 Aloha Hawaii, I'm Wendy Loh and I'm your friend as we journey to take your health back. We are coming to you live from downtown Honolulu from the studios of Think Tech Hawaii. Today our topic of discussion will be on providing access to patients who need medical attention at a convenient location. And what I would really like you to take away from today's discussion is that early intervention and access to health care can reduce complications of many different illnesses. We all know that right prevention and awareness are your keys to greater health. So today we are very honored to welcome a very busy and very dear friend Dr. Alan Wu who is the co-founder and the medical director of Doctors of Waikiki. Welcome Alan or Dr. Wu. Thank you Wendy. Thank you for having me on the program. Yes. I'm so excited. When I stopped in a visit with you, actually when we did your blessing in December of your beautiful clinic, I was quite impressed. Thank you. Yes. And then I had a friend and she was telling me urgent care is really hard to find in Waikiki and she knew about one but it was quite a far distance from where she lived at the other end of Waikiki. And I said well then you got to go visit my friend Alan Wu has Doctors of Waikiki and it's in the Princess Kailani hotel and she says no Wendy that's been closed for a long time. And I said no we just blessed it a few months ago and I think he's still there so let's go visit and that we did we popped into Alan's clinic and he had just had a big rush and he had a moment's time to take a breath and you were very kind to show us everything about your clinic but before we jump into your clinic tell us a little bit about Alan Wu. Well thanks Wendy for you know first of all inviting me to this show you know I'm myself like many others in Hawaii are first generation immigrants or children of immigrants who came migrated to Hawaii immigrated and we wanted to you know live the American dream and I grew up just a plain old local boy went to pro city high school you know got my medical degree at John Burns University here and then I went away and did my training at Walter Reed in DC it was all because I had a full scholarship there at medical school. Wow you must be really smart Alan I knew you were when I met you. Thank you no we've been great friends for 20 plus years right yes and they're really long career I was in DC for many years and then I got a chance to deploy with the Army and took care of our soldiers our brothers and sisters in the frontline of Afghanistan you know got to come back and I was actually assistant clinic chief at Tripler internment and got then got selected as brigade flight surgeon went to flight surgery school after that and was head of flight surgery at School for Barracks where we also reestablished the initiative to bring back the Black Hawk to land at Queens Medical Center for traumas. So that was really really fun and exciting very exciting and the most rewarding job I ever had. Wow and then you were telling me a little bit while you were doing your flight training or an active duty actually you got a very high honor and I want you to not show up I want you to share with others because I'm so proud of you for being the recipient of this honor. So I was deployed in the years of 2010 2011 and during that time I was in Afghanistan at a very hostile environment where I was in basically a emergency replacement doctor for one of our other fallen doctor that really got hurt six hours into country due to how intensified that that war was there and then I was able to survive. I actually got to sign about 7,000 charts in one year Wow and so you were just thrown in there I was just you just went to battle that's right right we were the point of injury care docs so our team has took care of multiple traumas and multiple care as well as taking care of our soldiers making sure that they continue to be healthy while in combat and making sure that they were safe and keeping up with their exercise you know making sure that preventive health is also there all type of medical realm that I never thought I would be a part of but I did and at the end I was very honored to receive a bronze medal from General Campbell at that time and I got a bronze medal. So thank you so much for your 15 years of serving our country faithfully and just doing the best that you were trained to do and went beyond the call I mean going in and being thrown into a hot zone as you were and responding and you know just stepping into action and that's why they knew you were so deserving of that honor and I knew when I met you in 1999 I believe and we were working for a Buddhist organization and we were just doing good things for the people who needed help and first on the scene last to leave was our kind of our model and we did so much back in the day and we had so much fun and I knew you had an aspiring career and I didn't realize how great you would be turning out and I'm so proud of you as Auntie Wendy to just be connected with you again. So now let's get back into when you were serving and you really wanted the your officers your soldiers to think about wellness and preparedness so exercise meant a lot eating the proper diet and so you were whether you wanted to or not or you're trained and it became part of your mantra and your practice that's right and that's what you continue to do today. So now you have opened doctors in Waikiki and so the first slide I want to just share with everybody is one of that of your examination rooms that's correct and so when I came that night you took me on this tour I was so impressed with even the quality of the floor. Yes. The floor was just beautiful selection and immaculate everything about your clinic was just top notch and so tell us a little bit about your heart behind what you have just created. Actually this this is probably the third clinic I built in my life or design and we the first one was in Afghanistan the second one was completed production and building and 2017 at Wheeler Army Airfield you know we built a brand new clinic for the aviation troops out there because I was their brigade surgeon and this is my my most recent clinic that we helped design we wanted to make sure that one access to care is important even back in the war zone I extended our our what we call sick call and access to medical care from morning to night and you know if I can do it in a hostile environment why can't I do that for the people of Hawaii and why can't we do that in Waikiki where there's a lot of traffic a lot of density and you know most people don't realize the density especially of the elderlies in Waikiki is actually pretty significant