 Aloha. Welcome to another edition of Military in Hawaii. For those of you who may or may not have seen the program before, we're relatively new, and we talk about issues that concern the military and veterans community over here, and we invite your response. Our main thing is, as I mentioned in the past, is to be informative. We try to bring, that we try, we will bring you factual information that's going to be beneficial to you. As I mentioned in the past, is less than roughly one percent of the American population is involved in the military, and these are individuals, again, who are very dedicated to what they do. Like I say, it's all volunteer service. And the thing is, we always, we try to talk about what's happening with the some of the things that support them. And one of the big issues currently, and also in the past, has been medical treatments. We have a very good VA facility over here. But the one thing is, there's always room for improvement sometimes, and I know there's certain questions that come up with the veterans and military community about some of the stories that have recently developed about what's happening in Phoenix, Arizona, and a few other places around the country. But by and large, I think that the treatment is good, but sometimes there's systemic issues that do come about. And as I mentioned, like I say, with very relatively few families to have military members or associated with the military, sometimes you're not aware of what's going on. And what we try to encourage people to do is get involved. When you do hear these things in the news or whatever, or you're especially here in Hawaii, we have a very large veterans population. And it doesn't hurt to get involved and find out what's going on. There's certain legislative initiatives that come about that affect our military, as well as not only local, but also on the national level. And our thing is to remind people that we need to keep our elected officials' feasts to the fire when it comes to making sure that the benefits and the rights of our military communities, not only active as the veterans, but also their dependents, they play a very big role in what's happening within the military community and the sacrifices they have to make. But right now, I'd like to introduce Ms. Kim Lovell to the program. Thank you for having me. Oh, thank you for being here. Could you tell us your connection with the military or the veterans' community? Yes, I own and am the president of a wound service, Optimal Wounds Solutions. And we have, in the past, I have done a lot of work with veterans on their wounds, not only wounds, but therapy needs. But I'm specializing right now in the wound aspect for the veterans, which is a huge need all over the country, but definitely in our state. We're going to get more into this, but more about your background. How did you get into the medical field? I understand you have a son that's in the military now? I do. I have a son, he's a Marine, and I'm extremely proud of him for serving his country. Thank you, thank you. I am a physical therapist. I've been a physical therapist now for over 23 years and have worked with wounds for 23 years now. So I have, I started as a physical therapist in skilled nursing facilities, work with pediatrics, outpatients in hospitals, but primarily really work in the skilled nursing and outpatient areas. And through that, work with a lot of veterans, a lot of veterans who have had the need. I've studied under different physicians for wounds and I am board certified as a certified wound specialist. All right. Okay. So you don't work directly for the VA? No, I don't. Okay. Because as I mentioned before, we do have with the facility over here, there are quality services provided, but that doesn't mean there can't be improvements in what's happening with the different techniques. And I know that again in the past, with the way things are going with some of the services that were provided, there's new and innovative types of things that come about that, like I say, would definitely benefit, you know, improve the quality of life for a lot of our veterans and military personnel. But because of the way things are set up in Washington for the most part, you know, the system is that a lot of things are not readily introduced into the system that would be beneficial to the, you know, to the veterans and their families. Because the one thing, especially with the veterans community, a lot of times there is a delay in veterans benefits that come about, you know, so sometimes you have to pay out of pocket for certain things, you know. So if there's certain things that's in place as far as being able to help you alleviate certain pains and discomfort and, you know, the emotional aspect of it also, you know, not only for the ones being treated, but for their families, the last thing you want to do is see someone that you love suffers, you know. So I know that what you're trying to introduce, you're trying to introduce certain things into the, to the VA? Yes, I am. Yes, we have such a passion to help veterans, of course. Our family has been involved in the military for years, grandfathers, uncles, fathers, sons, so many of that. And there are exactly, as you just said, there's so many new techniques. We have learned so many things in the past, oh gosh, 20, 10, 5 years that are going to progress the treatment that can help our veterans more and more to save limbs, to close wounds up quicker where we can decrease the cost for that, and we can improve the quality of life for the veterans. So to have the most up-to-date treatments and a specialist, a consultant that's right there helping, our veterans are going to get so much better care than they would have in the past. So that's our passion. That's what we want to work with. So what response have you been getting? I know that, again, we have, with the system, we have a lot of dedicated people who are involved, but sometimes there's a bottleneck, you know, that happens. And again, I think a lot of times it comes from the policies that set out of Washington. Is there anybody that's in a position to help champion what you're trying to do, beginning involved or how's it working? You know, we are so new in the process of trying to get this through. We have met with a couple people and they've been very helpful in giving us more names. We are in the process of reaching out to some other officials or persons within the VA that we're hoping will help us. But you know, at this point in time, we haven't gotten to the right person yet. So that's what we're hoping to do because we want to champion this. We want to join together with the military and the VA to champion healing of our military. Yeah, well, speaking of champion, you know, we have, you know, as I mentioned, I call on the public to get involved, you know, so when there is something going on, there is a bottleneck. