rxtra 3 5 13 web
DESCRIPTION
Hartford Hospital employee news.TRANSCRIPT
RxTraA publication for the staff of Hartford Hospital March 5, 2013 Vol. 69 No. 8
Friday Deadline For Employee of the Year Nominations
This Friday (March 8) is the dead-line for submission of nominees for Employee of the Year.
Any Hartford Hospital employee, all campuses, is eligible to nom-inate - or be nominated for - Em-ployee of the Year, except:
• An employee who is a director or manager
• An employee who is officially responsible for completing performance evaluations
• Any members of the Employees’ Council Executive Board
• Any monthly payroll employee
Nomination forms must be filled out completely to be considered. It is essential that the nomina-tor give a summary as to why the nominee should be considered as a candidate (e.g. – citing personal ob-servations, character, and involve-ment in their job, community or volunteerism). Nominator’s name will be held be held in confidence.
The Employee of the Year will be announced and the finalists hon-ored by their coworkers, families and friends at a ceremony on Tues-day, April 2.
Download a nomination form from the Employee Council Intranet page (http://intranet.harthosp.org/hh/dept/405) or click here.
Comprehensive Breast Care Program Receives Donation From Big Y
Hartford Hospital’s Comprehen-sive Breast Care program, the Part-nership for Breast Care received a generous $26,000 donation from Big Y Supermarkets. The donation represents a portion of fund raised throughout the month of October in the store and at the Pink Party event in West Hartford. The gift will be used to support mammo-grams for uninsured women and for other breast program support.
Karen Weingrod (second from right),>> manager of The Partnership for Breast Care at Hartford Hospital, receives the
check from Big Y representatives.
2
Dukhi “Biscuit” Mahapot, who had been employed at Hartford Hospital in En-vironmental Services for five years, died Feb. 23 in Guyana. Dukhi was 63.
Born in Black Bush, Guy-ana, he lived in Hartford since 1987.
Our condolences go out to his coworkers and friends, as well as to his wife, Chanderwattie, his children, Esardai Ma-hapot, Parbattie and Ernis Rittner, Rampersaud and Wanda Mahapot
and Kapelmooney and Vanessa Mahapot.
Dukhi also leaves a broth-er, Ramesh Dukhi and a sister, Data Angad; three granddaughters and four grandsons; his mother-in-law; three sisters-in-law and two brothers-in-law; and numerous nieces and nephews in the U.S. and Guyana.
Services were held on March 3 and 4 at the Sheehan Hilborn Breen Funeral Home in West Hartford.
In Memoriam: Hartford Hospital Family Mourns Loss of Dukhi Mahapot
The Cardiac Rehabilitation Department hosted the Cardiology Grand Rounds on February 12, in celebra-tion of National Cardiac Rehabilitation Week.
The presentation, “Cardiac Rehabilitation: Bridging the Gap to Secondary Prevention,” was made by Dr. Vi-mal Rabdiya, a cardiovascular fellow.
He focused on the importance of participation in the cardiac rehab program after a cardiac event.
Through monitored exercise, education and counsel-ing, cardiac rehab patients learn to change lifestyle factors that may have contributed to the onset of their disease.
Several research studies have shown that participa-tion in a cardiac rehab program de-creases mortality by 25%.
Also as part of the celebration, lunch was catered by D&D Market, and offered a heart healthy lunch to the attendees.
Cardiac Rehab Department Was Focus of Recognition Week
Cardiac rehab participants attend exercise classes three times a week for up to 36 sessions. They are monitored by ECG and blood pressure, and are closely supervised. Each participant’s exercise program is individualized to meet his/her needs.
3
Meet Our New Community Relations ManagerHartford Hospital, like other non-profit hospitals, was founded with a community service mission. We demonstrate this by a commitment to provide health services and out-reach activities to address and im-prove community health, particular-ly for people who are most in need. In return for the services we provide to the community, the government grants us exemption from taxes.
The IRS requires non-profit hos-pitals like us to document and re-port their community benefit activ-ities to demonstrate that we are earning our tax-exempt status.
Community benefits, as defined by the IRS, are activities/programs that respond to community need and that seek to achieve one of more of the following objectives: improving access to health services, enhanc-ing public health, advancing health care knowledge, and relieving/re-ducing the burden of government or other community efforts to im-prove health.
To coordinate our community ben-efits activities, we hired Kola Akin-dele in January as the new com-munity relations manager in the Department of Government and Community Alliances.
“A major part of my responsibili-ties is to manage the hospital’s community benefit strategy, and to ensure accurate reporting of com-munity benefit programs and ac-tivities,” Akindele said. “I will work to build strategic partnerships with key community stakeholders to en-sure that our community benefit programs meet community needs and align with the hospital’s stra-tegic initiatives.”
These activities are health focused, benefit the community and provide a particular benefit to our low in-come and uninsured neighbors.
Akindele comes to us with extensive knowledge in public policy, public
affairs and community relations. He managed community and gov-ernment relations and civic involve-ment at UMass Medical School.
Prior to that, he served as senior zoning specialist/counsel with SBA Network Services, where he man-aged municipal affairs and com-munity outreach on various tele-communication projects.
