Champions - Detroit Medical Center

CHAMPIONS
A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION FROM THE DMC OFFICE OF DEVELOPMENT
What’s InSIDe:
Celebrity Wheelchair Basketball a Huge Success! page 3
CinemaVision Makes MRIs More Tolerable for Kids page 5
A Race for Life – Cardio Team One Transforms Heart Attack Care page 7
Fall/WInTer 2008
Flinn Foundation Supports Mental Heath at Sinai-Grace page 8
Huron Valley-Sinai Employees Embrace “Together We Can” Spirit page 9
Telemedicine at the DMC page 10

D ear Friends,
The holidays are a perfect time to reflect and give thanks with our families. Even in times of
economic difficulty, great things can be achieved by working together. With this in mind, I would
like to thank our donors, DMC team members and other supporters who have helped pull off some
impressive accomplishments in 2008. I am happy to share a few of them here.
The Leapfrog Group, the health care arm of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies, released its list of
the 33 hospitals in America with the highest standards of safety and quality. The DMC leads the
country. We are the only system in America to place four hospitals on the 2008 list. In fact, we’re the
only system that has ever placed four hospitals on the list. Harper/Hutzel, Children’s, Sinai-Grace
and Detroit Receiving Hospitals earned the honor of being named among the 33 finest hospitals in
the country!
Harper’s Cardio Team One is also making significant progress in improving response time and
quality of care for heart attack patients. In just six months, the Cardio Team One approach has
successfully reduced the critically important “Emergency Room door-to-angioplasty balloon”
treatment time from 90 minutes to 45.
These highlights, and others included in this issue, are the result of your hard work, generosity and
commitment. Please enjoy this special season, and take pride in your role in the DMC’s success.
As always, we can not do it without you.
Mike Duggan
President and CEO
Detroit Medical Center
On THe COVer:
Cheryl angelelli, rehabilitation Institute of Michigan Marketing
& Pr Director and Jimmy Moceri, Michigan Thunderbirds
Wheelchair Basketball Team
Mike Duggan
President and CeO
Detroit Medical Center

Detroit Jams-- radio Personalities (in black) vs. Motor City rollers Sports/news Personalities (blue) (FYI the Detroit Jam Won)
Celebrity Wheelchair Basketball a Huge Success!
More than $80,000 Raised for Rehabilitation Institute of
Michigan’s Wheelchair Sports Program
Through the generous support of community sponsors and
local media and sports personalities, DMC Rehabilitation
Institute of Michigan’s (RIM) 7th Annual Celebrity
Wheelchair Basketball Game raised over $80,000 for RIM’s
wheelchair sports program.
The game, held September 23, at U of D Mercy’s Calihan
Hall, featured alumni players from the Detroit Lions,
Pistons, Red Wings and Tigers, as well as local TV and radio
personalities, who played in wheelchairs alongside RIM’s
award winning wheelchair basketball team, the Detroit
Diehards.
“This year’s event has been the most successful to date.
The funds will be used to help Rehabilitation Institute of
Michigan’s wheelchair basketball team travel to local and
national competitions. In addition, proceeds will be used to
provide persons with disabilities the opportunity to participate
in competitive and recreational sports such as skiing, bowling,
and handcycling,” said Myreo Dixon, RIM’s Adaptive Sports
Coordinator.
Ben Carter, DMC Chief Operating Officer
roger McCarville, Disabilities Today and rIM Board Member
“RIM is appreciative of local sponsors such as CareTech
Solutions, Inc., Compuware Corporation, Golden Dental
Plans, and Michigan Regional Imaging, who helped us
surpass last year’s proceeds by nearly $25,000.”
DMC’s Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan is one of the
nation’s largest hospitals specializing in physical medicine and
rehabilitation. RIM is home to many innovative programs,
including the Southeastern Michigan Traumatic Brain
Injury System (SEMTBIS), which conducts groundbreaking
rehabilitation research, and the Center for Spinal Cord Injury
Recovery, a world-class facility designed to implement and
study innovative treatments in spinal cord injury recovery.
The DMC is proud to be the Official Healthcare Services
Provider of the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Red Wings, Detroit
Pistons and Detroit Shock.
TO GIVe
To support Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan,
please visit www.dmc.org/giving.
