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ScottCare Spotlight: Brad Stumpf

Brad - Spotlight_blog 

For my initial foray into ScottCare’s blogosphere, I wanted to share an awesome adventure I was fortunate to experience. But first, a little background about myself. I’m Brad, the Team Lead for our Clinical Application Group. It is our team that completes the installation of all VersaCare systems and trains the Rehab staff. I am a Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist with a Masters Degree in Kinesiology and Exercise Science. I’ve been a member of the ScottCare Team for almost 3 years now, where I am proud to be part of a truly dedicated group of individuals.

 

Brad-Temple

Now, back to my adventure. A new hospital purchased our VersaCare system from our partner in the region, Meditop, and it was time for installation and training. Now, this installation was just a LITTLE bit farther than those I’m used to. In this instance, I was going to Thailand.

The trip consisted of 3 days of travel, then a week in Thailand. Despite taking 2 days to get to Bangkok, with 24 hours of it in the air, the travel was not too bad. Side note: Airplane food has taken a step up, but it’s still not exactly fine dining. Bangkok is +12 hours, so I was always a ½ day ahead of my colleagues and family, which was both good and bad, especially when involving phone calls. 

The purpose of this trip was to install VersaCare at two major hospitals. The first was Bumrungrad Hospital, in the heart of Bangkok. This hospital is considered one of the top 10 in the world. The native tongue of their staff is Thai, but they have some knowledge of English. My native tongue is English, with no knowledge of Thai, so I was a little bit of a fish out of water. Despite the slight communication barrier, we worked through it.

Brad - Bumrungraj-2

In the rehabilitation program, the Medical Directors play a crucial role in patient care, as they are the ones actively in the rehab space during the monitoring sessions. They are the ones moving patients from modality to modality, taking blood pressure, blood glucoses, etc., which is not the case in the US, as you know. Each MD then comes with their own team, so each training session involved starting from square one in a short amount of time. Overall, the Bumrungrad staff seemed happy with their VersaCare system. The staff absolutely loved the VersaCare Go iPads and the ability to live monitor while being away from the central computer system. They also appreciated the seamless data entry points and how the system was able to save strips.

Following the Bumrungrad installation, we flew a short distance to Khon Kaen, in Northeast Thailand. It is far from the modernization of Bangkok, providing another fascinating aspect of the Thai experience. We installed at Khon Kaen Hospital, which is completely new to ScottCare. The MD’s wanted a system that would be able to provide live monitoring for their patients post op, as well as their high-risk patients on at least a 5 lead. ScottCare’s VersaCare system fit the bill perfectly. The clinicians, especially the Lead Cardiologist, LOVED what the iPad was able to do with VersaCare GO, as well as the bluetooth capabilities of the oximeters. She loved that her staff could spend more time reading EKG’s and with patients instead of documenting. We spent a lot of time going over the basics of the system to ensure the clinicians felt comfortable, and they did. The only shortcoming was very little English was spoken. (Have I mentioned Thai is not my native tongue?). The staff worked the system great and they were able to quickly take over, despite the language barrier. 

The trip was a great experience both professionally and personally. When people think of Bangkok there are thoughts of high-end shopping, luxurious shopping malls as well as thousands of street vendors, and well…all were true. I always get asked what I ate while on the trip. In Bangkok, there was a lot of “familiar” food… chicken, beef, vegetarian… so there was no real issue there. In other locations, I had to go out of my comfort zone and found some amazing new flavors. I can’t say enough wonderful things about Thailand and the people there. It was an experience I will treasure and I hope to experience it again one day.