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Fukuda Denshi is a Gold Business Partner
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Facts about May

According to the early Roman calendar, May was the third month. Later, the ancient Romans used january 1 for the beginning of their year, and May became the fifth month. May has always had 31 days.

Several stories are passed around to show how the month of May was named. The most widely accepted explanation is that it was named for Maia, the Roman goddess of spring and growth. Her name related to a Latin word that means increase or growth.

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Upcoming NCHN Calls & Events

Online Evaluation for 2012 Conference
opens April 19
closed May 4
NOTE: If you attended the conference, you should have received a link to the evaluation via email on Thursday, April 19th. If you have lost the link or did not receive it, please email csullenberger@nchn.org
All who complete the evaluation before May 4th will be entered to win a complimentary registration to attend the 19th Annual NCHN Conference in New Orleans.

2012 Annual Conference Planning Committee Close-out Call
Tuesday, May 8 @ 2:00 PM ET

» VIEW THE NCHN CALENDAR

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Fukuda Denshi USA

As of February 15, 2008 NCHN facilities can purchase Fukuda Denshi’s Patient Monitoring Equipment on contract. NCHN facilities can now enjoy greater cost savings when purchasing Fukuda Denshi’s patient monitoring for their ED, OR, ICU/CCU, Med-Surgery, and Step-Down care area. All backed with a 5 year warranty and free 24/7/365 technical support, as well as free clinical and Biomedical Engineering training for the life of the product.

With monitors suited for all care areas, Fukuda Denshi’s patient monitoring provides flexible and reliable OR, transport, bedside, telemetry and central monitoring solutions.

DS-7600 Central Monitor
The DS-7600 Series integrated central monitors provide an ideal solution for both your low and high acuity care areas. Each Central includes the needed features to monitor patient information on up to 16 hardwired or telemetered patients. The small footprint also makes it ideal for busy, crowded central nurses’ stations. With up to 96 hours of full disclosure, built in 3 channel recorder and laser printer interface the DS-7600 Series provides high performance central station capability without the unwanted clutter making it an ideal central station monitor for busy central nursing stations.

LX-5160 & LX-5630 Telemetry
Each of these transmitters are designed for patient comfort and cost effective telemetry monitoring of your Step-Down or Med-Surgery patients. When paired with Fukuda Denshi’s central monitors and with as much as 5 days of monitoring on a single AA battery (3-Days on two AA batteries when SpO2 monitoring is added) these transmitters maintain superior surveillance of your less acute patients.

DS-7100 Portable/Bedside Monitors
Whether mounted on a wall-mount or roll-stand, these monitors provide complete hardwired or telemetered monitoring solutions in care areas where a compact monitor makes more sense. Performance is not sacrificed with the smaller footprint and each monitor can easily be set up to meet a wide range of care area monitoring needs.

DS-7300 Bedside Monitors
The DS-7300 Series OR and bedside patient monitors offer one of the most robust set of standard features to provide easy standardization of your acute care units. Whether in your ICU or CCU these monitors are easily configured to meet your demanding care areas. Adding the optional gas module also makes this an ideal OR monitor.

Contact
Kevin Brown
Phone: 425-233-5234
Email: Kbrown@fukuda.com
Website: www.fukuda.com/index_usa.html

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On the Value of Rural Health Networks
by Terry Hill

April 19, 2012 (On Center: Blog of the National Rural Health Resource Center) - To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, rural communities “will all hang together, or else will all hang separately.” Networks and coops have historically been developed to address rural America’s most persistent problems. Farm coops, for example, were formed to deal with the financial challenges of small farmers during hard economic  times. Electric coops, credit unions, school districts, and various other types of cooperative arrangements have become commonplace in this country, and widely acknowledged as efficient methods of problem solving.

Rural hospitals, clinics and other stakeholders have only recently begun thinking of collaborative ways to solve their most important challenges. Health coops, such as the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative, have been in existence since the late 1970s. Other networks were formed in the 1980s and 1990s, but it has been only recently that network development, partially sparked by rural health network grants funded by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, has  gained momentum. The accepted wisdom now is that most hospitals and clinics are faced with two plausible alternatives: join a larger health system, or join or form a rural health network, governed by its members.

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HRSA Health IT and Quality Webinars

Continuity and Resiliency for Health IT Systems: Preparing for Unforeseen Events
April 27, 2012 @ 2:00 PM ET

Using Health IT for Care Coordination Across Inpatient and Outpatient Settings
May 18, 2012 @ 2:00 PM

» MORE INFORMATION

Rural Health Open Door Forum
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Conference Call: April 24, 2012 | 2:00 - 3:00 PM ET
Dial: 800.837.1935
Conference ID: 52258250

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Webinar: EMS Changes, Challenges and Opportunities under Healthcare Reform
Tritech Software Systems

April 24, 2012 @ 2:00 PM ET

Join Jay Fitch, PhD, of Fitch & Associates and TriTech Product Manager, Dan Voss as they provide both a consultant's and software developer's perspectives of the EMS Changes, Challenges and Opportunities under Healthcare Reform.