Peter nielsen of Peter’s Principles
Dr. Jay Meythaler, Professor and Chairman PM&r, WSU & rIM
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4
Mike Duggan, DMC president and CeO, kicks off the event. Dr. Brooks F. Bock, M.D., F.a.C.e.P., celebrated his retirement at DMC
Guild’s 16th annual Won from the Heart with Cassie Sobelton (far left),
system executive director of business development; Colby Zemmin and
linda O’Brien, Children’s Hospital of Michigan board member.
DMC Guild’s 16th Annual Won from the Heart, held on
August 28th, saw its largest crowd to date, with more than
275 guests. This year’s event benefitted the DMC Heart
Hospital and honored the service of Brooks F. Bock, M.D.,
F.A.C.E.P., who retired in September.
Dr. Bock, within his 35-year tenure, was instrumental in
revolutionizing the field of Emergency Medicine on both the
academic and clinical levels. His accomplishments include
establishing the Department of Emergency Medicine at
Wayne State University School of Medicine; establishing
Detroit Receiving Hospital as Detroit’s first Level One
Trauma Center; developing Trauma Centers at several other
1] Kimmy Horne and her band performed a special
r&B rendition of ”rocky Mountain High” in tribute to
Dr. Bock’s plans to retire in Colorado. 2] DMC Guild
presented Dr. Bock with a bench in his honor supporting
the Greening of Brush Mall project. 3] Dr. Samir Fuleihan
and Mrs. Susan Jennings
4
1
DMC hospitals; and masterminding the DMC 29 Minute
Emergency Room Guarantee. Further testaments to his
skill and energy include his position as Medical Director of
the Detroit Grand Prix since its inception, his selection as
Specialist-in-Chief of Emergency Medicine at the DMC and
his appointment as President of Harper University Hospital
and Hutzel Women’s Hospital. Dr. Bock, along with Dr.
Larry Stephenson, initiated Won from the Heart 16 years ago
as a way to raise awareness and funds that support clinical
programs at the DMC. Dr. Bock will be greatly missed!
TO learn MOre
To learn more about DMC Guild and its
events, visit www.dmc.org/guild/dmcguild
5
2 3
7
6
4] Dr. Seetha Shankaran, director,
neonatal/perinatal medicine,
Dr. Bock and Dr. ”Jack” Baker,
Children’s Hospital of Michigan
board chair 5] Gloria larkins with
Mistress of Ceremonies, Tonita
Cheatham, Harper/Hutzel marketing
and Pr director and Valerie Gibson,
rn, MSa, Cna, vice president
of patient care services 6] Dr.
Suzanne White, Specialist-in-Chief
emergency Medicine and Jenny
atas, M.D. 7] Venicia Foreman and
James P. Young

C inemaVision’s Music, Movies Make MRIs
More Tolerable for Kids
Lying still in a cramped tube for 45 minutes or more is not an
activity most kids classify as “cool.”
But that’s changing at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan,
where patients can now watch their favorite movies or listen to
music during MRI scans. In late June, the hospital installed
a cutting edge CinemaVision Audio-Visual System to help
entertain children during the often-tedious test.
CinemaVision allows young patients to strap on a high-tech
headset with earphones that deliver symphonic digital sound
and “goggles” that produce a high-resolution digital image
similar to watching a 62-inch screen from less than six feet
away.
“It really is cool,” said J. Michael Zerin, M.D., chief of
pediatric imaging. “This was something we’ve wanted for a
long time. It’s been at the top of our list.”
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) tests combine a large
magnet, radio frequencies and a computer to produce
detailed images of organs and structures within the body.
Unfortunately, MRIs are extremely sensitive to motion and
require patients to remain still throughout the procedure.
That’s especially challenging for children. In fact, more than
70 percent of the 4,000 kids who undergo MRIs at Children’s
each year need sedation before the procedure.
renya alejandro previously was sedated before undergoing an MrI. now, she can
watch “Hannah Montana” and “The Suite life of Zach and Cody” during scans.
By using CinemaVision instead of administering drugs,
Children’s hopes to save time – perhaps as much as two
hours – for patients and their families, eliminate risks that
accompany sedation, and reduce stress and anxiety for kids.
“We can get kids through faster and make them more
comfortable,” Zerin said.
