Story by Darl Devault, Feature Writer

As Father’s Day, June 20, rolls around an Oklahoma City father and son are proud to share their bond by continuing their mission to brighten the days of hospitalized children. The pair have created an exotic car outreach to give kids in hospitals a special experience to help keep their minds engaged and focused on a positive future.
Eric Wynn is the older of Redline4Kids original organizing duo who readily gives full credit to his son who had the idea. The two and nonprofit volunteers have been busy the last few years taking their exotic cars to children’s hospitals for special events.
Youngsters in hospital beds may have access to exotic car driving video games at home using a controller and their TVs. This nonprofit gives them the ability to sit behind a real steering wheel of the latest generation of exotic cars to help them deal with the stress of being in a hospital environment. Their goal is to bring joy to kids, and hope to families, through an experience with exotic cars.
While not trying to foster a new group of automotive fanatics, the organizers want to give young patients a break from their normal routine.
This desire to create a novel experience for children in hospitals springs from the creator’s early confinement to a hospital bed when he was first diagnosed with systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis at age four.
Now 25, Chance wants to offer kids in a hospital environment a fun exposure to cars most adults do not get by adding a fun part to their long hospital stays. The organizations name comes from high performance manual shift cars, where its instrument panel features a tachometer with a red line showing engine revolutions per minute where it is important to make the next shift.
“From experience I know hospital life, especially as a kid, is not fun and can be pretty traumatic,” said Chance Wynn, nonprofit president. “Any opportunity you get to escape, even if it is for just an hour is special. Whether you are a girl or boy, car lover or not, when you get close to these exotic cars it is a blast. It has been proven repeatedly as we have done so many of these events over the last four years from OKC to Dallas—Ft. Worth, and all the way to Miami Florida. It is all thanks to our great sponsors and volunteers. Without their support brightening children’s patient days would not be possible.”
The Wynns and volunteers want to give the kids a break from the hours upon hours of hospital routine by sparking their imagination of driving fun, fast cars. Chance is proud his idea gives such a memorable diversion from hospital routine to young children. The group offers them an outing, so the child can leave their hospital room which helps with cabin fever.
For those youngsters who already have a passion for automobiles it may be a dream come true to develop great memories that will stick with them.
The volunteers from Redline4Kids usually show up with a mixture of a dozen near-race cars, exotic or American muscle cars for the kids to enjoy. A few are among the fastest street-legal production cars in the world. Often the cream of the crop is European. They are built one at a time on a race engineered chassis with aerospace materials to create style, elegance, untamed power and speed on wheels.
“I love doing this event and excited to keep sharing my blessings with your organization and all of the kids!” said Tom Gore, volunteer car owner. Thank you so much for making this venue available to us.” He volunteers his legendary exotic, a 2019 Lamborghini Huracán Performante Spyder.
For the young patients, the experience runs the gamut from receiving a 1/64-scale die-cast toy car to play with to being able to climb behind the wheel of what seems like to them a “one-of-a-kind life-size car creation” because of their iconic rarity. Each child receives an event T shirt, wristband, a little Hot Wheels car and cards with photos and info about each vehicle on display.
“Once my son Chance bought his first exotic car, we quickly learned how kids wanted to get their picture taken with the car, or even sit inside of these types of cars,” said Eric Wynn, Redline4Kids board president. “As Chance spent a good deal of his childhood sick and in the hospital, the idea just came to him one day. He told me ‘Dad, I have an idea to help kids that are just like me’ and five years later here we are!”
The first event at OU Children’s Hospital was well documented in videos on YouTube by Imagine Productions OKC. They have also been featured on the front page of The Oklahoman newspaper.
After the first event in 2017 for OU Children’s Hospital where they have now appeared four times, the group targeted Texas patients. They visited the Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas, Children’s Medical Center in Plano, the Cook Children’s Hospital in Ft. Worth and Children’s Health in Plano through 2018.
In 2018 they refocused on Oklahoma with appearances at Bethany’s Children’s Center Rehabilitation Hospital twice. The exotic cars have also brightened the patient’s days at INTEGRIS Children’s – Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City and the J.D. McCarty Center in Norman. And in 2019, Redline4Kids recruited more exotic car enthusiasts to launch in Florida at The Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Fort Lauderdale.
As restrictions for the pandemic are lifting the Redline4Kids exotic cars are schedule to brighten the children’s days at the J.D. McCarty Center in Norman the third Saturdays in June and July. The group is working to finalize the dates for OU Children’s Hospital and INTEGRIS Children’s – Baptist Medical Center in Oklahoma City.
For more info, or to make a tax-deductible donation, visit www.Redline4kids.org.