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to go ahead and call your representative and say, well, look, there's something going on here that can be beneficial to our veterans. You know, what is your stance on it? Are you behind it? You know, and if it's something that is really worthwhile, why not? You know, and, you know, to, again, put that additional, I wouldn't say pressure you out, you know, to have them act in a more expeditious way, you know. Right. Well, definitely. We are very willing to reach out to anybody we need to. And we're also, one thing, it's our company is really a mission as well. We just have that passion and we have the knowledge. We have a lot of information, new clinical information that's come up and around that we can get in there to the people that we can start using. And so we do. We want to get there with people. We want to help in any way that we can and we want to contact whoever we need to contact or have anybody feel free to contact us if we can help them progress the healing of wounds. Yeah. What is some of the new techniques? So like, okay, for a lens or example, you mentioned before that there's something where sometimes the skin retracts or whatever and it causes a little bit of exposure with the actual bone. Yes. You know, in lay terms, if you possibly explain, you know, to the audience what that entails or how that really improves the quality of life. I think one of the big things is correct diagnosis. Yeah. And to get that information out into the physician's hands, it's very difficult when you have veterans that perhaps are at a skilled nursing facility that don't have as much availability to the diagnostics right on hand in that facility. And then they have to be transferred to a hospital or to a wound center in order to get the diagnostics. So one thing that we have available to us are post-volume readings that are available now within the skilled facilities. One thing that has been around for a while but have not been utilized or I think type of a little bit of diagnostics called ankle brachial indexes that we can do that. Now that's one aspect of it. So once we get that proper diagnosis, then there are all different types of medications that have come aboard. We have old medications that are coming back that have been updated that we see amazing work with decreasing the dead tissue within wounds and improving that good healing tissue to come back through. So different dressing types, different medications to put on the wound, actual interaction type of medications where you have negative pressure pulling out, good tissue within the wound. So all different aspects of just new treatments along with looking at the diagnostics along with weekly consultation or assessment at the bedside with that patient. So we can make sure that everything is going right and you don't wait two or three weeks to go back and be able to see a physician. You get it right then and there so we can have progress and no lags in time. Okay, so the service you provided augments what the doctor would do because it's not saying calling your doctor's incompetent or anything like that. Absolutely not. It's the thing that you know because of their work skills and everything else they may not be aware of the new technologies or investments because they may not specialize in that field anyhow. So yeah by coming on and augmenting what they provide again it's not detracting from the doctor, it's just making them more informed of what's going on. That's exactly right. We work together with the doctor so he usually he or she are so extremely busy. The need for medical services on our islands, all of our islands is a big need and so because they are so busy we augment the doctor basically. We can go in and put our hands and our eyes on that patient and report back to the doctor immediately what's going on. We can also use some type of a telemedication so if we do need that physician right then and there we can view in on an encrypted Skype type of aspect and he's right in the room or she's right in the room with us. Okay yeah that's what I want to touch on. You're reading my mind on that one because yeah if you have you know if someone comes to you and they are you know you make them aware of what's going on and they go back to the doctor sometimes if the patient you know tries to bring it up then you know they're confident in the you know then the question comes out you know like where did you get formation or are you are you questioning my my ability you know but as you mentioned like say what you're what you're you coming in you know and advising or you know informing the doctor of these new things that makes it a lot more better anyhow you know so because we do have a lot of people you know in our community who are suffering from these different you know wounds and issues you're talking about and again it's just that again not saying the doctor's incompetent but yeah just to make sure that they're better informed to what's going on because overall it does you know as you say cuts down on the cost and the main thing is the making sure that the best possible service is provided to those in need that really deserve it. That's right we're just we are an extra set of eyes and hands for that physician to report back to them and and because we have been able to specialize in this field and usually a physician has so many different aspects we can give them more information that that they may need. Because one thing I do notice is not only what the services you provide but there's also um yeah other alternative medicines that's out there you know and again with the bottleneck in Washington I'm going to lay it on their doorstep for the most part because um we have new things that come about you know they seem again in some cases to be reluctant you know to you know even explore it in some cases you know because it's not the traditional you know type of medicine treatment anyhow you know but I'm sure there's quite a few things out there you know that um are not being adequately uh not only from my perspective from other people's point of view is that you know should be closely you know looked into you know because it was going to cut down on the medications if there's something like say it's not working traditionally you know and there is an alternative as far as with homeopathic or whatever you know not that it's the end all be all to all you know medical issues but you know there are some proven things out there that either have been suppressed or ignored in certain aspects of the I mean uh the um medical field you know especially with the military that that is a great point that's a fantastic point a really good example of that honey right yeah honey I thought