News Archive

Birnbaum, Thorson Elected to Health District Board (May 2008)

Voters have elected Fort Collins physicians Bernard J. Birnbaum and Steven J. Thorson to the Health District board of directors. Both positions have four-year terms.

A total of 811 people voted in the election, with 1,468 votes cast.

Thorson, 61, is a family physician with the Family Clinic in Fort Collins. He has been a practicing physician in Fort Collins since 1974. Thorson has been a director and/or officer on the boards of the Colorado Academy of Family Physicians, Colorado Medical Society, Larimer Medical Society and COPIC Insurance Company. He lives in Fort Collins, is married and has two grown children.

Birnbaum, 35, is a family physician and faculty member at the Family Medicine Center in Fort Collins, which provides general medical care as well as training for family practice resident physicians. He previously worked for the Indian Health Service in Arizona and has an interest in adolescent health and mental health. He is married with two children and lives in Fort Collins.

The new board members will be sworn in later this month.

The Health District is governed by a five-member board. Members serve staggered, four-year terms and are elected at-large from the community. Elections are held every two years in even-numbered years.

The Health District provides dental, prescription assistance, mental health and preventive health services to residents of northern Larimer County.

Candidates Forum Scheduled for Health District Board of Directors (April 2008)

Candidates for the Health District of Northern Larimer County board of directors will participate in a public forum Monday, April 14, 7 p.m., at the Fort Collins City Council Chambers, 300 W. LaPorte Ave. The forum is free and open to the public. The League of Women Voters of Larimer County will moderate; questions also will be taken from the audience.

All six candidates will be participating in the forum: Steven Main, Elizabeth A. Kelly, Steven J. Thorson, John J. Hanck, Bernard J. Birnbaum and Rich Fisher. They are competing for two open, at-large seats on the Health District board.

The forum will be recorded for later showing on Fort Collins City Cable 14 (Comcast) and channel 45 (U.S. Cable). A schedule is available online at www.healthdistrict.org/election or by calling the Health District at 224-5209.

Election Day for the Health District board of directors is May 6. For more information on the election, including location of polling places, or to request a mail-in ballot, call 224-5209 or visit www.healthdistrict.org/election.

Health District Board Candidates Forum Replay Dates/Times

Thurs., April 17 - 4 p.m.

Fri., April 18 - 7 a.m.

Sat., April 19 - 10 p.m.

Sun., April 20 - 4 p.m.

Mon., April 21 - 9:30 a.m.

Tues., April 22 - 6 a.m.

Wed., April 23 - 6 p.m.

Thurs., April 24 - noon

Fri., April 25 - 2 p.m.

Sat., April 26 - 8 p.m.

Additional replay times may be available. Check www.healthdistrict.org/election for an updated schedule.

The Health District is a public agency that provides dental, mental health, prescription assistance and preventive health services to residents of northern Larimer County.

Program Educates and Supports People With Cancer and Their Families (March 2008)

The Cancer Research and Treatment Center for Poudre Valley Hospital will offer a free 9-week program beginning March 27 that provides education and support for cancer patients and their families.

The program, Sharing the Cancer Journey, will be presented by professionals from the community. Topics will focus on managing effects of the disease; understanding the vital role of communication; helpful hints for eating; information that can help people keep well in mind and body; and radiation oncology and other treatments, including complementary medicine.

The program will be held 6:00pm to 8:00pm on Thursdays, beginning March 27, at Poudre Valley Hospital in the 5th floor conference room. A light meal will be provided. Class size is limited. Call 495-8383 for more information and to register. Friends and family members are encouraged to attend.

Topics:

March 27: Experiencing Cancer Together (begins at 5:30pm).

April 3: Cancer 101: Exploring Cancer & Treatments.

April 10: The Value of Communication.

April 17: Managing the Effects - Helping You Feel Your Best.

April 24: The Ins & Outs of Nutrition.

May 1: Opening a Different Door - Complementary Ideas.

May 8: What Is Radiation Oncology? Ever Visit a Urologist?

May 15: Your Inner Well-Being.

May 22: Celebrating the Journey.

Six Candidates Declare for Health District Board of Directors (March 2008)

Six people have declared their candidacy for the board of directors of the Health District of Northern Larimer County. They will compete for two open seats in an election to be held May 6.

Running are Bernard Birnbaum, 35, family physician; Rich Fisher, 58, environmental consultant; John Hanck, 64, general dentist; Elizabeth Kelly, 50, contract administrator; Steven Main, 53, paramedic and supervisor, Poudre Valley Health System EMS; and Steven Thorson, 61, family physician. All are residents of Fort Collins.

