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P4: New physicians join BMS P6: New surgeon joins Program P8: Golf tournament recap P12: Dear Faulkner Hospital P14: 1934 nursing graduate recalls her time at Faulkner P18: Faulkner earns Joint Commission recognition
From left, Sara Robart, Mary Jane Piro, Kathleen Armando, Dr. Dana Zalkind and Amie Kandalaft.
Pain will impact you at some point in your life. Whether its a lingering back or neck strain, an old foot injury, joint pain, neuropathy or bromyalgia, patients are nding relief at Faulkner Hospitals Pain Clinic. Faulkners Pain Clinic was established 17 years ago under the medical directorship of Dr. Dana Zalkind, who was recently named one of Boston Magazines top doctors of 2010. Dr. Zalkind and her partners from New England Pain Management Consultants have expanded the practice with the assistance of the excellent nursing staff here at Faulkner Hospital, comprised of Kathleen Armando, Mary Jane Piro, Amie Kandalaft and Sara Robart with the assistance of Maureen Schnur, MS, RN, CPAN, Nursing Director.
The Nursing staff is ACLS certied with a combined work experience of 91 years. The clinic treats more than 5,000 patients annually for various types of syndromes. This interventional pain facility does a wide variety of procedures for spinal pain, joint pain and neuropathic pain. An average visit to the pain management clinic can last between 30 minutes to two hours. Procedures are done utilizing x-ray technology as well as cardiovascular monitoring. Conscious sedation is also available to alleviate anxiety. Procedures are performed by physicians who are board certied in anesthesiology and pain management. The staffs goal is to treat every patient with respect, dignity and empathy
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Dr. Gustafson most recently served as the senior vice president for Clinical Excellence, Pharmacy, and the departments of Pathology, Psychiatry Michael Gustafson, MD, MBA and Neurology at BW/F, where he has trained and With Michael as COO at Faulkner, I believe that worked since 1993. He established the Center for we have the best possible model to position both Clinical Excellence in 2001 and serves as a co-chair and member Brigham and Faulkner for success in the coming years, says Dr. of multiple committees focused on patient affordability, systems Nabel. improvement and care redesign for Partners HealthCare. In his short time at Faulkner Hospital to date, Dr. Gustafson He received his medical degree at West Virginia University has been spearheading a joint BWH and Faulkner leadership and completed his General Surgery residency at Brigham and planning team, focused on identifying the clinical roadmap Womens Hospital. He later went on to become one of the rst and program priorities for the Faulkner campus for the next surgeons to ever receive an MBA from Harvard Business School. 5-10 years. He has also been meeting with multiple clinical and He has received numerous national awards and honors reecting administrative department leaders to learn about Faulkners his leadership in hospital safety, quality and performance historic strengths and opportunities for the future. measurement.
Published by Marketing and Public Affairs (617) 983-7588 / djgoldberg@partners.org We welcome your feedback and suggestions for future issues.
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Rudy Viscomi
Faulkner Hospitals Director of Environmental Services, Rudy Viscomi recently received a Sustainable Champion Award by Partners Healthcare for his work with the hospitals Green Team to increase campus-wide recycling. Faulkner Hospitals Green Team is a group of employees at all levels who work to ensure the hospital is doing all it can to help the environment through various initiatives. With Viscomis help, the hospital has collected 39,000 pounds of recycled materials, collected and bailed 120,000 pounds of cardboard and 100,000 pounds of paper in the past year. When asked what this award meant to him, Viscomi said, I learned that with a bit of persistence, we could accomplish anything. I take pride in knowing we are a part of an elite group that strives to do the very best we can for the hospital and the environment. For more information on the current hospital-wide sustainability initiatives, contact Viscomi at 617-983-7752.
Dr. Reena Pande, a specialist in vascular medicine and member of the Cardiovascular Division, has also joined Brigham Medical Specialties, seeing patients on Wednesday afternoons. She treats patients with peripheral artery disease, aortic aneurysms, renal artery stenosis, carotid and other cerebrovascular diseases, vasospastic conditions (such as Raynauds phenomenon), vasculitis, DVT/PE, management of IVC lters, hypercoagulability, venous insufciency, varicose veins and lymphedema.