CinemaVision is fully compatible with MRI technology. It
also allows two-way communication between patients and
technicians and doctors, which is a critical safety feature. The
Sinai Guild, a philanthropic organization that supports health
and medical needs in the Detroit area, provided funding for
CinemaVision.
“We absolutely understand the fright of the child and the
worrisome part of sedation,” said Rusty Rosman, president of
The Sinai Guild’s 60-member board. “If we can make it easier
for children to have to deal with a medical procedure, we
want to. We’re pleased to make a difference.”
TO GIVe
To support Children’s Hospital of Michigan,
please visit www.dmc.org/giving.
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“I’m very grateful to God, and to Dr. Schreiber and his outstanding
staff at the DMC. I feel like Lazarus in the Bible! Like Lazarus, I was
brought back from the dead – but it wouldn’t have happened if Cardio
Team One hadn’t already been in place and ready to care for me.”
Six months after the launch of Cardio Team One, a
pioneering new treatment approach designed to significantly
lower mortality rates among patients experiencing heart
attacks, the Detroit Medical Center announced it has
successfully reduced the critically important “Emergency
Room door to angioplasty balloon” treatment time for heart
attack patients by half.
The breakthrough finding,
presented at the annual
meeting of the Transcatheter
Cardiovascular Therapeutics
(TCT) Conference in
Washington – the world’s
largest yearly educational
symposium on interventional
cardiology – by DMC
cardiologist Theodore L.
Schreiber, M.D., F.A.C.C.,
was based on a justcompleted,
six-month study
in which the cutting-edge Detroit hospital team measured
treatment times for 99 heart attack patients.
The data showed that the DMC approach – in which a
cardiologist and emergency heart attack treatment team are
stationed at the medical facility around the clock – was able
to cut the life-saving treatment time for ER patients with
suspected heart attacks approximately in half, with the average
treatment time of 45 minutes.
This represents a marked improvement over the national
target of 90 minutes, which only 20 percent of hospitals are
—Kay Spencer, heart-attack survivor
N ew Treatment Paradigm Could Transform Heart Attack Care
“For the first time in cardiac care,
we’re asking the doctors to wait for the
patients to arrive – instead of asking the
heart attack patients to wait for us.”
achieving at present. This is the first time ever that such a
reduction in heart attack treatment times has been studied,
and the results are extremely encouraging. They show that
the Cardio Team One approach to heart attack intervention
does significantly reduce treatment times.
Such an improvement in
treatment time could save the
lives of up to seven hospital
patients out of every 100
who would have previously
died, according to the latest
research on heart attack
mortality.
The unique Cardio Team
One “on-site” approach
permits the specialized
DMC unit to rush cardiac
patients immediately into
interventional care, thus
saving the lives of many patients and greatly improving their
quality of life.
“Cardio Team One is an entirely new paradigm in cardiac
care, and it is going to change the way we treat heart attacks
in this country,” said Michael Duggan, president and chief
executive officer of the Detroit Medical Center. “This
approach will also greatly improve the lives of those who do
survive – by preventing the massive injuries to brain tissue and
other vital organs that often take place during a severe heart
attack. Once again, the DMC is setting the standard for heart
care in the United States.”

A Race for Life
The silver Buick LaCrosse pulled up to the
stoplight. It was two o’clock in the morning,
and the driver waited patiently for the light to
turn green. But the woman in the passenger
seat – 60-year-old Kay Spencer, couldn’t
tolerate the delay. “Run the light, Hayden!”
she told her friend behind the wheel. “I don’t
think I can last much longer. Get me to the
hospital as fast as you can!”
As she collapsed into unconsciousness,
Hayden gunned the engine en route to the
Emergency Department at the DMC’s Detroit
Receiving Hospital.
Kay Spencer’s life hung in the balance and
every second counted. The ailing grandmother was in the
middle of a massive heart attack triggered by a major blockage
in a coronary artery. That artery was almost completely
closed, and her cardiac blood supply had slowed to a trickle.
Within a matter of minutes, the muscle tissue in Spencer’s
laboring heart would begin to die, never to be replaced.
Unless she received lighting-fast treatment – Spencer would
almost certainly die.
It was now a few minutes after two a.m. At most American
hospitals, the nurses and doctors in the ER would examine
the patient carefully, while monitoring her vital signs and
doing their best to stabilize her. She would in due course
receive an electrocardiogram, which would suggest the strong
possibility that she had experienced a heart attack. Only then
would a message go out to the cardiologist – or heart specialist
– who was “on call” at the hospital that night.