Imagine having to choose between paying your electric bill or paying for your life-sustaining medications or food. For many seniors living on a fixed income, that is a difficult reality.
The price of medications continues soaring — over the last decade, research shows many of the top-selling, brand name medications have increased more than 50-percent, with more than half of them doubling in price, that’s according to the National Library of Medicine.
The cost of medications alone can leave them facing difficult choices every month.
“We never want a patient to have to make that decision of am I going to eat this week, am I going to have air conditioning this week, or am I going to pay for that blood pressure medication,” said Justin Henson, a nurse practitioner at Valir PACE in Oklahoma City.
September is National PACE Awareness Month. PACE stands for Program of All Inclusive Care for the Elderly. It is an approach that aims to bundle. It is a relatively new model of care that is gaining momentum across the United States. Valir is one of the first to implement the model in Oklahoma
The goal is to help more seniors, who otherwise would require nursing home care, continue to live independently in their own homes. It does that by bundling their medications, meals, transportation, physician visits, and therapy needs under one umbrella care plan, that also provides opportunities to socialize and be a part of the community.
The results are impressive – reducing hospitalizations and improving quality of life.
PACE participants, like Nick Felix, say the program has helped them to enjoy the life, despite the issues that come with aging. For Felix, heart issues top that list.
“My heart fibrillates whenever it wants to. It’s like dancing a Cha-Cha to a Waltz. You know you’re not in sync at all,” said Felix, a 90-year-old former dance teacher and movie choreographer, who still enjoys dancing at his favorite studio.
Henson has worked closely with Felix, helping him manage his health and medications to stay healthy and active.
“He’s had a very complicated cardiac history,” Henson said. “But he is a guy who will wake up every single morning doing his push-ups. He loves to go out and walk, he loves to go dancing every week.”
Managing the challenges of a complicated regimen of medications without the worry of cost is one aspect of PACE Felix likes best.
“Well, it’s lifesaving. I mean you’re talking about my heart medicine, my joint medicine, I’ve got all kinds of arthritic conditions — and they tell me when to take it, what to take and how much to take,” he remarked.
Medications are packaged and labeled for each day, and time of day for each participant and
Valir PACE provides those medications — helping eliminate the financial pressure off of rising drug costs for seniors.
“We do get a lot of patients who want to join our services and we note as they’re coming onto services that they have been without their medications for three months, four months,” Henson said. “Diving into why they have been without these medications, often it is they’re trying to pay for electricity or they’re trying to pay for food.”
Henson added ensuring seniors have their medications and take them as correctly can lead to better health outcomes and a better quality of life.
“If you have a medical condition, even if it’s a small medical condition, but it’s not treated, it can grow into a large medical condition,” he said. “Taking medications as prescribed, when prescribed is going to be the best way to keep you as healthy as possible, and as young as possible as long as possible.”
Valir PACE is located at 721 NW 6th Street in the heart of downtown and has just opened an Alternative Care setting at 2411 Main Street in Choctaw, expanding services to seniors living in that more rural part of the metro. To learn more, visit ValirPACE.org or the National PACE Association at NPAonline.org.