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Webinar: EMS Changes, Challenges and Opportunities under Healthcare Reform
Tritech Software Systems

April 24, 2012 @ 2:00 PM ET

Join Jay Fitch, PhD, of Fitch & Associates and TriTech Product Manager, Dan Voss as they provide both a consultant's and software developer's perspectives of the EMS Changes, Challenges and Opportunities under Healthcare Reform.

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Who's Leading the Leading Health Indicators? - Mental Health
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Webinar: April 26, 2012 @ 12:00 PM ET

This 45-minute session will provide an overview of the fourth of 12 Leading Health Indicator (LHI) topics released by the US Department of Health and Human Services. The event will also highlight one program's success preventing suicide attempts.

Series Learning Objectives:
1) To raise awareness of the Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators (LHIs) and actions that can be taken to address them.
2) To examine the context in addressing each LHI topic.
3) To explore how states, communities, and organizations are addressing the LHIs using innovative and evidence-based approaches.

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Rural Wealth Creation: Concepts, Strategies, and Measures
Southern Rural Development Center & USDA ERS

Webinar: May 1, 2012 @ 1:00 PM ET

Based upon a review of relevant literature and data sources, the authors discuss what wealth is in a broad sense, why wealth creation is important for rural development, how it can be created in rural communities, and how its accumulation and effects can be measured.

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HIT Policy Committee Advisory Meeting
HHS

May 2, 2012 | 9:30 AM - 3:30 PM ET
Washington Marriott, Washington, DC

The committee will hear reports from its workgroups, including the Meaningful Use Workgroup, and updates from ONC and other Federal agencies. ONC intends to make background material available to the public no later than two (2) business days prior to the meeting. If ONC is unable to post the background material on its Web site prior to the meeting, it will be made publicly available at the location of the advisory committee meeting, and the background material will be posted on ONC's Web site after the meeting, at http://healthit.hhs.gov. ONC is committed to the orderly conduct of its advisory committee meetings. Please visit our Web site at http://healthit.hhs.gov for procedures on public conduct during advisory committee meetings.

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Take Action: Work Together
County Health Rankings & Roadmaps

Webinar: May 8, 2012 @ 3:00 PM CDT

Communities vary widely, and as a result, community health improvement efforts also vary. In the midst of all this variety is one constant: people working together. With a shared vision and commitment to improved health, working together can yield better results than working alone. Learn about guidance, tools and resources for building and maintaining a diverse, multi-sector team of partners (including business, healthcare, education, government, public health, funders, community leaders/advocates).

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Engaging the Safety Net in Health Care Reform
National Academy for State Health Policy

Webinar: May 9, 2012 @ 3:00 PM ET

This webinar will summarize the deliberations and results of NASHP’s National Workgroup on Integrating a Safety Net into Health Care Reform Implementation. Over the course of nearly a year, this group of state and federal officials, national experts and associations, and safety net systems worked to identify issues and develop policy options, focusing on integrated delivery systems, workforce, and financing. The National Workgroup and this webinar are made possible by a grant from The Commonwealth Fund.

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CMS Announces New Initiative to Bolster Primary Care Workforce

March 21, 2012 (CMS News release) -The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today announced a call for applications for a new Affordable Care Act initiative designed to strengthen primary care in the United States. Under the Graduate Nurse Education Demonstration, CMS will provide hospitals working with nursing schools to train advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) with payments of up to $200 million over four years to cover the costs of APRNs’ clinical training.  

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NRHA keynote’s advice: “We don’t have to wait for Washington”
by Lindsey Corey

April 20, 2012 (Rural Health Voices) - New York Times-bestselling author T.R. Reid gave the keynote address at NRHA’s 35th Annual Rural Health Conference in Denver this week.

Reid, who was a Washington Post foreign correspondent, has written books and articles and created documentaries about health care systems all over the world.

“Every country is struggling with getting young doctors to work out in the country,” he told 900 National Rural Health Association members. “French med students want to work in Paris… Colorado med students want to work in Denver. But Japan pays rural docs the same as if they are practicing in a big city or on a remote little island.”

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National Rural Health Organization Launches Blog

April 23, 2012 (National Rural Health Resource Center Press Release) - The National Rural Health Resource Center (The Center), a nonprofit organization dedicated to sustaining and improving health care in rural communities, is enthusiastically announcing the launch of a new blog, today. 