In most cases, the cardiologist “on-call” would still be at
home, and probably sound asleep. By the time he or she
dressed and drove to the hospital and then assembled a team
of nurses and technicians to manage the patient’s heart attack,
nearly an hour, on average, would have run off the clock.
That would not be the case tonight, however. Stationed near
the Emergency Room where Kay Spencer had just arrived, the
doctors, nurses and cardiac technicians of the DMC’s Cardio
Team One were waiting to begin treating her heart attack
instantly.
Spencer was about to gain a major benefit from Cardio Team
One’s unique approach to rapidly treating heart attacks. Their
pioneering breakthrough: keeping a highly trained team of
heart attack specialists on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, in order to greatly speed up the treatment process for all
heart attack victims who show up in Emergency.
Cardio Team One was established at the DMC by Theodore
L. Schreiber, M.D., F.A.C.C., a nationally recognized
cardiovascular physician who also serves as its medical
director. Dr. Schreiber’s goal: To cut the typical “medical
response time” to heart attacks to half the current national
average time of between 90 and 120 minutes.
Kay Spencer, with Dr. Schreiber, experienced first-hand the benefits of having
Cardio Team One on-site – not on-call. Fortunately for the retiree, the innovative
cardiac team was in the middle of a regular 48-hour shift – during which all of
the team members live at the hospital, so that they can be dispatched to the er to
begin treating heart attacks within minutes.
When a heart attack strikes, “Time Is Muscle.” The longer
it takes to open up a patient’s clogged arteries and restore
normal blood flow, the more heart muscle will die.
After conferring with the DMC Receiving Emergency
attending physician, Dr. Schreiber quickly concluded that Kay
Spencer was in the middle of a potentially lethal heart attack.
Five minutes later, she was being wheeled into a hospital
Catheterization Laboratory, to undergo a procedure designed
to pinpoint and remove the arterial blockage that had set off
the attack.
During a complex medical procedure that lasted more than
three hours, the pioneering cardiologist and his team were
able to restart the patient’s heart several times after it failed.
“It was touch and go for a while,” said Dr. Schreiber, “but
the team includes some highly capable physicians and nurses,
along with some of the best-trained X-ray technicians in
America.”
When Kay Spencer returned to consciousness, she had no
memory of anything that had transpired that night. “Dr.
Schreiber was the first person to tell me that I’d had a heart
attack,” she said. “And he went on to explain how they’d been
able to keep my heart going and then fix it because they got
started so quickly.”
“I’m very grateful to God, and also to Dr. Schreiber and his
outstanding staff at the DMC. I feel like Lazarus in the Bible!
Like Lazarus, I was brought back from the dead – but it
wouldn’t have happened if Cardio Team One hadn’t already
been in place and ready to care for me.”
TO GIVe
To support Harper University Hospital
and/or Detroit Receiving Hospital,
please visit www.dmc.org/giving.
7

F linn Foundation Supports Mental Health Services
at Sinai-Grace Hospital
8
In October 2008, Sinai-Grace Hospital (SGH) was awarded a $450,000, threeyear
grant from the Ethel and James Flinn Foundation. This gift will support a
new integrated care initiative that will provide on-site, integrated mental health
services within the hospital’s Primary Care Center. The SGH Primary Care
Center served 3,356 patients last year, the majority of whom were uninsured or
underinsured.
Integration of mental health services in the primary care setting is an important
move for SGH and other health care providers. Mental illnesses exacerbate
medical ones, and can be overlooked in a busy clinic setting, where patients’
physical needs take top priority. Referrals from primary care physicians to off-site
mental health facilities are often not followed by patients, who lack the resources
to navigate care options. The goal of the SGH integrated care initiative is to reach
and treat patients with mental illness who would otherwise not seek treatment. Its
objectives are:
• To provide screening to identify patients with depression, anxiety
disorders, phobias, bi-polar illness, trauma/stress related symptoms, or
other mental illness.
• To provide detailed assessment and treatment on-site for identified patients.
• To develop collaborative relationships between medicine and psychiatry to
make patient treatment more comprehensive and accessible.