Dr. Paige Wickner is board certied in both internal medicine and allergy and clinical immunology. She completed her allergy and immunology fellowship training at Yale New Haven Hospital. She sees patients on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Her practice expertise includes allergic rhinoconjunctivitis, asthma, food allergies, insect sting reactions, chronic sinusitis, adverse drug reactions, hives, angioedema and immunodeciency disorders. In addition to these three specialists, physicians at Brigham Medical Specialties at Faulkner Hospital offer expert care in cardiology, endocrinology, gerontology, gastroenterology and pulmonology. The ofce is open Monday - Friday from 7:30 am - 5 pm. To schedule an appointment, call 617-983-7420.
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Each coupon is worth 10 cents, and the prot will benet the Manning Elementary School. Clip the coupon off of your Staples/ Avery product and drop it in one of our bins conveniently located at:
1st oor reception desk 2nd oor across from the mailroom 3rd oor reception desk 4th oor Community Benets board, across from the Presidents Ofce
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Dr. Ledbetter graduated from the Bowman Gray School of Medicine, now the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC. He completed his residency in Radiology followed Dr. Stephen Ledbetter by a fellowship in Emergency Radiology, both at Brigham and Womens Hospital. Dr. Ledbetter obtained his Masters of Public Health from Harvard in 2005. Among the goals Dr. Ledbetter hopes to accomplish at Faulkner In his spare time, Dr. Ledbetter enjoys spending time with his are to increase the level of radiology sub-specialization to family, cooking, running, listening to music and dabbling in real better meet the needs of our patients and referring physicians, estate. strengthen the professional relationships and interactions of radiologists across the BWF enterprise, and reinvest in the Sagoff Centres remarkable history of innovation in breast imaging and interventions.
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Faulkner Hospitals Community Health and Benets Department has taken an active role in the Jamaica Plain Eldercare Network (JPEN), which traditionally has functioned as a networking resource for local providers of senior services. Recently, the group has embarked on a new venture to begin planning and implementing various programs to meet the needs of elders living in Jamaica Plain after a recent needs assessment study identied the top three areas of priority to be: 1) Access to transportation, 2) Access to information about local resources, 3) Increased access to mental health services. Stacey Miller, CHES, Community Health Coordinator at Faulkner Hospital, has taken the lead role in the 2011 JPEN program rollout of three bilingual (English & Spanish) Transportation Workshops, which were designed to educate seniors on the various transportation options available locally. The Transportation Workshops offer Jamaica Plain seniors the opportunity to have direct access to representatives from six transportation providers, including: MBTA Ride, MBTA Senior T-passes, The City of Boston Commission on Affairs of the Elderly Taxi Coupons, Senior Shuttle, MassHealth Transportation, and Independent Transportation Network (ITN). At the workshops, all of the providers give a brief overview of their services and allow an open forum of questions, all of which are simultaneously translated into Spanish.
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Golf tournament raises funds for patient and family waiting areas
Participants in Faulkner Hospitals annual golf tournament raised more than $120,000 at this years event, which was held at the Dedham Country and Polo Club. The funds raised will be used to renovate the hospitals patient and family waiting areas. The continued renovation of our patient and family waiting areas is part of our commitment to ensure that our facility is calming, comfortable and efcient which helps reduce stress and increase a patients ability to cope with their medical situation, says Michael Gustafson, MD, Chief Operating Ofcer. Within the past decade, research has shown that the physical environment of healthcare facilities affects patients and staff. The environment can have a positive impact on healing and medical outcomes, as well as staff morale. Expanded programs like robotic surgery, sports medicine and plastic surgery have brought new patients and their families to Faulkner Hospitals campus, resulting in an increased demand in waiting and pre-treatment spaces. We are committed to improving our facility so that patients and families feel welcome and supported while they are waiting or navigating through the hospital, continues Gustafson. The title sponsor of this years event was Ryan Construction. Vinnie McDermott, Executive Director of Finance at Faulkner Hospital helped organize the event, along with Chrissie Hines and Linda Healy from the Philanthropy Department.
