ELYRIA — About a dozen Japanese doctors and health care workers stood on the roof of EMH Regional Medical Center Monday where helicopters swoop down with patients suffering chest pain.

Then they went inside the hospital to watch doctors, including Dr. Charles O’Shaughnessy, at work inserting stents to open blockages in a 72-year-old woman who had heart bypass surgery.

It was all part of the 15th Japanese/American Symposium on Health Care, which also includes visits to Summa Health System in Cleveland, Akron General Medical Center, the MetroHealth System and Baldwin-Wallace College.

After visiting EMH, the Japanese doctors toured the Joint Replacement Camp at Amherst Hospital, where people receive artificial knees, hips and shoulders.

Dr. Donald Sheldon, vice president for medical affairs at EMH, spoke to the Japanese visitors about the competitive medical environment in Northeast Ohio.

The yearly symposium began a number of years ago after Reiicho Okada, president of the Socio-Medical Research Institute in Tokyo, underwent open heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

When Okada wanted to learn more about American health care, he linked up with Lee Pickler, a B-W professor in the college’s health care MBA program.

Pickler said health care insurance in Japan is employer-based, but no one goes uninsured, even if they are unemployed, because the government guarantees coverage to everyone.

“The biggest difference is they don’t have any gaps in coverage,” Pickler said.

Pickler said the Japanese, in general, tend to eat a more healthy diet than Americans, and people in that country live longer than people in other industrialized countries.

A baby girl born in Japan in 2007 can expect to live to 85 years old, while the average Japanese man can expect to live to 78.

That compares to a U.S. life expectancy of 81 for women and 75 for men.

While the EMH tour focused on heart attacks and joint replacement, today’s visit to Summa will include focus on strategic planning. The Japanese group of medical professionals also can try their hand at using the da Vinci Robotic Surgical System, part of Summa’s Minimally Invasive Surgery Institute.

At Akron General on Wednesday, the Japanese will follow a patient trauma case from start to finish. And while at MetroHealth on Thursday, the group will tour the Senior Health and Wellness Center, as well as the Burn Unit, before the symposium wraps up Friday at B-W.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

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