https://scissortaildermatology.com/

Story by Van Mitchel, Staff Writer

The fourth annual Second Half Expo will be held Saturday, Oct. 19 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd Street in Oklahoma City.
The Expo is tailored to people who are in the “second half” of their lives who are looking to connect with the resources needed to live the way that they have always imagined. Up to 130 or more of Oklahoma’s businesses will be present, providing education and demonstrations of the products and services that are available for the 50+ generation.
The day will be loaded with fun and activities, including free educational seminars, food samples, drawings for prizes and music from some of Oklahoma’s best talents.
Robin Gunn, event organizer, said expo attendance grows each year. “Each year attendees are increasing by hundreds,” Gunn said. “We had 1,600 to 1,700 last year. We’re expecting over 2,000 this year.”
Bob Loudermilk, event organizer, said he wanted to bring his experience in the trade-show business from Kansas to help Oklahoma seniors. He began to seek out people that serve the 50+ community in Oklahoma for input. “I met with dozens of people that serve our senior community,” he said. “We scheduled forums to talk about what is needed in the community to serve this demographic. We concluded that a quality, annual event for seniors would be valuable so I teamed up with a local radio host Robin Gunn, who also serves publisher of the Oklahoma Senior Journal, and together we launched the Expo.”
Gunn said she envisioned something different when planning for the Second Half Expo. “We wanted to do something different. I’ve been involved in expos since I started the Oklahoma Senior Journal, for the last 32 years, but they just all seem to be kind of cookie cutter, and the same people were coming to it,” she said. “This is a statewide event, so we’re advertising it all over the state, and we have big coach buses that come. It is heavy on information, education, as well as entertainment, giveaways, door prizes. We’re going to do two live remotes, one from iHeartRadio, the other one from Freedom 96.9 FM, Oklahoma’s Talk Radio, and I’m also the host of that, so I’ll be doing the live remote on that one.”
Gunn said the Second Half Expo will feature several guest speakers. She said the Second Half Expo is supported by knowledgeable experts in their fields of health, business, motivation, retirement planning and more.
“We have our special speakers in breakout rooms with people that are trying to get the word out about scams and frauds, or what’s the difference between home health and home care,” she said. “We will have financial advisors, and Steve Burris will talk about annuities. We want to make it encompassing and entertaining too.”
Gunn said sponsorship and vendors have increased at the expo. “The very first expo was just a break-even expo, but we still had close to 100 vendors,” she said. “We’ve got 134 vendors now. Channel 4 does a spot on us on their morning show. We have handed out over 20,000 postcards for the expo, and we continue to have volunteers doing that for us. We have some great sponsors including Senior News and Living and Oklahoma Nursing Times. Channel 4, the Oklahoman, VillagesOKC, and the YMCA are going to be sponsors. Our main sponsor is Main Street Advisors.”
Gunn said the expo organizers hold monthly coffee talks that are sponsored by different local services in Oklahoma City. “We open it up to have coffee as well as continental breakfast,” she said. “We have a special speaker at our coffee talks.”
Gunn said families are invited along with seniors for the Second Half Expo. “We also like to encompass the entire family because this is a family issue,” she said.
Loudermilk concurred. “For too long, the concept of aging has a negative connotation in the minds of some,” Loudermilk said. “Our mission is to change that outdated mindset. We firmly believe the senior years can be lived with dignity and purpose with the right guidance and resources. We’re (Second Half Expo) here to support seniors and the adult children of seniors who are honoring and assisting their aging parents. The whole idea is to give people above 50 and their families an opportunity, in one day, to explore and visit with organizations that are resources for them, education for them, as well as products and services.”
Admission is free to the 2024 Second Half Expo and attendees are encouraged to RSVP online at https://secondhalfexpo.com.

