently patented technology and formed Fluoresentric Inc., which has already seen national attention for its work. Caplin, who has a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology, says he thinks the potential of XCR has only been tapped in the last eight years of study, and he is excited by its possibilities.

"It took PCR nearly 20 years to be fully implemented diagnostically and thousands of labs were working with the technology. XCR has only been around for about eight years. In that time, only Fluoresentric has been doing research into XCR's capabilities," he says. "It seems as though every day I get to actually learn a bit more about what we have here and that keeps me working."

Peter G. Forstall, MD; Cardiac Electrophysiologist; Ogden Regional Medical Center

David G. Affleck, MD; Cardiovascular Surgeon; MountainStar Cardiovascular Surgery

Michael Eifling, MD; Cardiac Electrophysiologist; The Heart Center at St. Mark's Hospital

An unlikely team of MountainStar Healthcare doctors in different disciplines has developed a minimally invasive procedure for patients with advanced atrial fibrillation, or a-fib. Cardiac surgeon Dr. David Affleck of MountainStar Cardiovascular Surgery approached Dr. Peter Forstall, cardiac electrophysiologist at Ogden Regional Medical Center, and Dr. Michael Eifling, medical director of cardiac electrophysiology at St. Mark's Hospital, to develop the new procedure.

The procedure includes a series of small, controlled burns on the outside of the heart through small incisions to block errant electrical signals, which is followed a few days later by a detailed map through a catheter to confirm the errant signals have been blocked.

The hybrid solution effectively restores a patient's heart rhythm when other treatments have failed and allows many patients to stop taking blood thinners and other medications afterwards. The procedure also decreases a patient's risk of heart failure and stroke.

"Patients who previously were incurable without open heart surgery now have the option for the hybrid approach. This approach opens the door for many more patients to be cured of this life-altering disease," Dr. Affleck says.

Samuel M. Brown

Director, Center for Humanizing Critical Care at Intermountain Medical Center

Intermountain Healthcare

Though he began his career as a doctor-scientist looking for the cure for sepsis, Intermountain Medical Center's Dr. Samuel Brown soon found that better life-saving technology is only part of the battle--the technical treatments work better when doctors care for the whole patient.

Dr. Brown works toward that goal daily as the founder and director of the Center for Humanizing Critical Care at Intermountain Medical Center, where he and his team work to combine quantitative, qualitative and humanistic approaches to focus care in the Shock/Trauma Intensive Care Unit on the emotional needs of patients and their families.

"We're changing the way people think about intensive care and life-threatening illness. In the past, the idea was that the technology mattered most, to the exclusion of the human side of patient care. The attention was always on the life support machines and the patient was almost a kind of abstract collection of poorly functioning organs. But the ICU can also be a place of human healing, one where the people aren't forgotten in the midst of the medical drama," Dr. Brown says. "We're studying how to improve the results that matter most to patients and families: better and stronger recovery after life-threatening illness, getting back to their families, minimizing memory problems and psychological distress."

Lifetime Achievement

John J. Zone, MD

Chairman, Department of Dermatology

University of Utah Health Sciences

Dr. John Zone was tapped to lead the University of Utah Health Sciences' Division of Dermatology in 1987, and he had his work cut out for him. He set out to expand and perfect dermatology services for patients in the fledgling division--which was elevated to departmental status in 1996. Over the years, Dr. Zone has expanded the faculty from eight physicians to 37, filling its ranks with experts in the fields of psoriasis, allergy testing, autoimmunity, esthetics, pediatrics and skin cancer. The department has also grown from two clinical sites to 11, allowing patients to visit a department dermatologist from South Jordan to Stansbury Park to Park City.

The program continues to grow, too--by 2017, the program will have 12 participants in the three-year residency program, a huge leap from the single resident in its inaugural residency program in 1990.

The expansion of the residency program aligns with Dr. Zone's priority on teaching and sharing dermatology knowledge. Other means include the ongoing Grand Rounds service, where dermatologists from the community can bring a complex patient to the hospital clinic for a comprehensive consultation, and the department's involvement with skin cancer screenings and health fairs. Roughly 7,000 free skin exams have been given over the last 16 years of annual skin cancer screenings.

Brian E. Shiozawa, MD

St. Mark's Hospital

If a 31-year career in emergency room medicine weren't enough to keep Dr. Brian Shiozawa busy, the St. Mark's Hospital emergency room physician is also a senator in the Utah Legislature, as well as heavily involved with his church and community and a member of the board of trustees for the hospital.

Dr. Shiozawa has found ways to combine his many hats, though. He played a vital role in passing a bill that provides insurance coverage for Utah's autistic children, and he is currently at the forefront of the push for passing the Healthy Utah Bill.

In his day job, Dr. Shiozawa has helped the ER department flourish as department chair for the past 15 years, including by growing the number of doctors in the department from six to 24. Dr. Shiozawa says he chose emergency medicine for the constant opportunity to treat illness and injury right as it happens, and he thrives on being able to treat patients irrespective of their income, class or whether they have insurance.

"It is rewarding to intervene in the potentially very sick or injured, like those with a heart attack or a recent injury like a fracture or wound," he says. "Often, we make a meaningful difference for the good of the patient."

William L. Hamilton, MD, MBA

Anesthesiologist, Medical Director

Intermountain Healthcare--Central Region

After 30 years practicing medicine, 19 of them as medical director for Intermountain Healthcare's Central Region, Dr. William Hamilton is at the top of his field. To cap off his career, the anesthesiologist was recently elected as president of the Utah Medical Association.

As medical director, Dr. Hamilton has had a direct impact on 1,700 physicians and a million patients at five of the busiest Intermountain hospitals. After being named as medical director, Dr. Hamilton earned an MBA in an effort to better understand the business end of healthcare. As he noticed a growing diversity among patients, Dr. Hamilton learned Spanish. Through eight years of service on the American Medical Association's political action board...