From left, Chief Operating Ofcer Michael Gustafson, MD, Greg Pauly, Chief Operating Ofcer of the MGPO, Vincent McDermott, Executive Director of Finance, and Lou Woolf, President of Hebrew SeniorLife.
From left, nurses Judy Hayes, Kitty Rafferty, Pat McCarthy and Susan FitzMaurice get ready to tee off at Faulkner Hospitals annual golf tournament to help raise funds for family and visitor waiting areas throughout the hospital.
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FAULKNER HOSPITAL HAS BEEN NAMED AS ONE OF THE BEST WORKPLACES FOR COMMUTERS
Faulkner Hospital was recently selected as one of the Best Workplaces for Commuters by the National Center for Transit Research (NCTR) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Faulkner Hospital is the only hospital in Massachusetts on the Best Workplaces for Commuters list for 2011. This designation follows more than a year of hard work by the Safety & Security Department and the Parking, Transportation & Commuter Services (PTCS) Department to drastically improve commuter option programs for employees at the hospital. In order to receive this designation, Faulkner is to maintain a minimum level of employee participation, designate a central point of contact for employee questions, provide an Emergency Ride Home program for participating employees and offer a choice of commuter benets to interested employees.
Chris Sargent proudly displays the Best Workplaces for Commuters award that Faulkner Hospital recently received.
Ongoing benets, such as a free offsite parking lot, shuttle service to and from the lot and the Forest Hills MBTA station, and a hospital-subsidized pretax MBTA pass program have been administered by Chris Sargent, Parking Administrator. Sargent says that he hopes to serve as an example for other hospitals when it comes to planning and implementing new commuter programs and will work with other institutions interested in developing commuter programs of their own.
Achieving this award is fantastic, states Sargent. Being recognized for this commitment helps us know we are doing a good job, as well as letting us know we are doing our part to make Massachusetts more sustainable and healthier. The ECO Award has three levels of excellence: Pacesetter, Leader and Pinnacle. Sargent is committed to attaining Pinnacle status within the next year. Receiving Pinnacle status would be afrmation that we are doing the best job possible to providing our employees with the best possible options for getting to and from work, Sargent adds. For more information on Faulkner Hospitals commuter options, contact Chris Sargent at 617-983-4704 or by email at csargent1@partners.org.
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The staff enjoyed a Desserts from Around the World buffet featuring desserts and beverages popular to their native countries, such as an African ginger drink, Colombian mango dessert, Baklava, and fried plantains. Employees also took a break from the normal routines to participate in a few activities including a game of Guess where your coworker is from?
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Nic at Work
Faulkner Hospital is now offering a trial program that will provide free nicotine replacement products to employees for use during the work day. The employee can choose between gum and lozenges.
In exchange for the nicotine products, the employee must agree to: Not smoke at anytime during their shift Visit Occupational Health for an initial screening Pick up your nicotine replacement products at the Occupational Health ofce or another agreed upon location every two weeks Inform the Occupational Health Department if they no longer wish to participate in the program, and return all unused nicotine products Fill out a questionnaire that allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, as well as to identify barriers to its success Each employee in the program would receive the following for an 8 hour shift: 5 pieces of nicotine gum per day (Package of 50 for two weeks) or 5 nicotine lozenges per day (Package of 50 for two weeks)
Free nicotine products will be provided for up to 3 months if the employee continues to be smoke free while at work.
The goals of the program are to: Discover if taking nicotine replacement products at work will allow you to be a non-smoker while at work Discover if providing a free trial of nicotine replacement products for up to three months translates to any habit changes, i.e. continuing to be smoke free at work.