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge health systems, the OU Health Edmond Medical Center is making significant strides in improving the health of older adults through its designation as an Age-Friendly Health System.
Edmond Medical Center, as part of the OU Health hospital system, received the certification from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, which works to improve and sustain better health outcomes for people across the world. The four essential elements of an Age-Friendly Health System are known as the 4Ms:
* What Matters: Asking older adults what matters most to them and aligning care with those goals in mind
* Medication: Using age-friendly medications that do not interfere with what is important to the older adult
* Mentation: Preventing, identifying, treating and managing dementia, delirium, depression and other mental health issues
* Mobility: Ensuring older adults move safely every day and maintain their function for activities that are important to them
“The 4Ms are helping us to provide better, safer care for our 65-and-older population,” said Darrin Nobis, RN, MSN, director of the Medical-Surgical Unit at Edmond Medical Center. “Asking our patients what matters is so important. Because of that, we’re using fewer medications, more appropriate medications and are helping patients move around more, which reduces falls. It is making a difference in their health outcomes.”
Healthcare providers may naturally use some of the 4Ms concepts in patient care, but having a framework ensures they will be addressed at every patient visit. In addition, the 4Ms have been incorporated into the hospital’s electronic health record so that providers can track improvement over time.
Asking patients what matters not only guides the other three M’s, but it creates a rapport. It’s not unusual, Nobis said, for patients to express surprise and delight when a nurse asks what’s important for them to do after their hospital stay.
“When patients know that their healthcare providers will prioritize their wishes when making treatment decisions, they are more engaged and more likely to be compliant with the plan of care,” he said. “We are also asking ‘what matters’ at different stages of their stay in the hospital – if they come in through the ER, for example, then go to the ICU or a regular floor. When we discharge them, our goal is to communicate their wishes to the next step in their care, like home health or a skilled nursing facility, so that the ‘what matters’ thread gets pulled all the way through.”
When patients are asked what matters to them, their answers vary but are often related to family activities. One patient, who had fallen at his home, wanted to return home and be able to walk around safely with his wife. For patients like him, nurses prioritized getting him out of bed and walking, which in turn would give him more strength and reduce the risk of falls. Even a week in a hospital bed without much mobility can significantly decrease a patient’s chances of moving about safely in the future.
Edmond Medical Center also places a high priority on a patient’s mental state and choosing medications that are most likely to be effective without impairing their cognition or increasing the risk for falls. Nurses assess patients for delirium at least twice a day, and they work with physicians to prescribe medications that don’t increase the risk of delirium or interact with other drugs in a negative way.
Currently, there are more than 46 million Americans age 65 and older, and that number is expected to double by 2060. The 4Ms framework will be crucial for helping that population age well, Nobis said. “We will have a massive influx of baby boomers into the hospital system,” he said, “and the 4Ms will help us deliver the outcomes that are important to their health and quality of life.”
The OU Health University of Oklahoma Medical Center in Oklahoma City is also part of the Age-Friendly Health System designation. Nobis served as co-manager for the project with Teri Round, MS, RN, Executive Director of Clinical Operations and Assistant Director, Reynolds Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence, for the Fran and Earl Ziegler College of Nursing at the OU Health Sciences Center.

A seasonal virus that takes a toll on young children and older adults has returned this fall with a vengeance.
Surges in respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, typically parallels flu season, running from late fall into the spring, but this year’s outbreak started earlier than normal. This month, the Oklahoma State Department of Health reported rising case numbers and hospitalizations for RSV in many parts of the state. The figures mirror national trends.
Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation physician-scientist Hal Scofield, M.D., said the current deluge in cases could be traced to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We saw a dramatic reduction in RSV during the pandemic due to the precautions we took to curb the spread of the coronavirus,” said Scofield, an immunologist. “Infants and young children whose immune systems had never been exposed to the virus were in a protective bubble. Now that bubble has burst.”
RSV typically causes a mild cold. But among children younger than 5, RSV is responsible annually for 100-300 deaths and up to 80,000 hospitalizations in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus is even deadlier among older adults. A 2022 National Institutes of Health study estimated more than 6,000 people 65 years and older die each year from RSV complications.
OMRF scientist Susan Kovats, Ph.D., studies RSV. She noted that before the pandemic, almost all children contracted the virus by age 2. Kovats said that because so many children avoided exposure to it in 2020 and 2021, the virus appears to be “playing catch-up” in pediatric populations.
Kovats is working to understand why RSV impacts children more frequently than adults and why it hits some infants so hard. The work is setting the stage for better treatments and will aid in vaccine design for the condition.
“Our early indications are that neonatal cells are less likely to make the proteins that stop a virus from replicating in the body,” Kovats said. “In essence, it appears to confirm previous evidence that babies’ immune systems are not quite developed enough to fight off RSV.”
Research teams worldwide are working on RSV vaccines. Pfizer plans to submit its vaccine, which protects infants from RSV by inoculating pregnant women, for Food and Drug Administration approval by year’s end. The results of the FDA review of British drugmaker GSK’s vaccine for older adults are expected in spring 2023.
Until a vaccine is available, Scofield said the best ways to avoid — and avoid spreading — RSV mirror those for the flu and Covid-19. “Wash your hands, wear a mask in crowded places and stay home if you’re sick,” he said. And if, despite your best efforts, you or a loved one has a run-in with a respiratory virus this holiday season, monitor symptoms closely.
“RSV can usually be managed at home. But when someone is having difficulty breathing or is exhibiting symptoms of dehydration, it’s important to get an evaluation from a health care professional.”