Akindele received his bachelor’s degree in economics and politi-cal science from UMass-Boston; his law degree from Northeast-ern University School of Law; and will receive a master’s in health in-formatics and management from UMass-Lowell in December.
If you have any questions regard-ing what constitutes a communi-ty benefit or are looking to report a community benefit, please contact Akindele at ext. 5-4595 or by e-mail at [email protected]; or Ursu-line Farrell, community involvement assistant, at ext. 5-4161 or [email protected].
In future issues of RxTra, we will fea-ture examples of our community ben-efit activities.
Examples of community bene-fit activities are:
• In-kind donations such as meet-ing rooms, supplies, and equip-ment to community organizations with a mission consistent with the community benefit definition.
• Health screenings
• Classes or lectures on diseases
• Free clinics
• Improving availability of fresh fruits and vegetables
• Guest appearances by clinicians on news shows to provide informa-tion on health and wellbeing.
• Taxi vouchers for low income patients
• Prenatal classes for uninsured and underinsured
• Research that benefits communi-ty and funded by tax exempt orga-nization or government e.g. reduc-ing health disparities
• Immunizations for low income children
Kola Akindele
Compliance Questions
or Concerns?If you need to obtain information about compliance issues or raise concerns regarding internal and regulatory practices or policies,
please contact your supervisor or call the ComplianceLine, a
confidential and toll-free service, at
1-855-HHC-OCAP or online at
HHC.OCAPComplianceLine.com
Advancing Medicine: “Emergency Care: When Seconds Matter” Join us for the next episode of our Ad-vancing Medicine Series – Emergency Care: When Seconds Matter – Thursday, March 7, at 7:30 p.m. on WFSB, Channel 3. If you can’t watch, be sure to set your DVR. Please feel free to call in after the show to ask questions.
Red Cross Blood DriveWe will hold a Blood Drive on Thursday, March 14 from 7 a.m.-12:45 p.m. in Heublein Hall. After the February blizzard, the Red Cross experienced a short-fall of over 1,200 units of blood. Please help us re-
store the blood supply. Donors can sched-ule an appointment by calling Erin Es-tremera at ext 5-2079, or going to www.redcrossblood.org and entering the Spon-sor Code 3962. Donors should contact Erin or Peter Boucher at [email protected] with any questions.
“No One Dies Alone” Seeking VolunteersUnder the Department of Pastoral Ser-vices, a national program called No One Dies Alone is being piloted at Hart-ford Hospital. A “compassionate com-panion” volunteer provides reassuring presence to patients who would other-wise die alone. With the support of the nursing staff, companions help provide patients with a dignified death. Atten-dance at a training session is required: there is one Monday, March 25 from 4–7 p.m. in the Special Dining Room. If you are interested, please contact the Volunteer Department at ext. 5-2198 or [email protected]
Please Complete This Voluntary Survey Please take the time to complete a brief, anonymous survey related to commu-nication about the influenza vaccina-tion program at Hartford Hospital. This 24-question online survey is entirely voluntary. No individually identifying health information will be collected. Ac-cess the survey here:
www.surveymonkey.com/s/hhflu
This survey has been prepared by Gar-ret Condon, a member of the Planning and Marketing Dept. and a member of the hospital’s Influenza Planning Com-mittee. It is being done to meet require-ments for an Master of Public Health de-gree at UConn. Results will be shared with Hartford Hospital and Hartford HealthCare in order to improve mes-saging around influenza prevention. For further information, please con-tact Garret Condon at 860-545-4180 or [email protected].
Applications Available For “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day”
Applications are now available for the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, which helps girls
and boys discover the power and possi-bilities associated with a balanced work and family life. Children from 4th to 12th grade are eligible. The event date is Thursday, April 25 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Children will visit four areas of Hartford Hospital. Those that wish to remain in their parent’s work area in the afternoon may do so with advanced manager approval. To obtain an appli-cation, please contact Amanda Blaszyk at [email protected] or ext. 5-4732. Applications must be submitted by Fri-day, April 5.
E-mail Encryption is Changing March 10On Sunday, March 10, the Hartford HealthCare e-mail encryption system will be changing to the Cisco Ironport system from the Zix system we have been using. This will apply to all e-mail from Hartford Hospital. It is not antici-pated that the change will cause any e-mail outage or delay. E-mail users will see almost no changes to outbound mail. Just as before, each outbound e-mail will be automatically checked for the presence of PHI and will be encrypt-ed if PHI is detected. If you know an e-mail should be encrypted, put the word SECURE as the first word of the subject line and the e-mail will encrypt. The only change you will see is that when an e-mail is encrypted, you will receive a return e-mail notifying you of that event. For e-mail recipients: just like our old system, once the e-mail is en-crypted, one of two things will happen: 1) The e-mail will be transmitted se-curely to the receiving system and will be delivered to the recipient’s mailbox; or 2) The e-mail will be delivered to the HHC Secure E-mail Portal and the re-cipient will receive an e-mailed no-tice that they have an encrypted e-mail that needs to be picked up. This will be different from the notice they receive now, and will require them to re-regis-ter with the Secure Portal the first time. If you have any questions about the new encryption system, you can e-mail them to [email protected] or [email protected]
Happening at Hartford Hospital
Questions or comments about RxTra? Contact editor Annie Emanuelli at [email protected] or 860-545-2199