very significant we're talking about 20,000 residents on that little strip of land that we call Waikiki yes and that mixed in with the tourists I mean we're talking about 70 80,000 people walking through Waikiki a day right and not to mention all us local surfers that frequent the beach and we get hurt you know we get sick we get hurt while we're on the beach and you know so instead of just waiting you know now we can just cross the street and there you are and your arms are open and you're welcome to take us in and just give us that quality of care that we're so used to on a daily basis a lot of times and we're open seven days a week including holidays from 8am to midnight and we even for people the local people the tourists who are in Waikiki who get lost in Waikiki how many people get lost we actually provide a free shuttle service to pick them up to bring it that is amazing to our clinic and to make sure that they get early intervention you know the amount of thanking notes that we receive from our travelers from our local people to us we get mail every day well telling us how how grateful they are affirmation yes who you are and what you've created with your partner Tony yes yes I'm so I mean I'm just in awe yeah okay so the next slide will show us your reception area so when we come through the doors and this is what we see beautiful picture of Waikiki and of course great colors yeah so you make us feel very warm and welcome even though we're not well and not feeling too good well the first thing you don't want to do is you know sit in a cold bland place when you're not feeling well so we chose these colors and these warm colors and these comfortable chairs to make sure that our patients who are waiting for us feel warm and welcome and we want to make sure that they feel comfortable and it's not just oh I'm just another number so our staff are very well trained and they're they're they're very kind and they go out of their way to help all our patients who are waiting yeah I mean I walked in at like 9 30 and as I walked through the doors it was Auntie Wendy how are you I'm like and she maybe googled me as she saw my face I don't know how she knew me so quickly but she recognized me and I felt warm and welcome so that just was the first step to a great experience and here we are today just wanting this for anybody that doesn't feel as good as we are feeling right now yes so that's very very critical so the next slide that we have here I see you briefing are the reporters are they your students interns they're a mixture of of law this is when they went through our clinic and we're just explaining to them our our services especially to to be accredited with all these different insurance companies to make sure that we were able to have the capacity and the ability and the technology to take care of the vast illnesses or injuries that come in you know everybody wants to take a tour and because I actually been doing this for a while so they were very happy that I actually have my own clinic now oh you got a great following your bedside manner is so in need and desire and they were here taking a tour and we will give them a breakdown of how from the process of checking in to checking out and that whole patient experience is really important I think you know making somebody comfortable when they're not feeling well I think it's the most important thing that us as a medical professional can provide from the front desk staff to our nursing staff to even my drivers right right that's amazing I mean the next slide will show this is just your staff and I was surprised and impressed that you have so many and you even hired um Dr. Tony Stark Ironman yes so that's how much you care about customer care you even hired Ironman that's right to be one of your partners in crime and I believe there's two of you medical doctors in this facility yes at any time one or two of you yes and nurse nurse practitioners yes and then we have other physicians that that does that want to provide excellent care and so they will come on part time and we because we want to make sure that all all there are our fellow colleagues know who we are and what kind of excellent service we can provide so and there are ER docs that comes in once in a while and there's other hospital stocks you know family practice stocks who want to do shifts with us and we welcome all that yes that's you know I think what a lot of this comes from you know when we volunteered with Suji Suji is a very incredible organization that um they have hospitals throughout Taiwan and a lot of doctors will retire early so that they can go volunteer at the Suji Suji Hospital yes that's correct and either they're not getting paid or they're getting very small um stipends to support themselves that's right but they come in to serve the people and these people the patients coming in they don't have charges yeah it's free to the people of Taiwan yeah to come in and you have that same philosophy so everybody wants to come and work with you yes and just be a part of your establishment I think a lot of it all your training from different organizations you volunteered with yes continues on in your heart and so you're going to continue to draw on these hearts to come in and to support what you're doing to support the people of Hawaii so we have the best urgent care the best care possible that's right that's so important Alan I'm so proud of you thank you can you tell can you tell okay so the next slide and then uh you were sharing with us on the next slide there's like you have a digital lab that's right you have in-house labs you have everything in there that I was so amazed and impressed with so tell us a little bit about your labs well we can actually go on to to the next slide where we actually have the digital x-ray machine we have one of the most advanced digital x-ray machines that's out there right now instantaneously we can see the picture there's no film development it pops up right on our screen and most of the time is inside the room so um I can grab hold of the patient and actually show that this is what we're looking at wow and then to actually to verify our read and stuff we do send it out for the board certified radiologist to make sure that we didn't miss anything and that comes back within 15 30 minutes if we wanted that okay yeah that is so impressive I was so impressed that we could go to the your urgent care clinic and they have all these facilities as any you know top-notch hospital in our state and so I'm just I'm just forwarded by the the level that you're serving our people with but at this moment we're going to be taking a 60 second break and