The new blog, entitled ON CENTER, is intended to be used as a more intimate conversation between The Center and its customers and partners, including critical access and rural hospitals, rural health clinics and federally qualified health center’s (FQHC), State Offices of Rural Health, rural health networks, policy makers, researchers, and other health stakeholders.

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USDA Announces New Farm to School Program to Improve the Health and Nutrition of Kids Receiving School Meals

April 18, 2012 (RAConline.org) - Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan announced today that USDA will be investing in farm to school programs nationwide to help eligible schools improve the health and wellbeing of their students and connect with local agricultural producers. Merrigan joined students at Southern High School to announce the new program that will promote opportunities for nutrition and agriculture education while providing new economic opportunities for food producers of all kinds and communities nationwide. Students at the school displayed and highlighted their farm to school efforts with a tour of the school's greenhouse.

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What one entrepreneur's rise says about the future of medicine
by Matthew Herper

April 18, 2012 (Forbes) - North Kansas City is an unlikely place to launch a revolution in American health care. Yet here, amid the dilapidated grain elevators, fast food joints and vast green plains, the dream of using computers to keep you alive at a reasonable cost is battling onward. In a bunkerlike building built to withstand a direct hit by a category five tornado, 22,000 servers handle 150 million health care transactions a day, roughly one-third of the patient data for the entire U.S. Records of your blood pressure, cholesterol, lab test results, that gallbladder surgery last year—and how much you paid for it—may sit there right now. Armed guards stand watch.

This is a data center at the headquarters of Cerner, the world’s largest stand-alone maker of health IT systems—and company number 1,621 on FORBES’ Global 2000 list—where the blood-and-guts realities of medicine meet the ­sterile speed and exactitude of the computer revolution.

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Competitive bidding found to reduce Medicare waste and fraud on medical devices
by Associated Press

April 18, 2012 (The Washington Post | Business) - A yearlong experiment with competitive bidding for power wheelchairs, diabetic supplies and other personal medical equipment produced $200 million in savings for Medicare, and government officials said Wednesday they are expanding the pilot program in search of even greater dividends.

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Community Health Centers Under Pressure to Improve Care
by Phil Galewitz and Paul Monies

April 17, 2012 (Kaiser Health News) - At Oakhurst Medical Center, just 20 percent of kids have received all their recommended immunizations by age 2.  

Adults don't fare much better at this community health center, which provides primary care to 14,000 mostly poor people in a town famous for its granite monolith and "Confederate Mount Rushmore," just east of Atlanta.  

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Health Care Jobs Will Grow Twice as Fast as General Economy, Study Says

April 17, 2012 (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation | Human Capital Blog) - By 2020, nearly one in nine jobs in the United States will be in the health care sector, according to new research from the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York. The industry is expected to add 4.2 million jobs during that time, growing at twice the rate of the overall economy.

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Telemedicine Can Cut Health Care Costs by 90%
by Vijay Govindarajan

April 23, 2012 (Harvard Business Review | HBR Blog Network) - If you've not yet heard of telemedicine or think that it's not a great way to deliver quality health care, you may want to read this. Telemedicine, made possible by the availability of mobile networks, is revolutionizing health care. But not in the U.S.

You have to look to India, where telemedicine is already widely used in the delivery of health care — and is saving lives even in the most rural corners of the country. It is especially used in peritoneal dialysis (PD), a key treatment option for patients with severe and chronic kidney disease, so-called end-stage renal disease (ESRD)

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Rural Georgia Center Relies on Educators, Electronic Records To Boost Patients' Health
by Phil Galewitz

April 17, 2012 (Kaiser Health News) - At TenderCare Clinic, a community health center here in rural central Georgia, medical assistant Jackie Davis plays a starring role.

Using a phone in a corner of a room reserved for minor surgical procedures, Davis calls parents who are late bringing in kids for immunizations, women behind on getting their annual Pap test and diabetics who have neglected their monthly checkups.

In a nearby office, health education coordinator Pamela Luke intercepts patients after they meet with doctors to advise them about nutrition, set exercise goals and put them through "diabetes school.’"

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Roadmaps to Health Prize
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Purpose: The Roadmaps to Health Prize, part of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute that aims to show what communities can do to create healthier places to live, learn, work, and play, seeks to recognize and honor the efforts and accomplishments of United States communities working at the forefront of population health improvement.

The prize is rooted in the idea that every community is on a unique journey toward better health and that communities' stories of success are as diverse as their populations. Judges will assess each community individually, looking for tangible signs of improvement relative to current health status and available resources.

The program will host a webinar on April 24 from 3-4 p.m. Eastern Time to provide details about the Prize, including the application and selection processes. We encourage anyone having an interest in the prize to participate. Details and registration information are posted at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/373800441. Registration is required. Those not able to attend will be able to view the webinar at their convenience at http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/media-library.

Letter of intent (required) is due by May 31, 2012.

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