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Monday, December 8.1975
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Jaystork helps high risk infants
By DIANE M. WILSON
Staff Writer
The Jaystork, a new super-ambulance created by the KU Medical Center to save lives and prevent mental retardation in children, is on its way. It was on an introductory tour of the Kansas communities it will serve, beginning in January.
Howard A. Fox, director of the division of neonatal (newborn) medicine, developed the Jasystork for an estimated 1,500 high risk infants born each year in Kansas. He said that the Jasystork cost the 30,000 babies born each year in Kansas needed immediate intensive care.
*Time is extremely critical with delay could cause death or retardation.*
He said the purpose of the Jaystork was to decrease the time between the recognition of baby's sickness and the beginning of intensive care for that sickness.
The Jaystork also has a teaching function, he said The team that cares for the infant before the Jaystork arrives will be brought to watch the special treatment the baby gets.
"Usually," Fox said, "the attending physicians and nurses send the baby off and go home."
A third function of the Jaystork, Fox said, is to raise communities' support for better delivery and infant care and to get women in need of assistance are equipped to prevent mental retardation.
Martin Wollmann, director of health services at KU, said the Jaystork was important because newborns' resistance and balance were precarious. It is essential, and balance is vital life functions, such as breathing, circulation and body temperature, very soon.
Wollmann said that neither obstetrical nor newborn care was available at Walkina hospital.
because the services were offered at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
Fox said the Jaystork team would receive calls from Kansas hospitals or physicians up to 10 miles from the Med Center. Jaystork will treat an infant in the hospital parking lot before moving to a hospital that has facilities to treat the baby, he said.
The medical team in the van, a physician and a nurse who are newborn specialists, and a special driver, will test the baby and stabilize its condition.
For said the team would look for the three main causes of mental retardation in infants: Low body temperature, low blood sugar and too little oxygen in the blood.
The van has a special working table for the baby. A heat sensor attached to the baby's skin allows his body temperature to control the amount of heat produced by a radiant warmer above the table. The system is like an open incubator, Paul Hengele, obstetrician traveling with the van Friday, said.
The equipment in the van will enable the team to test for blood oxygen and carbon dioxide with only two drops of blood. A third sample is taken for a simple test of blood sugar, Fox said.
The X-ray machine in the van uses Polaroid packs instead of normal X-ray plates, another example of how existing technology was adapted for use in the van. Fox said it was the first time instant X rays had been used that way.
Fox said, "Howard Johnson's thought of keeping hot dogs hot a long time ago. It took years for the medical profession to decide to use the same technique."
Bill Elbader, administrator for the project, said that the Jaystork wasn't the only mobile intensive care van for infants in New York. "This was, it was probably the best in the country."
The other Kansas van operates from the
Wesley Medical Center in Wichita. The
medical center has about 100 miles in
all directions from Wichita.
Elbrader said the Betty had made 125 runs since January. He said he expected the Jaystork to make two or three runs a week when it began service in January.
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Elbraider said the van would travel at normal speeds, using its red lights and siren lights.
He said the van was designed by Fox and Bill Remmer, of Parsons Customs, Inc., the firm that outfitted the 25-foot GMC recreational vehicle worth $70.000.
Hensleigh, the obstetrician traveling with the Jaystork, said that workshops for hospital personnel included both obstetrics and pediatrics.
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"We can anticipate three-fourths of the problems before the babies are born," he
Those cases are handled by moving the mother to a place where the infant will receive full care at birth, he said.
"The best way to transport an infant," he said, "is still in the uterus."
The Jaystark will handle many of the imprecided quarter of high-risk infants,
The van can treat twins by taking an extra portable incubator, he said. The second incubator can be secured in the van because of its smaller size and all the time because of space limitations.
The van is spacious inside, with plenty of room for two or three people to work without hindering each other. The second incubator would make conditions a little cramped.
Dave Cobb, head of the department of physiological monitoring and instrumentation at the Med Center, is one of two qualified driver technicians for the Jaystork. He said his qualifications included two years of training with the life function monitors such as the electrocardiogram (ECG) and respirators. That mechanical training led nine months to a year treating babies in the newborn nursery, he said.
Jaystork can be in touch with anyone who has a telephone he said, through a mobile phone. In addition, the van has a highway patrol radio and a radio that keeps the van on the network, with ambulance services in Kuala Lumpur, and with police and fire departments.
Cobb said he also had to know how to repair and maintain all of the equipment in the Jaystork and to operate the communications systems.
Cobb said two more people were training to drive the Jaystark, but until they were ready, he and the other driver would alternate 24-hour shifts on call.
The neonatologist will share shifts with Fox is Warren N. Rosenfeld.
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