Big tobacco companies spend $75.8 million on marketing in Nebraska
Tobacco companies spent a massive $75.8 million on marketing in Nebraska in 2005, with most of it spent on marketing in retail stores that is effective at encouraging kids to smoke, according to a report released today by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The vast sums the tobacco companies spend to market their deadly and addictive products show the need for Congress to pass pending legislation granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority over tobacco products, including the authority to crack down on tobacco marketing and sales to kids.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids calculated the amount of cigarette marketing in each state based on national marketing expenditures contained in a recent report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the percentage of cigarette packs sold in each state. The FTC report showed that the tobacco companies have nearly doubled their marketing expenditures nationwide since the 1998 state tobacco settlement, which was supposed to curtail tobacco marketing.
Read the full article.
— Southwest Nebraska News, June 1, 2007.
State receives grant for West Nile Virus
The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Regulation and Licensure will begin its surveillance program for West Nile Virus on May 30 by accepting dead birds for testing for the virus.
A grant of $350,000 from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will assist in surveillance. Local health departments have received funding for the pick-up and transport of specimens. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory will perform the testing. "Finding the virus in birds gives public health officials an indication of the level of the virus in the area and the risk to human beings of contracting the disease," said Annette Bredthauer, state public health veterinarian with the Nebraska
HHS.
Read the full article.
— Southwest Nebraska News, May 29, 2007.
Bruning: Regional Center burial records private
An opinion by the Nebraska Attorney General’s Office upholds a policy that prohibits the Hastings Regional Center from making public the names of 957 people buried in the institution’s cemetery between 1888 and 1959.
San Francisco attorney Thomas Burke, on behalf of the Adams County Historical Society, asked the state Health and Human Services (HHS) to release burial records at the former insane asylum. HHS said it could not release names of those buried because of statutes protecting patient privacy.
Read the full Lincoln Journal Star article.
— Eric Olson, The Associated Press, May 22, 2007.
TB patient detained in Denver hospital
The federal isolation order on a patient diagnosed with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis has been lifted, since local public health authorities in Denver have ordered the patient detained at a hospital there until further laboratory tests indicate he is no longer contagious, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
said Saturday. According to CNN today, initial tests of the man’s sputum have come back negative. The patient, a U.S. resident, is being detained at National Jewish Medical and Research Center, which specializes in respiratory, immune and allergic disorders. CDC said it had contacted 160 of the other 292 U.S. residents or citizens on board two trans-Atlantic flights on which the patient traveled, including 26 people seated within two rows of the patient. The agency has recommended that passengers and crew on the two flights be evaluated for exposure to TB.
— AHA News Now, June 4, 2007.
NHA Mid-Year Meeting focuses on emergency preparedness
NHA’s 2007 Mid-Year Meeting in Kearney last week brought together member hospital administrators, who were able to learn from experiences dealing with emergencies, natural disasters and bioterrorism preparedness. Shawn Zehnder Lea, vice president for strategic communications at the Mississippi Hospital Association, shared the association’s lessons learned the hard way in dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. NHA members Harold Krueger, CEO of Chadron Community Hospital and Health Services, and Joyce Grove Hein, CEO of Phelps Memorial Health Center in Holdrege, each discussed how their hospitals continued to provide care for their communities in times of crisis dealing with fire and ice.
John Roberts, Nebraska Hospital Bioterrorism Preparedness Program consultant and Ruth Cover, Nebraska Health and Human Services bioterrorism preparedness coordinator, provided updates on the National Incident Management System
(NIMS) and the Hospital Incident Command System (HICS). Luncheon speaker, Stephen B. Smith, MD, chief medical officer at The Nebraska Medical Center presented a Nebraska Coalition for Patient Safety update. The NHA Mid-Year meeting was sponsored by LaMair-Mulock-Condon Company, Credit Management, Sampson Construction, Union Bank and Trust, Dairyland Health Care Solutions, The Harry A. Koch Co., Visions in Architecture, Bio-Electronics,
Dicon, HBE Corporation, and Davis Design.
The Mid-Year Meeting was followed by NHA’s annual golf tournament at Meadowlark Hills Golf Course in Kearney. Golfers braved the morning rain for a fun-filled day of golfing with fellow NHA members. The members of the tournament’s first place team include Dan
McElligott—Saint Francis Medical Center and Jerry Spethman—D.A. Davidson & Co. Second place team members included Bill Welch—Jefferson Community Health Center, Marty
Dubas—Seim Johnson Sestak & Quist, LLP, Trevor Garbers—Combined Worksite Solutions and Rob
Adams—LaMair-Mulock-Condon Co. The third place winners included Tim Olson—The Olson Group, Jeanne Ackland and Ranee
Hoarty—Fillmore County Hospital and Joe Barbaglia—Columbus Community Hospital. Each of the winning teams received prizes from gift certificates to golf accessories. Thanks to many generous sponsors, several golfers received wonderful flag and door prizes.
Lincoln hospitals announce plans for tobacco-free facilities and campuses
Lincoln, NE – Effective January 1, 2008, Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital, BryanLGH Medical Center, and Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center will implement tobacco-free policies for all facility campuses. This means that tobacco use will not be allowed inside hospital buildings, as well as parking lots, parking garages, tenant-occupied offices and adjoining grounds. The new policy will apply to all individuals coming to the hospital campuses, including patients, family members and visitors, employees, volunteers, students, medical staff, vendors and tenants. The hospitals’ outdoor designated smoking areas will close on December 31, 2007.
“As health care providers, we know that good health and health care do not include the use of tobacco products,” said Craig Ames, President and COO of BryanLGH Medical Center. “By implementing new policies that establish tobacco-free campuses, we will create a better workplace for our employees and a more conducive environment for patient healing and recovery.”
