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Area medical company takes expertise to the Caribbean
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
The Dixon Group, a Charleston-based medical consulting firm, is taking its expertise global through initiatives that will provide advances in health care for the eastern Caribbean.
Founded in 1993 by Dr. Sewell H. Dixon Jr., whose background includes 20 years in private practice of cardiovascular surgery, TDG was developed to pursue interests in health care consulting, development of innovative health services and counseling in medicine, business and law, specifically law cases involving unexplained death.
Business was going quite well when a vacation on the Caribbean island of Nevis brought a new opportunity and a unique business model to the company.
“Sewell was vacationing on the island of Nevis about 10 years ago and discovered the Medical University of the Americas,” said Rick Nigels, TDG’s director of information technology. “He talked to several people and learned how things were on the island, and that’s how we got involved.”
One of the things Dixon learned was the adverse effect a remote location could have on health care.
“People had to literally get on an airplane and fly somewhere if they needed a CT scan or an MRI,” Nigels said. “And in emergency cases they just don’t get one at all. That got Sewell to start thinking about how we could help.”
The result was the St. Kitts and Nevis Project, with TDG developing a teleradiology and telemedince facility on Nevis. Part of the process involves the technology and communication infrastructure plans to support the initiative.
The initiative will benefit the entire eastern Caribbean and will become the platform for educational opportunities as well as economic development.
The first phase of the project will be the construction of a diagnostic radiology-imaging center for CT scans, MRIs and nuclear studies on Nevis. U.S. medical providers who are experienced in teleradiology will manage the facility.
The teleradiology facility will lay the groundwork for the second phase, another telemedicine initiative that will include medical and public health training, consultations with specialists around the globe, distance learning and data collection and processing.
“We realized that once we go through the initial work of setting up high-speed access to manage the CT and MRI systems, the infrastructure system will be there for distance learning and other high-tech initiatives,” Nigels said.
The distance learning will include more than medical education. The system will support distance learning for advanced computer skills, accounting, banking, tourism and nursing, Nigels said.
“Nevis has a literacy rate of about 98 percent, and most students finish high school, but only a few go away for additional education,” he said. “And only half of those return to live and work on Nevis.”
The distance-learning arm will be under a separate nonprofit organization developed by TDG.
The third phase of the project involves acquisition of interests in a pharmaceutical company on the island to introduce new and effective medications for treatment of hypertension, diabetes and malignancies. TDG has produced a feasibility analysis for a U.S. pharmaceutical company to set up a wireless blood pressure monitoring system using the island-wide digital network.
The improvements will have a positive economic impact as well, Nigels said.
“It’s not just the machines that they need,” he said. “They need people to run them and people to read the results, which can be done remotely. So we’re drawing a lot of people into this venture, setting up a viable center for these medical improvements.”
After negotiating with the government of Nevis, TDG was granted a charter that gives the organization exclusive rights for CT, MRI and nuclear imaging for patients. The charter also clears the way for TDG to bring in pharmacology and the distance-learning methods.
One of the physicians affiliated with the Medical University of the Americas recently purchased land near a hospital that will become part of the proposed medical center.
“We’re working on the details of that,” he said. “They really want us to help develop that into a medical center, and hopefully some day we’ll help build a new hospital.”
A U.S. radiology practice has committed to the project and will provide immediate interpretation, equipment, training, personnel and quality control via digital connectivity.
The center should become economically self-sufficient within a short period of time, Nigels said.
Currently no facility of this type exists in the Caribbean between Puerto Rico and Tobago. Within a 200-mile radius of St. Kitts and Nevis are 17 islands, 1.4 million people and only three CT machines and two MRI devices.
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