As the University of Mississippi Medical Center's heralded pilot program to remotely monitor Delta diabetes patients wraps up, lessons learned already have improved care for hundreds enrolled in UMMC's telehealth network.

The same model used to bring care to patients in the Diabetes Telehealth Network is now being deployed -- with significant technology upgrades -- for patients coping with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, kidney disease and a number of other conditions that require chronic disease management. That's in addition to adult and pediatric diabetes.

“A lot of our patients hadn't touched technology before the Diabetes Telehealth Network. Many didn't have Internet,” said Michael Adcock, administrator of the Center for Telehealth at UMMC. “But once they found out how easy it was and how useful the information is, they embraced it.

“It's been extraordinarily beneficial from the point that it makes them feel more comfortable with their health-care team. They've appreciated getting education about their health in bite-sized pieces. Over time, that gives them a good knowledge of their disease.”

Sara Lacy gets her picture taken often. She always has.

There are loads of family photos, of course, but there has been plenty of medical imaging for Sara, too. Born with hip dysplasia, doctors at Batson Children's Hospital later discovered she had developed scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that must be checked with X-rays at nearly every clinic visit.

Over time, the exposure to radiation from those X-rays can add up, giving patients a higher risk of cancer later in life.

Children's of Mississippi has seen that amount of radiation drop to just 20 percent of a normal X-ray through the purchase of an EOS imaging system with funding from Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. The radiation emitted by the EOS system is a 20^th of the radiation of one CT scan.

EOS, the only system of its kind in Mississippi, takes three-dimensional images of patients while they are standing or sitting, giving physicians a clearer picture of a patient's condition while keeping the patient comfortable.

In August, Johnathan “Nate” Davis arrived back in Mississippi from Spain - where he had just excelled in an elite, military skills contest - and started his second year of medical school.

In spite of the vast distance - geographically and philosophically speaking - between those two important events in his life, his accomplishments in land navigation, water-hazard survival, marksmanship, and more in Madrid provide a metaphor for making it through medical school, where he is also obliged to complete difficult courses, keep his head above water, negotiate strange territory and take his best shot.

A former high school and college football player for Pascagoula High School and Millsaps College, Davis is a cross-fit enthusiast, powerlifting phenom - 820 pounds in the raw squat - military officer, husband, father-to-be and physician-in-training who still works out twice a day and drills once a month in the Mississippi Army National Guard's Medical Detachment in Jackson.

By virtue of his strength, it seems, he can squeeze hours out of minutes and weeks out of days.

“I've been told all my life that you can't do this if you do that, because there's not enough time,” said Davis, born in Mobile and brought up in Pascagoula, “but it's what you do with the time you have that counts.”

In the 26 years of life he has counted so far, Davis set a one-time powerlifting record, completed a master's degree in biomedical sciences at the University of Mississippi, earned the gold bar of a second lieutenant and started a family with his wife Jessi Davis, who should give birth to their first child in a couple of months.

“He puts his heart into his dreams - and his dreams are to be a husband, a dad and a doctor, and work on wounded soldiers,” Jessi Davis said.

The Medical Center is proud to acknowledge those employees who will celebrate service anniversaries this week.

A number of interesting events is scheduled for the upcoming week at the Medical Center.