we'll come right back with Alan Wu and share with you more of what he has to share with all of us all right thank you hi my name is Amy Ortega Anderson inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii with Think Tech Hawaii we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday we invite you to listen watch for our mission of empowerment we aim to enrich and lighten educate entertain and we hope to empower again maraming salamat po mabuhai and aloha hey aloha my name is Andrew Lening I'm the host of security matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on Think Tech Hawaii live from the studios I'll bring you guests I'll bring you information about the things in security that matter to keeping you safe your co-workers safe your family safe to keep our community safe we want to teach you about those things in our industry that you know may be a little outside of your experience so please join me because security matters aloha aloha here we are back at Think Tech Hawaii with Dr. Alan Wu from Doctors of Waikiki and I'm so excited to share with you his philosophies because I knew him when he was a young lad before he became a doctor and I already knew that this young man had a great future ahead of him because he was volunteering with me side by side and producing some amazing events and whatever he learned whatever we experienced during that time he carried it on as he served our country for 15 years as an in-flight medical surgeon yes the surgeon doctor and um then he knew that he had a retire out but he knew he needed to make sure he had a future so that he could support his family and and carry out his his long life a long love of medical uh medical services to support the people of Hawaii so that he can continue to express how important it is to be aware of nutrition exercise and wellness and prevention and so Alan I'm just just so excited and honored that you're here with us and also I want to mention again a bronze medal awardee so thank you so much for all that you've done for our country and before we took the break we were talking about your in-house x-ray machine and that um I want to talk a little bit more about that because that's pretty critical so you know we right there on that strip a lot of these crazies are jumping off the wall going surfing so you know if sometimes if something they feel not right they can just walk across the street and there you are and you have state-of-the-art if we go back to that slide with the x-ray machines that's just very incredible tell us a little bit about that again well was was that um that x-ray machine it's actually uh low radiation what I also wanted to say is um it's not now with newer technology we have to keep up with technology where a lot of times in the big hospitals you still have those big old machines and you're actually exposing yourself to a unnecessary amount of radiation right and these machines now are very focused on low voltage low ampoule so your exposure rate is also a lot less and you know was was that new capability we can get a very clear image um you can see all the bony structure and most of the time you just need a plain x-ray to to kind of see what else is needed that's your first step and we want to be able to have the capability to allow people to have access through that first step and then they will determine how much more is needed to be done you know if somebody's coughing for a long time you know you want to know if you have pneumonia right it's not getting better you fell all of your doctor's treatment you need an x-ray where where do you go most people don't know where to go you come on here we can get that done for you and then we can show you your images or we can have a radiologist read it almost that same day wow i'll also go through the image with the patient usually within 10 seconds after taking that x-ray wow i mean i was so impressed that the machine was so little yeah and you know you have the signs all around if you're pregnant so it didn't bother me i still came in because but i mean i was impressed at the the size of that machinery to do that much intense work on us yeah and immediate results 15 minutes at the least and then sending it out to get a confirmation of your diagnosis so i think that's just what we need right there and i know that you also have labs yes a lot of different blood work is done there diagnosis of different issues or samples so tell us more about your labs so if um if you can see that in our lab facility we have a lot of point of care what we call point of care testing point of care testing you have to get certified to the national laboratory association we do have all of these certificates whether for radiation facility for laboratory testing and these machines are the most advanced state-of-the-art machines like if you see on the picture on the right where where my assistant is having her hand over the pipettes that is what we call a chemistry machine we can actually run your entire metabolic panel in 15 minutes you know it'll take a regular traditional lab wow probably four or five hours in the ER maybe an hour so we can produce that result in 15 minutes and if you compare the two you get two random life sample um compare side by side the difference of uh of uh reads on your chemistry whether sodium potassium level it's less than one percent difference isn't that amazing right and it's on the point it is very accurate and that's why the um the national um um board of um laboratory approve of these type of machines and we have instantaneous detection especially the flu is going around right we have a PCR machine that can detect if you have the flu or not in 15 minutes and it's a PCR machine that actually amplify DNA and not just a screening to that most doctors office have so if you're positive you're almost 99.99 positive of the flu and you're negative you're pretty much sure that you don't have the flu we have that capability we can do much much more um you know the the list is so vast and you know even with just the flu I mean so say I report to work and you know everyone's I mean half our population is employed in Waikiki yes so this is a really good facility for a lot of employers because if you come in and I'm gonna question your state of health yes I'm gonna send you right next door yes you don't have to take the whole day off and go to the doctor and come back I want you to go there hey Alan you know I got this employee coming in can you run the test yeah if that person is diagnosed in that shorter time with flu you're going home yeah you're going otherwise you come back to work and let's get to work and this is this is why it's also very