The Health District is governed by a five-person board of directors whose members are publicly elected to alternating four-year terms. Board members are elected at-large by eligible electors in the district, which encompasses the northern two-thirds of Larimer County and includes the cities of Fort Collins, Timnath, LaPorte, Livermore and Wellington. Elections are held every two years.

Voting on May 6 will take place at two polling locations in Fort Collins: the Health District main office, 120 Bristlecone Drive, and Spirit of Joy Lutheran Church, 4501 S. Lemay Ave. (corner of Lemay and Harmony).

To be eligible to vote in the election, a person must be 18, registered to vote in Colorado and a resident of the district for not less than 30 days. Non-district residents also may vote if they or their spouse own taxable real or personal property within the district and are registered to vote in Colorado.

The last day to register to vote in this election is April 7. Anyone wishing to vote by mail-in ballot (formerly called an absentee voter ballot) must request a ballot from the Health District. People can request an application for a mail-in ballot by contacting Judy Robison-Bullard, designated election official for the Health District, at 224-5209 or by e-mail at jrobison@healthdistrict.org. The application for mail-in ballot also can be downloaded from the Health District web site and will be printed in the spring issue of the Health District Compass newsletter mailed to district residents the last week of March.

Applications for mail-in ballots must be signed and returned to the Health District by April 29 for people who want the ballot mailed to them, or by May 2 if they intend to pick it up at the Health District. Applications can be returned to Judy Robison-Bullard by mail to 120 Bristlecone Drive, Fort Collins, CO 80524; by fax at (970) 221-7165; or by e-mail (as a scanned attachment) to jrobison@healthdistrict.org.

The Health District is a public agency that provides dental, mental health, prescription assistance and preventive health services to residents of northern Larimer County.

For more information on the Health District board of directors election, call 224-5209. More election information and a downloadable application for mail-in voter ballot are available at www.healthdistrict.org/election.

PVH Receives National Award for Sustained Nursing Excellence (Feb. 2008)

The American Nurses Association has presented Poudre Valley Hospital with the association's highest award for sustained overall excellence in nursing quality.

The ANA, the professional organization for 2.9 million registered nurses in the U.S., presented PVH with the Award for Outstanding Nursing Quality on January 31 during the association's national conference on National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI).

"Nurses have a history of taking the lead in improving patient care and ensuring patient safety," said ANA president Rebecca M. Patton. "ANA is proud to recognize PVH with this first annual award for nursing quality. The prestigious award reflects PVH's outstanding efforts to maintain nursing excellence," she continued. "The award signifies to the community that PVH maintains high quality nursing care that benefits patients and helps to ensure patient safety."

Kevin Unger, PVH president and CEO, said the award is "well-deserved recognition that our nurses continually make herculean efforts to remain among the best in the nation and provide the best possible patient care."

Craig Luzinski, the chief nursing officer for PVH's 800 registered nurses, said the hospital makes a concerted effort to hire the top nurses in the profession and keep them trained on the most advanced patient care practices. He said nurses are encouraged to be involved in performance and quality improvement efforts, which include identifying, developing and deploying new methods that enhance patient care processes. "Our patients are the ones who benefit," Luzinski said.

The award is based upon an ANA analysis that reviews the overall excellence which a hospital has sustained in nursing-sensitive quality indicators during the previous three years. Here are two examples of indicators at PVH:

One of the national initiatives in health care is to decrease the number of falls that patients have in a hospital. The most common fall occurs when a patient gets out of bed unassisted and goes to the restroom. Three years ago PVH began to develop protocols for inpatient care to address this issue and put into place a number of initiatives to prevent falls and resulting harm.

All patients are regularly accessed, for example, for the potential risk for falling. Patients assessed to be high risk have focused attention and interventions such as continuous video monitoring and mandatory assistance from nurses while in the restroom. The outcome has been a significant decrease in the fall rate and falls resulting in harm to the patient. "Nurses were instrumental in hard-wiring preventive measures into our patient care processes," Luzinski pointed out.

For many years PVH scores on independent job satisfaction surveys taken by registered nurses were higher than many hospitals in the nation.

However, a PVH nursing recruitment and retention committee believed satisfaction could be increased, so the committee and the hospital's human resources department created programs to continually improve the professional work environment; offer career path opportunities within Poudre Valley Health System, which owns and operates PVH; established reward and recognition programs; and enhanced the support that front-line managers provide to the nursing staff.

The efforts improved job retention among nurses. PVH now has one of the nation's lower nurse turnover rates, 6.2 percent. The vacancy rate - the number of nursing job position unfilled at any one time - plummeted to less than 1 percent, also one of the lower percentages in the hospital industry. "Nurses have led the way in creating a PVH work environment where the staff enjoys coming to work each day and offering their best efforts," Luzinski said.