Modern Healthcare congratulates the winners and honorable mentions of this year's Spirit of Excellence Awards, co-sponsored by Sodexho Health Care Services, an Avon, Conn.-based company. This year's competition drew 157 nominations, a slight increase over last year's record of 155 entries.Modern Healthcare and Sodexho announced this year's award competition on Aug. 2, and the deadline for entry submission was Oct. 15. All of the submitted entries can be found online at sodexho-bps.com under the "Best Practices Showcase" section.This year's...
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Four years ago, Allen Medical Center, Oberlin, Ohio, came within two weeks of closing. The 25-bed, mostly outpatient critical-access facility had just brought in a new management team to focus its turnaround effort on the small, cluttered, attitudinally poisoned emergency room."We were seeing 10,000 patients a year there," says hospital President Edwin Oley. "Those 10,000 people were going back out into the community. That was becoming the perception of the hospital."A $1 million grant from a local foundation took care of the brick-and-mortar issue, enabling Allen to build a...
FULL STORY »

More than 500 families who have experienced perinatal loss-a miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn death-have found some measure of healing through the perinatal bereavement program at PinnacleHealth System, Harrisburg, Pa., earning the system an honorable mention in the Spirit of Excellence award for service. Coordinated by a clinical nurse specialist who has personally experienced such a loss, the program includes free cremation services, mementos such as locks of hair, nurses on call 24 hours per day who provide support and counseling for a year, and a Walk to Remember every October."We...
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Since 1987, homeless veterans in upstate New York have been able to receive help finding housing and employment along with treatment for substance abuse, mental illness and other healthcare issues. But until recently, those who sought such services in the five Veterans Integration Service Network 2 locations found coordination to be lacking. VISN 2's efforts to combat that problem have earned the system the Spirit of Excellence quality award."We could see that homeless veterans weren't accessing the broad scope of services that were available," says Robert Van Keuren, coordinator of the...
FULL STORY »

Christ Hospital, a tertiary-care facility in Cincinnati, performs cardiac surgeries on more than 900 patients per year, as many as half of whom enter via the emergency room and are urgently catheterized. As part of the 440-bed facility's ongoing improvement efforts, in April 2003 Christ Hospital established a cardiac surgery protocol that has reduced staphylococcus aureus surgical-site infections by 75%. For these efforts, the hospital has received an honorable mention for the Spirit of Excellence Quality Award.Based on a study that cited intranasal mupirocin as a way to prevent certain...
FULL STORY »

Betty Jean Marconi calls it her "nightmare child": a character called Carmen von Boxide (representing, naturally, carbon monoxide) who stars in performances staged by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, McKeesport, Pa. "I think I ate a pickle before I went to bed that night," says Marconi, the facility's director of tobacco-free programs and community outreach. She describes Carmen as "this grody creature, this really vile, icky person who pops out of a cigarette" and introduces fourth-graders to her "friends and family," substances such as ammonia, tar and insect repellent. "This...
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When dads are involved, kids do better. That simple maxim became the driving force behind a program developed by St. Francis Health Center, Topeka, Kan., which had assembled area leaders to delve into their community's problems.In October 2000, St. Francis established a partnership with the National Center for Fathering that has produced an annual essay-writing contest about "What My Father Means to Me," a two-day communitywide kids' boot camp, a summit for fathers and their teenage daughters, and a day in the park for fathers and kids of all ages. For these efforts, the center has...
FULL STORY »

St. Anthony Regional Hospital serves a rural area of about 60,000 people. But the 99-bed hospital and 79-bed nursing home-based in Carroll, Iowa-have cast a global net in their recruiting efforts for certified nursing assistants, who have proved difficult to recruit to St. Anthony's corner of the world. Inspired by and working in partnership with local pastor the Rev. Jim McCormick, the Catholic institution has brought in, trained and taught English to eight nuns from India and Africa, who have worked at St. Anthony for more than four years. Four of them recently left for two other Iowa...
FULL STORY »

To ensure a continued supply of critical front-line workers in its rural corner of Massachusetts, Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington has designed a program called Grow Your Own that begins as early as seventh grade."Our vacancy rate is not real high, but because we're in such a rural area, we knew that recruiting was not going to be our strong point," says Gayle Armstrong, director of employee health. "It was the whole issue of the nursing shortage and the radiology shortage. Those both are beginning to hit our area hard."Fairview's efforts have earned the 25-bed hospital an...
FULL STORY »

