Nationally Recognized Spine Care

Can a multidisciplinary approach to back pain reduce opioid addiction? That’s what Director of Physical Therapy Evan Johnson, PT, DPT and nurse practitioner Jane Kostadinov, NP, CNRN asked attendees during their panel at Columbia’s Interprofessional Practice and Education (IPE) Day.

Columbia University Irving Medical Center/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital (CUIMC/NYP) created the Columbia Commons Campus-Wide Interprofessional Practice and Education Day, or IPE Day, to bring together professionals from all areas of healthcare to talk about ways to improve patient care by working across disciplines. In other words, teamwork results in better patient care.

This type of collaborative care is near and dear to Dr. Johnson and NP Kostadinov’s hearts because it’s exactly how they and their team manage patient care at The Spine Hospital at the Neurological Institute of New York. The Spine Hospital is one of the few facilities in the nation where you will find neurosurgeons, nurses and physical therapists working together as a team, under the same roof.

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Jack Cacace’s journey to pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Richard Anderson started, of all things, with a shoulder injury. When Jack got checked into the boards (thrown into the side of the rink) during an ice hockey game, he received a visit to urgent care, a diagnosis of a mild shoulder separation and a recommendation to take an over-the-counter pain reliever as needed.

But, says his mom, Josephine, over the next week or so Jack was just kind of “off.” The 12-year-old was tired a lot—he would go to sleep in the afternoon when he got home from school—and he was having headaches, headaches that seemed to be getting worse. Jack’s mom began to wonder if there was something going on besides a shoulder injury.

There was.

Jack’s pediatrician was concerned that Jack might have a concussion—and that if he did, the particular pain reliever he had been taking for his shoulder injury might have increased his risk of bleeding in the brain. So out of an abundance of caution, she ordered a CT scan to check for bleeds.

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