John Haupert took the reins as Grady Memorial Hospital’s new CEO on Oct. 4. Haupert, recently the chief operating officer at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas, has experience dealing with the challenges of running a large public hospital — the overflowing emergency departments, unpredictable funding and need to build strong ties quickly with local leaders.
“He is the right person at the right time to deal with some of the issues that we have with stabilizing Grady,” Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves said.
Grady is on course to lose $23 million this year following a nearly $20 million cut in government funding to care for the poor and uninsured. It has shed 200-plus jobs and shuttered two neighborhood clinics, among other cost-saving measures.
Putting Grady on stable footing by boosting revenue from operations and looking for ways to improve the flow of federal and local dollars will be key priorities, Haupert said.
Major award: Sigma Theta Tau International (the Honor Society of Nursing) recently bestowed an honorary membership award on Emory University's Kenneth Hepburn. Hepburn, a professor and associate dean for research with Emory's Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, was one of five people from around the world honored as "highly influential leaders in the advancement of global health and wellness."
His principal research concerns the development of programs that improve the lives of people with dementing disorders by enhancing the self-efficacy of their family caregivers. Hepburn, who is also the school’s Director of Graduate Studies, has been the principal investigator of a number of grants from the National Institute of Nursing Research and the Alzheimer’s Association to develop and test such programs.
Stroke award: Eastside Medical Center in Snellville has received the American Heart Association's Gold-Plus Stroke Performance Achievement Award. The award recognizes Eastside's commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations.
Community stroke education is a priority for Eastside. Risk assessments are offered at bi-monthly health screenings at the hospital and coordinated by the H2U group at Eastside.
Mary Robichaux, vice president of Quality Improvement Initiative for the American Heart Association, presented the award to CEO Kim Ryan, Stroke Program Coordinator Mary Hudgins and all the doctors and nurses participating in the stroke program.
Health care reform workshop: Piedmont Healthcare will host a free workshop, "Demystifying Healthcare Reform: Beyond the Basics," on Nov. 3 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. The workshop will be at Piedmont Hospital's Richard Rich Auditorium.
The event will feature sessions with Anton Gunn, regional director of Region IV office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Tim Stack, president and CEO of Piedmont Healthcare; Jennifer Hale, executive director of Georgia Hospice and Palliative Care; and Kelly Erola, medical director and palliative medicine physician at Hospice Savannah and the Steward Center for Palliative Care.
Attendees can earn five CEU hours. To register, go to www.ceuconcepts.com.
Health IT grant: Atlanta has won a $1.65 million federal grant to train chronically unemployed and veterans to become health information technology workers. The program is intended to spur job growth and public-private partnerships across the country.
Atlanta was one of 20 regions to win the funding, which averaged $1.8 million per project. There were 125 applicants. Atlanta applied as a health information technology cluster.
Gwinnett Technical College will develop a one-year certificate program in health information technology. The Georgia Tech Research Corp. will assist in the program and identify eligible small businesses to participate. The Atlanta Development Authority will coordinate the financing.
Workers trained in these skills help input patient records into medical databases.
Fighting cancer: A joint effort by DeKalb County Commissioner Sharon Barnes Sutton and the DeKalb-Fulton Hospital Authority has raised $5,000 to fight ovarian cancer.
The donation to the Georgia Ovarian Cancer Alliance was for promotion of early detection of the disease that kills more than 15,000 women every year. For information, go to www.gaovariancancer.org.
Northside offers breast tomosynthesis: Women who undergo routine mammograms at Northside Hospital now have the latest diagnostic technology available: digital breast tomosynthesis, also known as 3D mammography. Northside Hospital is the first hospital in Atlanta to implement this technology from Hologic's Selenia Dimensions System.
Tomosynthesis takes a series of images from multiple angles around the breast. These are then reconstructed by a computer to provide a 3D model of the breast. Studies have shown that the combination of 2D and 3D mammograms provides the best evaluation of the breast.
Initially, the technology will be available at Northside’s Atlanta Breast Imaging Center, with plans to expand to other locations in 2112.
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