you were calling me honey yeah honey no honey is uh is um gosh has been used in wounds since the egyptian times really yes they have found honey in tunes of of past pharaohs and it's an amazing healing aspect to wounds and we didn't use honey for many many years it was thought of really you're going to put honey in a wound yeah it is one of the primary wound healers now that's being used in traditional medicine yeah there are other things that are new that are coming aboard um different types of silvers we do use silver in wounds right now but different types of silvers that haven't been used some are are being looked at internally to take internally as well as topically to put on a wound um there is all types of uh different type of um cartilages that we're looking at uh that can be put in emollients on wounds to help but also take systemically so there are a lot of exciting things on the breakthrough um but have not been approved yet good okay i'll tell you we're going to take a short break and give uh if there's any viewers out there that i want to call in and you know i ask you a few questions or whatever you know we're happy to get their take on it and they can call in at uh four one five eight seven one two four seven four and that's four five one excuse me four one five eight seven one two four seven four and we'll be back in a moment aloha howard wig i am the proud host of cold green think tec away i appear every other monday at three in the afternoon do not tune in in the morning my topic is energy efficiency it sounds dry as heck but it's not we're paying five billion dollars a year for imported oil my job is to shave that shave that shave that down in homes and buildings while delivering better comfort better light better air conditioning better everything so if you're interested in your future you'd better tune in to me three o'clock every other monday cold green aloha and thank you very much okay and welcome back to military in hawaii and in uh today my guess is on miss um kim level and again thank you like so before we took the breakthrough image and about the different treatment so many older stuff like people were aware of because one of the things that um back in the day they used to use maggots to clean wounds you know and i think in some circumstances you know they still do they'd still do that oh they do yeah maggots are one of the best wounded breeders there are now um there is you know they're sterile maggots yeah so yeah right so and i always used to think sterile was clean as sterile they they can't reproduce while they're oh yeah so right so there are sterile maggots and they're an excellent resource um if you have come and you've tried a lot of different things and you're just not getting the results that you want we have so many tools in our pocket to use right now that uh we need to make that aware of all of the different aspects all the different things that we have readily available at our fingertips but we don't know all of those things and it's very difficult to know them all so to have somebody who can consult with you and say these are the things that are available and i've seen this work well and this hasn't worked so well but let me share that experience with you so we can heal this person up quicker okay i know that uh unfortunately with the way things are going in the um uh different thea hospital theaters that our troops are dealing in you see certain common wounds that are there what is the most common wound that you see uh physically i know we'll be we'll get into the psychological thing all sort of possibly some of the treatment you have that can alleviate you know some of the emotional stress but what are some of the common wounds that you do see that again that are not really um let's just say that there's certain things that can be approved upon that could make the healing process better or you know less traumatic if that's possible well for our for our va out there not the active military troops but for the va we have um gosh a couple of them are extremely common vascular vascular wounds uh wounds that either are um caused by a lack of arterial blood flow to the wound or too much wound blood that's accumulating down because your veins aren't working quite so well so that's one aspect and and there are some very simple treatments that we can do but a lot of times either because the patient doesn't want to do them or the um uh the professional that's working with them it is not quite aware of that those are some very common wounds especially to our state the other ones are pressure ulcers basically are a very very common wound like bed source bed source right pressure ulcers are a common wound especially on those that's that maybe don't have the mobility that they used to have or they have lack of people that are caring for them maybe they just don't have the resources unfortunately we do see some of our um younger vets that don't have those they don't have uh loved ones there anymore to take care of them and so they're left in the home and and so we have a lot of pressure wounds so um but pressure wounds and vascular wounds and the vascular including diabetic in there so those are the common wounds that we see and again there are tons of new products tons of new um treatments out for these wounds that can improve that quality of life yeah there's one thing like with the um with the military medical uh environment a lot of things that were developed uh because of combat situation or hostile environment you know that segue over into the civilian populace so they're the benefit of a lot of um maybe some things that came about you know that in a regular civilian type of an environment it would have took years to go ahead and try to develop these different protocols or whatever but in a military environment where you have to really you know you constantly try to update what you have you know especially improve and again it's not you know not experimenting but because if you know the situation where it does arrive you have this situation and then that's when people become more innovative when they're uh they're dressing certain things but yeah you mentioned with the vascular um ties in with the diabetes as you mentioned things of that nature in here in Hawaii understand the um rate of diabetes is very high here you know so again you know overall like say it benefits the community and it also overall saves on the amount of money but it has to be outlaid by certain agencies you know to help support people who are not financially able to do so you know so yeah but one of the things we do is we don't just take and look at just the wound itself we put the person as a a whole complete person and we look at the nutritional aspects because that's one of the aspects of diabetes right um so we look at the nutrition