The Ethel and James Flinn Foundation is a Detroit based private foundation that
offers multiple opportunities and resources in support of its mission to improve
the lives of those with mental illness. Established in 1976 by Ethel “Peggy” Flinn
and her brother James H. Flinn Jr., the Foundation is committed to improving
the scope and quality of services for individuals with mental illness. Since its
inception, over $13 million in grants have been awarded.
TO GIVe
To support Sinai-Grace Hospital,
please visit www.dmc.org/giving.
“It’s a great opportunity for us to provide a needed
service in surroundings familiar to the patient.”
—Ellen Portnoy, Administrative Director Patient Services/
SGH Psychiatry and Education
The Ethel and James Flinn
Foundation was established in
1976 by Ethel “Peggy” W. Flinn to
provide a means for coordinating
family philanthropy that would also
serve to honor her parents Ethel G.
and James H. Flinn and her brother
James H. Flinn, Jr., who was
afflicted with schizophrenia in his
early 20’s.
With her brother, James, they
established a philanthropic
organization that would provide
“for the support of research into
the causes and/or research into the
treatment of nervous and mental
diseases.”
For information on Planned Giving
and opportunities for creating your
own philanthropic legacy, contact
DMC Corporate Development at
313.578.2260.

D MC Huron Valley-Sinai Employees Embrace
“Together We Can” Spirit
First-time visitors to DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital’s
(HVSH) campus are usually surprised and impressed at
its lovely setting next to an apple orchard. Broad expanses
of lawn with extensive
landscaping provide a beautiful
environment for patients,
visitors and staff alike. When
the weather is nice, walkers are
often visible. However, there is
no paved path so their choice is
to walk on the grass or on the
road that winds through the
campus.
A number of employees
recognized that the lack of a
designated path was a safety
hazard and that it probably
discouraged potential walkers
from enjoying the campus.
Fortunately, the annual
Employee Giving Campaign presented an opportunity to
improve this situation. Each year, DMC Huron Valley-Sinai,
along with the other DMC hospitals, organizes an Employee
Giving Campaign, led by an employee committee. Each
committee chooses a project that is meaningful to employees.
After soliciting broad employee input, the 2007 HVSH
Employee Giving Campaign committee recommended that
employee contributions be used to build a paved walking
path. “We want employees to feel rewarded at work,” said
Kelly Szmagaj, co-chair of the 2007 and 2008 campaign,
and supervisor of the HVSH Clinical Division, Ambulatory
Services. The hospital’s leadership agreed that a walking path
was a good idea and last year’s campaign raised $25,000
toward construction of the path, about a quarter of its cost.
Since then, the Employee Activity Committee, the Annual
employee Giving Campaign captains meet for the campaign kick-off.
“This project will not only
improve the health and
safety of HVSH employees
but our community as well.”
Golf Committee, the hospital’s Board of Directors and
physicians have contributed to the project. This year’s goal
is 100 percent employee participation to raise the remaining
$25,000 needed for the
project. Campaign co-chairs
Szmagaj and Jeffrey Young, the
hospital’s manager of Security
Operations, have asked that
each employee contribute $1
per pay period to build the
path.
The campaign theme is
“Together We Can” and
it is organized around five
volunteer captains and
multiple departmental
ambassadors, chosen for their
ability to inspire employee
participation, whether through
payroll deduction, a one-time
contribution or donation of vacation days. Fun activities
have been scheduled during the two week campaign rush to
encourage employees to participate. Employees who choose to
walk the perimeter of the campus receive imprinted shoelaces
with the words, “I walk with DMC HVSH. “ Campaign
participants are eligible for dollar lottery tickets, plane rides,
theatre tickets, gift bags and gas card prizes. The campaign
will formally conclude with a shout out ice cream sundae
party in the hospital’s beautiful courtyard. “This campaign
is great fun and the results will greatly benefit employees.
In addition we will serve our patients, visitors and the
community with a walking path,” said co-chair Young.
—Luanne Robak
TO GIVe
To support Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital,
please visit www.dmc.org/giving.
9

Telemedicine at the DMC
10
Telemedicine has many functions. It can be the delivery of
care to a patient from a doctor at a remote location, or the use
of video conferencing to bring doctors “virtually” together for
continuing medical education and patient evaluation.
