Kathy Krumme flashes a winning smile at the Health Care Heroes banquet at the Hyatt Regency Cincinnati. Photo by Cindy Starr/Mayfield Clinic.

Kathleen Krumme, founder of the Sunflower Revolution, which has touched the lives of thousands of people who confront Parkinson’s disease, won the Business Courier's Health Care Heroes award in the community outreach category Thursday night at the Hyatt Regency Cincinnati downtown.

Ms. Krumme was nominated by John M. Tew, MD, Clinical Director of the UC Neuroscience Institute, a neurosurgeon with the Mayfield Clinic, and a Business Courier Lifetime Health Care Hero.

The Sunflower Revolution has raised more than $1.5 million for Parkinson’s disease research and wellness at the James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Center for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders at UCNI since 2004.

The event owes its existence to Ms. Krumme, a Cincinnati cyclist and manager at Oakley Cycles who had an idea, took a financial risk, and ignited a cause. Ms. Krumme wanted to hold a small fundraising dinner in honor of her father, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, and to help Davis Phinney, the Tour de France cyclist who was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s at age 40. With a small amount of seed money, Ms. Krumme plunged in, signing a hotel contract and praying that she would bring in enough donors to pay for the inaugural Sunflower Revolution dinner and bike ride – which she named for the signature flowers of the Tour de France and the hoped-for revolution in Parkinson’s treatments. Assisting her at every turn with support and fundraising creativity was her husband, David Ariosa.

Fueled by Ms. Krumme’s passion, the UCNI physician-researchers, Davis Phinney, and the cycling community, the region embraced its first major Parkinson’s event, and the Sunflower hit the ground running. Its success helped UCNI attract a major Parkinson’s donor, whose $5.5 million gift in 2007 established the Gardner Center. And the research it funded helped UCNI earn a coveted national Udall Center designation this year. The 2010 Sunflower Revolution weekend, which includes a free symposium for patients and caregivers, is scheduled for September 10-12.

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The Health Care Heroes banquet also honored the Mayfield Clinic, a UCNI partner and a finalist in the innovator category, for its development of Priority Consult, an expedited review and patient management process. In the early 2000s the Mayfield Clinic was overwhelmed with a traditional wait-in-line appointment system in which patients with spine problems were scheduled for the next available opening. Only 22 percent of referred patients were seriously ill surgical candidates, yet all patients had to wait an average of four to eight weeks for an initial evaluation.

In response, Mayfield CEO Michael Gilligan and his team developed Priority Consult, a program that facilitates the collection of each patient’s medical history and films and enables surgeons to register their recommendations within days of the patient’s first call to Mayfield. Priority Consult worked so well for Mayfield’s patients that the concept and software are now licensed to 28 hospital-based spine centers, eight spine-surgery practices, and five oncology centers. It is among the fastest growing comprehensive patient management programs in the nation, and licensing sales should exceed $1 million in 2010.