important to have us there is not only for access to care about public health reasons you know if you look at the data right now Japan actually has a little bit more accurate data collection than than us when it comes to real time because they have a more condensed geographic location where the US is sold spread out just in Japan alone last week 2.5 million people in Japan has the flu well and a lot of them are resistant to certain drugs already so and flu becomes very deadly when you have other medical complications you know it can lead to sepsis pneumonia so early flu detection and treatment it's not only beneficial for your health but also a very good public health service wow and we have a lot of visitors coming right from that direction so it's it's and everyone's in such dense populations in the hotels or even sitting next to each other on the beaches or even swimming in the beaches so yes the contraction of such a you know issue or disease is very prevalent and so to have early detection especially with the weight and the the staff the weight help and all that it's very important and and our we train our weight staff our front desk staff to make sure that our patients are waiting no more than 15 minutes before they come in to see us that's kind of a real thumb for us very good we just want to bring them in get them checked in and start our process of diagnosis and treatment really quick wow and so if they're not with the flu then they can go back and enjoy our sunshine and all that Hawaiian vacation they came for another thing that impressed me Ellen is that you have an in-house pharmacy that's right okay and on the next slide we'll see that we can visit your little pharmacy there yeah and tell us about that so we have approval from also the Department of Health with our narcotics and all of those those regulation we have met so we're certified to be a dispensary of medication we're not a true pharmacy because we don't take insurance for that part but a lot of times people who are in in Waikiki there's there's no pharmacy left right so um I mean I don't want to give give it away but we're kind of a lot of times the medication are at cost so that way you know people can just pay for them and we're not talking about a lot of money you know people think I don't want to say pharmacy names but let's say my antibiotic if you have a urinary tract infection and things like that our antibiotic are as low as like 16 dollars only and it's all packaged control sealed labeled was lot number expiration natural drug control numbers everything's written on it free package from the pharmaceutical company and then we just kind of dispense it out so that way they don't have to spend all that time hopping to a taxi driving to a pharmacy right at the middle of the night because sometimes there's no pharmacy at six after 6 p.m. and that issue you just brought up UTI I mean when you got that I know you got to get help immediately and you want as much relief as possible as quick as possible and you know of course when you're traveling especially coming to a warm climate it's very prevalent as well and then they're not drinking as much water and all the right things they should be doing so yes you hit it right on the nail and that's a very great example yes okay and so the next thing is also impressive to me especially because when I go to get blood taken or blood drawn they have a hard time finding the veins and so what is this little tool that you have so we have a infrared vein fighter in our clinic especially if you see this slide we have a very thin Asian female who comes in she's you know we can't find her veins you don't want to go to the doctor's office and try to get blood drawn and they they stick you 20 30 times and they call that the pin question right so this way it helps the nursing staff and medical assistants find your vein very quickly and because we also start IVs in our urgent care clinic that this makes it easier and less painful right and making the experience more pleasant more pleasant so that's again brilliant so now we come to this beautiful vehicle that will pick up patients within Waikiki yes and they make a call and this is a lovely Tesla yes we'll go and pick you up and the wings open you pop in and go straight to your clinic tell us about this so we we provide this free absolutely free transport system in Waikiki we want to limit it to Waikiki because or else the car will be out too far and you know how Honolulu traffic is it's right it's hard but Waikiki itself it's like a maze people could know where we're located at the Princess Carolina hotel people know where it is but something they don't know how to get there right exactly and having this transport and save you on parking right right everything is a bonus and you get luxury all the way yes and we want to make sure that you're not feeling good you're already calling us to come pick you up you know let's let's make your your travel experience pleasant also you Alan I told you you think of everything our time is running out soon but before we end I know that I want to make sure we announce yes for this month you are running a little public service that's right so for this month in our clinic we actually are offering for all Hawaii residents free blood pressure free um diabetes screening at our clinic all you have to do is bring your ID your Hawaii driver's license white ID so all Hawaii residents are privileged to this that's right and there's no cost at all and there's nothing to fill out you just come come in you just tell the front desk you're here for the screening and then my staff would take you to the back we would do your blood sugar check we take your your blood pressure and um and it's and we're right there for free consultation if you have any questions that is to shade top of notch because that right there um is exactly what we believe in prevention knowing in advance before the symptoms come on you already can detect hey you know you got to be careful of this your numbers are here let's work on it that's right so Alan I tell you again I'm so proud of you thank you so much what you have created what you're going to continue to create for the people of Hawaii with prevention and education and top of notch facility congratulations on delivering this to us we so needed it and um praying that maybe one day you open another clinic outside of Waikiki as well but thank you so much and for taking your time and thank you for no emergencies during this 30 minutes so I appreciate you and just thank you continue your great work Alan thank you so much for having me on the show thank you and aloha everybody nice thank you