For example, pediatric cardiologists at DMC Children’s
Hospital of Michigan have been routinely viewing
echocardiograms of patients at community hospitals up to 30
miles away, in real time, since 1998. They currently review
about a hundred cases a month and have saved countless
hours of unproductive time formerly spent driving to those
distant hospitals to review echos.
DMC hospitals have also been involved for nearly two years
in a program that puts monitoring devices into the homes of
elderly patients discharged from DMC hospitals after inpatient
stays. The devices include personal emergency response
systems, monitors for weight, blood pressure, wandering,
respiratory flow, blood oxygen, glucose level, and heart rate,
and an automated medication dispenser that virtually ensures
medication compliance.
Signals from the devices are monitored, so that if something
happens (the patient falls, or their blood sugar shoots up) or
does not happen (the patient does not take meds on time), a
caregiver or medical professional is instantly notified.
The project has multiple goals, including improved quality of
care through constant monitoring, improved quality of life
through reduction of travel for office and hospital visits, and
reduced discharges to nursing homes — which can mean a
better lifestyle for the patient and a lower cost to the health
system as a whole.
All telemedicine activities are geared toward delivering 21st
century care which is defined as the highest quality care at the
lowest possible cost. The two attributes need not be mutually
exclusive, as a telemedicine pilot study at Sinai-Grace Hospital
showed.
The pilot involved placing monitoring devices in the homes
of frail elderly patients after discharge. The majority of these
patients were poor and alone, lacking the financial and family
support resources to follow doctor’s orders. The inevitable
result in such patients is that they soon end up back in the
emergency room for another long hospital stay, having failed
to take their medications, or suffered a fall with no-one
available to help for hours or days. The cost of those incidents
in terms of reduced quality of life for the patient and unreimbursed
hospital expenses is extremely high.
During the six-month pilot study, 39 patients were monitored
at home. Of the monitored patients, the readmission rate was
These are some of the devices worn or used by patients to periodically
transmit vital health data to physicians via the Internet. The system also
alerts physicians and other caregivers if a reading exceeds desired levels.
5%, compared to a readmission rate of 45% for 71 patients
who did not use the monitoring technology.
The pilot study suggested that the program was feasible
to implement, acceptable to urban low income and
minority patients, and beneficial in terms of fewer hospital
readmissions. Considering that a month in the hospital costs
the healthcare system tens of thousands of dollars, a month
in a nursing home costs about $4,000, and a month of home
medical monitoring costs no more than about $150, the
economic savings of telemedicine is substantial. Detroit’s
Medicaid agency, the Detroit Area Agency on Aging, has
provided some coverage for select patients to remain in the
program, which continues and has even been expanded to
include other DMC adult hospitals.
If you would like to learn more about this program, please
contact David Ellis, DMC corporate director of planning and
future studies, at dellis3@dmc.org.
TO GIVe
To support the DMC, please visit
www.dmc.org/giving

Golden Years Hutzel Hospital Reunion
Past president and CEO of Hutzel Women’s Hospital,
Frank P. Iacobell’s face lights up and his eyes sparkle as
he recalls a story from his time at Hutzel. A period of
time he fondly refers to as the “Golden Years.”
The “Golden Years” of Hutzel Hospital
were from 1970 through 1995. During
this 25-year period, Hutzel Hospital,
under the leadership of Dr. Robert Mack
and Mr. Frank P. Iacobell, evolved from a
community-based general medical-surgical
hospital with a large obstetrics service, to a
nationally known hospital with programs
in women’s health, orthopaedics and
ophthalmology. In addition to the major
programs, there were many other major
medical accomplishments as well.
To celebrate this special period of time, DMC Guild is
hosting a Hutzel Reunion for employees who were there
TO GIVe
To support the DMC Guild, please visit
www.dmc.org/dmcguild
during the “Golden Years” on Saturday,
May 2, 2009, at 6:00 pm at the Detroit
Athletic Club (DAC). This event will
benefit the renovation of the Charlotte B.
Failing Boardroom.
So mark your calendar! Details are still
being finalized, and more information
will be posted as it becomes available at:
www.dmc.org/dmcguild or you can call
313.578.2215.
Charlotte Failing was a guiding force in the development
of Hutzel Women’s Hospital for more than 50 years.
Elected to the Board of Trustees in 1936, Charlotte served
as recording secretary until 1946, when she assumed the
reigns of president and chairman until 1979.