Any employee interested in the program i B should contact Bruce Matt at 617-983-7126. Mattus
I was born in Athol, Massachusetts in 1912. Back then there wasnt much choice for women in terms of a career you could go into bookkeeping, teaching or nursing. I saw an ad in the paper for nurses and decided to become one. It happened to be for Faulkner Hospital, so I applied. My parents and I had an interview with Miss Ladd, the head of the school, and I was accepted right away. The rst day of school they gave us a real tea in the basement where the school was. The rst night all the nurses were sobbing because they missed their families so much. Then school started and I loved it. My rst lesson was in posture. All my teachers were doctors Dr. Balch, Dr. Young and Dr. Frothingham. Dr. Frothingham was wonderful - when he called for the nurses, he asked, Where are all my angels of mercy? There were 30 girls who started in my class, and 10 graduated. We were watched closely and after three months, some of us got caps. After one year, we got a black band on our cap. I was trained at Massachusetts General Hospital and Childrens Hospital, too. All the nurses took classes together to learn how to care for patients, but most of
our time was spent working and learning on the wards. We prepared hot water bottles for patients because they were put completely out for surgeries and births and the hot water bottles were for when they came to. We took temperatures and had to sterilize the thermometers in tubes in between patients. We gave medicines, such as morphine (which was kept in a special cabinet with a lock and key), aspirin, codeine and ether. There wasnt any penicillin when I started out. I liked working in the delivery room, which was a very happy place. We sterilized
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Dr. Peggy Duggan speaks after receiving an Exceptional Women Award from Magic 106.7.
2011 Exceptional Women Award recipients, from left Candy OTerry (Magic 106.7), Cindy Stumpo, Chikoti Mibenge, Dr. Peggy Duggan, sponsor Eliot Tatelman from Jordans Furniture, Patti LaBelle, Joyce Kulhawik, Pauline Alighieri and Gay Vernon (Magic 106.7).
FAULKNER INTERNIST JOHN LEWIS, MD, PERFORMS AT PARTNERS NIGHT AT THE POPS
The 14th annual Partners Night at the Pops: A Celebration in Honor of Our Physicians was held earlier this year at Symphony Hall. Conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra performed numerous musical selections complementing the Mardi Gras at Pops theme for this years event. The nearly 1,000 Partners physicians and their guests were treated to a truly special and memorable evening. The highlight of the concert was when Partners own Physician Talent made their Symphony Hall debut, performing live on stage with the Pops. Dubbed the Docs of Dixieland by Lockhart, the eight physicians from across the Partners system paraded into Symphony Hall in true Mardi Gras style passing out beads and coins as they wound their way to the stage. Maestro Lockhart then led the Physician Talent in a performance of Tiger Rag, with each of the doctors playing different percussion instruments some of which were creatively customized medical devices, such as the IV bass, basin bells, skele-tone and stetho-phone. John A. Lewis, MD, who specializes in Internal Medicine at Faulkner Hospital, played a large animals jawbone, which made a rattling sound like a ratchet when struck. Dr. Lewis also played the stethophone. The stetho-phones were adapted stethoscopes that made the sound of either a whistle or a kazoo. The Partners Night at the Pops event serves as a way for Partners HealthCare and its afliated hospitals to thank the dedicated physicians from across the system and provide them with a forum to network with their colleagues. Partners would like to thank Maestro Keith Lockhart, the Boston Pops, the Dukes of Dixieland and Partners own Physician Talent for a truly enjoyable evening.
Dr. John Lewis from Faulkner Community Physicians plays the jawbone during Partners Night at the Pops. Focus on Faulkner 15
CMS requirements for the Medicare Electronic Health Records (EHR) Incentive Program
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the nal rule to implement the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) that provide incentive payments to providers for the meaningful use of certied EHR technology. The Medicare EHR incentive program provides incentive payments to eligible professionals (EPs), eligible hospitals, and critical access hospitals (CAHs) that are meaningful users of certied EHRs. The Medicaid EHR incentive program, in the initial year, will provide incentive payments to eligible professionals and hospitals for efforts to adopt, implement, upgrade or successfully demonstrate meaningful use of certied HER technology. MEDICARE ELIGIBLE PROFESSIONALS (EPS) A Medicare EP is a doctor of medicine or osteopathy, a doctor of dental surgery or dental medicine, a doctor of podiatric medicine, a doctor of optometry, or a chiropractor, who is legally authorized to practice under state law. A qualifying EP is one who successfully demonstrates meaningful use for the EHR reporting period. Hospital-based EPs who furnish substantially all there services in a hospital setting are not eligible for incentive payments. A qualifying EP can receive EHR incentive payments for up to ve years with payments beginning as early as 2011. The maximum amount of total incentive payments that an EP can receive under the Medicare program is $44,000.