with them we look at the had the physician be involved we have the nurse be involved we have therapists be involved in case of modality such as electrical stimulation to improve blood flow within the wound or a diathermy or um uh ultrasound to actually increase blood flow into the wound we put all of those people in touch with each other so it encompasses that way and I believe as you said with the military one of the big things is they have to get those wounds taken care of in the field very quickly yeah so they do come up with some of the best treatment plans that's how the use of maggots really came up right so and now we're using it systemically throughout the population as a great source of debridement or removing the dead tissue from wounds right so yeah for for someone out there let um um seek your help okay and um yeah you have like a a training process that you could do I mean you know you can provide the services but as far as like a follow-up to help to cut down on the um some you know medical costs whatever is there are certain things that you have in place where you can treat I mean or you can uh instruct someone I'd love one on how to definitely okay definitely what we do is we go when we do weekly rounds and whatever um arena we're in whether it be a skilled nursing nursing facility home health a hospital outpatient we'll do weekly rounds we'll pull all the different properties together the nutritionist the physician the the nursing and therapy we'll do all that and then we do education with them and if the family member is involved we'll educate the family member then what we do is we go back and we'll do quarterly one-on-one training sessions um with anybody who needs it right we will also look and make sure that we are getting the outcomes that we need so it's almost like a quality analysis right so we'll go back we'll look at all the different treatments that were used what didn't work well what did work well and what training did we do that maybe needs to be improved upon uh what what do the family members need what what type of help do they need what do this um the different professions need to improve so we can get it because it's not just about that wound being healed it's about the quality of life for that patient and that's what we want to see yeah we want to see them happy we want to see them living their life and not just sitting yeah okay um I know that you mentioned you're trying to make contact with the VA system to get it into and anyhow um is there anything that um can be done by the viewers or like say people who are concerned you know to like say not put pressure on them but to have them evaluate what you have you know to see if it is going to be you know if it plays out where it's beneficial to our our service members well that would be great if they could um just call the representatives perhaps as well as call the VA and ask them to get optimal wound solutions into the system so we can begin improving the healing of the patients yeah well I'll tell you what I'm going to do we're going to go ahead and do a follow-up program anyhow and what I'm going to do I'm going to invite the um um the appropriate people from the VA great to come on and like say and have a discussion and again you know what this is as far as because besides what you have to present I want to you know give them the opportunity to see you know say well okay well there's certain things we have in place that you know that may even you know are similar to what you're providing but not exactly you know so but just to give a you know good balance of what's what's out there you know what they have to offer you know so we don't give the impression that they're trying to shortchange the veterans or anything like that you know so we will give them out you know the opportunity to come on and join us in the discussion you know because I really think this is very beneficial not only to the individuals in the military community but of course to the public in general you know so we will do that we'll extend the offer to the VA and hopefully we'll join in the conversation if not you know in person we can all technically we have the ability to go ahead and hook it up where they can do it and we'll try to get in touch with people in Washington also again because that's where as I mentioned before the bottle neck lives in a lot of cases so we'll ask them directly you know what you know their take one it is you know so we can take it from there well thank you very much and thanks for having me out today I appreciate that that's what we do that's what we're here for to go ahead and try to provide information that's going to be you know beneficial to you know to our viewers in here you know that's the main thing but I want to thank you for your service and what you you know you provide and also the service of your son and all his compatriots out there also you know um getting that to wire but is there anything that you want to put out to the viewers I mean because like to give out the contact number anything yes please if if you would like more information on optimal wound solutions and how we can help you please contact us at 808-772-0291 or you can contact us at Kim at Optimal Wounds Solutions we look forward to you and I just want to thank all of our military for their help it is an honor honor to be helping the military back okay Alexi Alexi we do everything we possibly can anyhow because again not too stress enough because sometimes there's uh businesses over here that do help you know you know our military you know so um it's not that you know you're really trying to you know it's a business but you're providing the service also you know and that's what I try to do as far as bringing individuals on you know who can augment you know the system that sometimes a little bit slightly flawed you know well thank you thank you very much and I wish you the best well like I will keep on trying like say with your help and you know other people who are concerned like you you know we can do what we can you know in G you know for the um for the in general for the public anyhow you know thank you together anyhow so I guess we're down to the wire on this and um okay I want to thank all you for joining us here on the program again and in the future like say if there's anything my standing invitation if you hear anything that I say in the error or my guess or whatever feel free to call in or we'll give you time to come on and straighten us out you know but um we will provide factual information but it's always good to have a open and honest dialogue which we will provide here no we're not cutting any no shortcuts we're not here to incite we're here to inform and I want to thank all of you for joining us today for the program and again thank you thank you very much thank you