For 33 years, Charlotte guided Hutzel into becoming
one of the leading hospitals and teaching facilities in
the nation. Under her leadership, Hutzel grew from a
woman’s center to a large general hospital. She was also
a pioneer in the formation of the Detroit Medical Center.
In 1988, Hutzel’s premier boardroom was named in her
honor. The Charlotte Failing Boardroom is still a high
profile meeting area today. Proceeds from the Hutzel
Reunion will benefit the restoration of the boardroom to
its former prominence.
Charlotte Failing passed away February 4, 2004.
In May of 1980 the Hutzel
Hospital auxiliary
commissioned a painting
of Charlotte Failing by
renowned portrait artist
Patricia Burnett. When the
boardroom was named in
her honor in april of 1988
the picture was placed
there and has remained
ever since.
11

To our friends during this holiday season,
Last week, Bob, who lives in Southfield, came to Sinai-Grace Hospital for what he thought
was a bad case of the flu.
Helen, a Detroit resident and a diabetic, was brought by ambulance to Detroit Receiving
Hospital with a severe infection on her foot.
And ten year old Katie, who lives with her family in Macomb County, was rushed by her
parents to Children’s Hospital of Michigan suffering from an asthma attack.
All of these patients sought help in the Emergency Departments of our Detroit Medical
Center (DMC) hospitals.
Bob and Helen have no insurance and Katie’s family doesn’t have enough. Katie’s family has Medicaid,
but it covers only a small portion of the cost of her care. This past year, Bob was let go from his job after
25 years of service. His healthcare ran out three months ago. Helen works two part-time jobs, but neither
offers health insurance. Their total treatment costs were well above average—their illnesses needlessly severe
because of their inability to receive regular care from a primary care physician.
Over 353,000 people were treated in DMC Emergency Departments (ED’s) in the past year. Besides
Sinai-Grace, Detroit Receiving and Children’s Hospital of Michigan, we have ED’s at Harper University
Hospital, Hutzel Women’s Hospital and Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital. Many of our patients with more
severe conditions, such as Helen who has diabetes, were admitted to the hospital. Helen was treated at
Detroit Receiving Hospital and then transferred to Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan for physical therapy
to regain the function of her leg. In 2007, the DMC spent more than $205 million on care for patients who
are uninsured or underinsured. With a gloomy economic forecast, we expect that number to grow.
Do you know someone who is unemployed or underinsured? Many of us have a friend or relative in this
situation whose only option is an emergency department for primary and acute care. Alarmingly, the
number of emergency departments in the area has dramatically decreased. Twenty years ago, there were 20
emergency departments in the City of Detroit. Today there are seven. Five of these are at DMC hospitals.
The DMC is committed to the metropolitan Detroit area: all our patients receive the highest quality of care
and are treated with dignity and respect.
Do you know who helps to pay for the care of these patients? Our very special and appreciated donors
who continue to give each year from their hearts to help us fulfill our mission. And do you know who else?
Our employees.
In the past two years, DMC employees have voluntarily contributed $678,769 to help pay for services and
programs for our patients. We greatly appreciate our employees who not only devote their work hours to
the DMC but also give their own dollars to help our patients in need. But DMC employees alone cannot
cover the costs of the uninsured and underinsured who depend on us for care.
The average donation our employees make is $149. Imagine how many more patients could be helped if
you matched our employees’ average donation? Your gift of $149 can cover a lot, like the medical test that
diagnosed Bob’s ulcer; the antibiotics for Helen’s infection, or the medication that will immediately relieve
Katie’s asthma attack. Your $149 will go a long way to help our patients get better.
Our ability to provide care to uninsured and underinsured patients depends in large part on the generosity
of a caring community. This holiday season please consider a donation to one of our DMC Hospitals.
Whatever amount you can contribute will help people like Bob, Helen or Katie who have been hit hard by
this poor economy. And you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have reached out and
helped your friends and neighbors, just as we do at the DMC.
Wishing you the best of health this Holiday Season.
Sincerely,
Mike Duggan
President and CEO, Detroit Medical Center
and the entire DMC family
Office of Development • 3663 Woodward, 5th Floor • Detroit, MI 48201
The Specialty Hospitals of the DMC.
1-888-DMC-2500 • www.dmc.org