For the rst year for which an EP applies for and receives an
incentive payment, the EHR Reporting Period is 90 days for any continuous period beginning and ending within the year. For every year after the rst payment, the EHR reporting period is the entire year. A qualifying EP can receive an annual incentive payment as high as $18,000 if their rst payment year is 2011 and 2012. Otherwise, the annual incentive payment limits in the rst, second, third, fourth, and fth years are $15,000, $12,000, $8,000, $4,000 and $2,000 respectively. The maximum amount of total incentive payments that an EP can receive under the Medicare program is $44,000. Payment calculations for EPs who rst demonstrate meaningful use in 2014 will be made as if they began meaningful use in 2013. That is, if an EP were to rst demonstrate meaningful use in 2014, the EP would receive $12,000 for that year, the second years amount as if they had begun in 2013. The last year for which an EP can begin receiving incentive payments in this program is 2014. EPs who do not successfully demonstrate meaningful use of certied EHR technology will be subject to payment adjustments for their covered professional services beginning in 2015.
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MEDICARE ELIGIBLE HOSPITALS An eligible hospital for Medicare incentive payments is a hospital that is paid under the hospital inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS). Hospitals must be located in one of the 50 states or the District of Columbia.
2. The Medicare share which has as its numerator Medicare fee-for-service and managed care acute-care inpatient beddays and as it denominator the product of total acute care inpatient days and the percentage of hospitals total charges that are not attributed to charity care; and 3. A transition factor which phases down the incentive payment over the four year period.
CRITICAL ACCESS HOSPITALS (CAHs) A qualifying CAH is a certied critical access hospital that meets the denition of a meaningful EHR user for an eligible hospital.
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The public expects transparency in the reporting of performance at the hospitals where they receive care, and The Joint Commission is shining a light on the top performing hospitals such as Faulkner Hospital that have achieved excellence on a number of vital measures of quality of care, says Mark R. Chassin, MD, FACP, MPP, MPH, President, The Joint Commission. You can read The Joint Commissions annual report on quality and safety here: Improving Americas Hospitals.
There are currently more than 6 million people in the United States that have survived a stroke. To help meet this growing population of individuals, Faulkner Hospital is offering a new season of the Stroke Support Group.
As stroke survivors and caregivers, these individuals have unique stories, needs and interests, many of which surface far after theyve been discharged from the hospital, says Kennis Furuya Bishop, MS/CCC-SLP, Speech-Language Pathologist, who will help lead the Stroke Support Group. By meeting with others who have similar stories, we hope to help people understand that they are not alone in this process. Each month, guest speakers are invited to share from their area of expertise. Faulkner Hospitals Stroke Support Group will be held at Faulkner Hospital (1153 Centre Street, Boston, MA) in Atrium 2 on the second oor and is open to all stroke survivors, family members and friends. Other meetings of Faulkner Hospitals Stroke Support Group will be held on the last Wednesday of each month at 1 pm as follows: Wednesday, November 30, 2011 Wednesday, December 28, 2011 Wednesday, January 25, 2012 Wednesday, February 29, 2012 Wednesday, March 28, 2012 Wednesday, April 25, 2012 Wednesday, May 30, 2012
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high resolution at screen monitors that are mounted directly to a sophisticated support rack that can be independently adjusted to the radiologists height preference. Earlier this year, radiologists also began utilizing a new speech recognition dictation platform called Centricity Precision Reporting (PR), and have added a critical results management application, Alert Notication of Critical Results (ANCR - pronounced anchor). Centricity PR is a highly accurate speech recognition system that has not only cut the waiting time for reports down but has eliminated the costs associated with transcription services. In the past, radiologists would dictate their ndings
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