Read the news release
and a recent article in the Lincoln Journal
Star.
CEO
of Phelps Memorial Health Center in Holdrege celebrating retirement
Joyce Grove Hein, FACHE, CEO of Phelps Memorial Health Center in Holdrege, is retiring July 10. Ms. Grove Hein has served as the President and CEO of Phelps Memorial Health Center for seven years; and is currently serves on the NHA’s Board of Directors. Among other accomplishments, she is the President of the Phelps County Development Board, has served on NHA’s Workforce Development Committee and the American Hospital Association’s National Commission on Workforce Development for Hospitals and Health Systems.
Phelps Memorial Health Center invites
NHA members to congratulate Ms. Grove Hein on her retirement by attending a celebration in her honor Tuesday, June 26 at the hospital in Holdrege. For more information contact Sheri Alber, Phelps Memorial Health Center administrative assistant, at 308/995-2883 or
slalber@phelpsmemorial.com.
The NHA congratulates Joyce Grove Hein on her accomplishment and applauds her remarkable contributions to Nebraska’s health care community.
Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital receives Goldberg Innovation Award
Lincoln, NE – The National Association of Long Term Hospitals (NALTH) recognized the Respiratory Independence Measure of Madonna
(R.I.M.M.) program with the prestigious 2007 Goldberg Innovation Award. The award was presented May 3, 2007, at the NALTH Annual Convention in Washington, D.C.
Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital respiratory therapists Nancy Nathenson, RRT, James
Pelton, BA, CRT, and Ted Hill, RRT, designed the program, which provides an objective outcome measure to evaluate rehabilitation progress in patients with respiratory impairments. The
R.I.M.M.© program is the first and only tool of its kind that measures both subjective and objective clinical findings in six assessment categories.
Read the news release from Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital.
Grassley, Baucus request changes to Form 990 to increase transparency
Seeking greater transparency into the workings of tax-exempt organizations including charities, Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Max Baucus, D-Mont., of the Senate Committee on Finance are urging the Treasury Secretary to update the IRS tax form used by the not-for-profit sector.
Read
more.
— HFMA Weekly News, June 1, 2007.
State Fire Marshal's directive on alcohol-based hand-rubs in corridors
John Falgione, State Fire Marshal, announced that when the defined rules are met, alcohol-based hand-rub dispensers are permitted in the corridors of new and existing health care occupancies.
View the Official Interpretation from the State Fire Marshal.
AHA
comments on Inpatient PPS proposed rule
In a letter commenting on the proposed inpatient payment rule for fiscal year 2008, AHA called the proposed Medicare-Severity diagnosis-related groups a “reasonable framework for patient classification.” However, the association recommended phasing in the MS-DRGs because they would redistribute $800-$900 million among hospitals, and opposed as unwarranted an associated 2.4 percent cut to operating and capital payments in fiscal years 2008 and 2009, which would total $24 billion over five years.
AHA also opposed eliminating the capital payment update for urban hospitals and the capital payment add-on for large urban hospitals, which together would reduce payments to urban hospitals by $880 million over five years. AHA Executive Vice President Rick Pollack said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) “has gone well beyond its charge by recommending arbitrary and unnecessary cuts in this proposed rule. These backdoor budget cuts will further deplete scarce resources, ultimately making hospitals' mission of caring for patients even more challenging.”
— AHA News Now, June 4, 2007.
Checklist helps hospitals plan for flu pandemic
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has developed a checklist to help hospitals prepare for a flu pandemic. The checklist includes sections for assessing a hospital’s pandemic flu planning and decision-making, and progress toward a written pandemic flu plan. The agency calls the checklist “one of several tools for evaluating current plans,” and recommends each hospital adapt the list to its unique needs and circumstances.
— AHA News Now, June 5, 2007.
AMA consortium approves 10 new physician quality measures
A consortium convened by the American Medical Association recently approved 10 new physician quality measures. The Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement said the measures, available at
www.physicianconsortium.org, will help physicians assess and treat prostate cancer, prevent infections in the hospital environment and provide standardized breast and colorectal cancer pathology reports. In total, the group has approved 184 quality measures. Founded in 2000, the Consortium has developed performance measures that cover conditions that represent 80 percent of Medicare spending.
— AHA News Now, June 1, 2007.
Congress pressed to promote health IT
A coalition led by former Sen. John Breaux and former Rep. Nancy Johnson pressed Congress to pass legislation to promote health information technology. “We believe Congress should act this year to send a bill to the President,” said Johnson, former chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. The
Health IT Now coalition said the measure should include financial incentives to facilitate health IT adoption and health information exchanges; encourage patient use of electronic health records and quality information; a public-private process to establish standards for interoperability, product certification and quality; and a federal-state process to resolve privacy and security issues.
— AHA News Now, June 5, 2007.
Federal nursing scholarships available
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) will accept applications
online through June 30 for its fiscal year 2007 Nursing Scholarship Program. The program provides scholarships to eligible nursing students in exchange for at least two years service at a health care facility with a critical shortage of nurses. HRSA expects to award 220 scholarships this year, with preference given to applicants enrolled or accepted as full-time students in an undergraduate nursing program.
— AHA News Now, June 5, 2007.
Program to help vets enter health careers
The Health Careers Foundation will launch a program June 1 to help disabled veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan find careers in health care. The Hire Heroes
(www.hireheroesusa.org) program hopes to place more than 8,000 veterans in health care jobs in the next three years by working with hospitals and others to identify suitable positions.
— AHA News Now, May 30, 2007.
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