Modern Healthcare congratulates the winners and honorable mentions of this year's Spirit of Excellence Awards, co-sponsored by Sodexho Health Care Services, an Avon, Conn.-based company. This year's competition drew 157 nominations, a slight increase over last year's record of 155 entries.Modern Healthcare and Sodexho announced this year's award competition on Aug. 2, and the deadline for entry submission was Oct. 15. All of the submitted entries can be found online at sodexho-bps.com under the "Best Practices Showcase" section.This year's...
FULL STORY »

Four years ago, Allen Medical Center, Oberlin, Ohio, came within two weeks of closing. The 25-bed, mostly outpatient critical-access facility had just brought in a new management team to focus its turnaround effort on the small, cluttered, attitudinally poisoned emergency room."We were seeing 10,000 patients a year there," says hospital President Edwin Oley. "Those 10,000 people were going back out into the community. That was becoming the perception of the hospital."A $1 million grant from a local foundation took care of the brick-and-mortar issue, enabling Allen to build a...
FULL STORY »

More than 500 families who have experienced perinatal loss-a miscarriage, stillbirth or newborn death-have found some measure of healing through the perinatal bereavement program at PinnacleHealth System, Harrisburg, Pa., earning the system an honorable mention in the Spirit of Excellence award for service. Coordinated by a clinical nurse specialist who has personally experienced such a loss, the program includes free cremation services, mementos such as locks of hair, nurses on call 24 hours per day who provide support and counseling for a year, and a Walk to Remember every October."We...
FULL STORY »

Since 1987, homeless veterans in upstate New York have been able to receive help finding housing and employment along with treatment for substance abuse, mental illness and other healthcare issues. But until recently, those who sought such services in the five Veterans Integration Service Network 2 locations found coordination to be lacking. VISN 2's efforts to combat that problem have earned the system the Spirit of Excellence quality award."We could see that homeless veterans weren't accessing the broad scope of services that were available," says Robert Van Keuren, coordinator of the...
FULL STORY »

Christ Hospital, a tertiary-care facility in Cincinnati, performs cardiac surgeries on more than 900 patients per year, as many as half of whom enter via the emergency room and are urgently catheterized. As part of the 440-bed facility's ongoing improvement efforts, in April 2003 Christ Hospital established a cardiac surgery protocol that has reduced staphylococcus aureus surgical-site infections by 75%. For these efforts, the hospital has received an honorable mention for the Spirit of Excellence Quality Award.Based on a study that cited intranasal mupirocin as a way to prevent certain...
FULL STORY »

Betty Jean Marconi calls it her "nightmare child": a character called Carmen von Boxide (representing, naturally, carbon monoxide) who stars in performances staged by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, McKeesport, Pa. "I think I ate a pickle before I went to bed that night," says Marconi, the facility's director of tobacco-free programs and community outreach. She describes Carmen as "this grody creature, this really vile, icky person who pops out of a cigarette" and introduces fourth-graders to her "friends and family," substances such as ammonia, tar and insect repellent. "This...
FULL STORY »

When dads are involved, kids do better. That simple maxim became the driving force behind a program developed by St. Francis Health Center, Topeka, Kan., which had assembled area leaders to delve into their community's problems.In October 2000, St. Francis established a partnership with the National Center for Fathering that has produced an annual essay-writing contest about "What My Father Means to Me," a two-day communitywide kids' boot camp, a summit for fathers and their teenage daughters, and a day in the park for fathers and kids of all ages. For these efforts, the center has...
FULL STORY »

St. Anthony Regional Hospital serves a rural area of about 60,000 people. But the 99-bed hospital and 79-bed nursing home-based in Carroll, Iowa-have cast a global net in their recruiting efforts for certified nursing assistants, who have proved difficult to recruit to St. Anthony's corner of the world. Inspired by and working in partnership with local pastor the Rev. Jim McCormick, the Catholic institution has brought in, trained and taught English to eight nuns from India and Africa, who have worked at St. Anthony for more than four years. Four of them recently left for two other Iowa...
FULL STORY »

To ensure a continued supply of critical front-line workers in its rural corner of Massachusetts, Fairview Hospital in Great Barrington has designed a program called Grow Your Own that begins as early as seventh grade."Our vacancy rate is not real high, but because we're in such a rural area, we knew that recruiting was not going to be our strong point," says Gayle Armstrong, director of employee health. "It was the whole issue of the nursing shortage and the radiology shortage. Those both are beginning to hit our area hard."Fairview's efforts have earned the 25-bed hospital an...
FULL STORY »