Faculty members guided small groups throughout the 130,000-square-foot facility’s three floors, giving them a look at areas for such disciplines as radiography, surgical technology, dental assisting, massage therapy, phlebotomy and nursing.

The design was influenced by a brainstorming session that involved students, faculty, administrators, community members and administrators of local medical facilities, said Clayton Haldeman of Kluber Architects and Engineers.

“We think the result has been spectacular,” he said.

The $41 million U-shaped building opened to students in January, six months ahead of schedule, ECC officials said. It was funded by the $178 million referendum voters approved in 2009.

Although ECC now has more space for its health and life sciences programs, the college has not been able to accept more students in the programs because it is limited by the number of clinical spots in the community, said Wendy Miller, the college’s dean of health professions.

However, she said, the building will let the college develop new certificate programs in the areas of diagnostic imaging, spa therapy and sterile processing.

Miller and other faculty members described their old facilities and equipment as dated and unprofessional.

“It was a makeshift area,” Miller said. Although she said that of the massage therapy area, several others used that description for their former resources.

Standing in a room equipped with new tools and furniture, Kim Plate, the dental assisting program director, said her department has scrapbooks of photographs showing 1960s-era equipment that her students were using in recent years.

“This brought us into the current technology,” Plate said.

With all the college’s health-related programs in one building, Miller said, instructors can take an interdisciplinary approach to teaching.

For example, nursing students tending to a mannequin with lung problems could refer the patient to other students who could address the problem.

So far, Miller said, students are responding well to the new building. With study areas available throughout the facility, more are staying on campus after their classes.

By ASHLEY RHODEBECK – arhodebeck@shawmedia.com

Updated: Friday, March 16, 2012 10:31 a.m. CDT

The need for a new chair arose from several requirements which were not being addressed by existing donation beds, for example the provision of a supported recovery position (to assist the few donors who feel unwell during the process), which is different from the blood donating position. In addition, products now need to conform to a gold standard clinical pathway for blood donation within the NHS.

After spending three years unsuccessfully attempting to address the issue through conventional procurement, the NHSBT realised that only design innovation could address this identified unmet need, and approached the NHS National Innovation Centre (NIC) in a pre-commercial procurement process.
Three design consultancies tendered their concepts to the NIC, two of which were progressed to proof-of-principle prototypes and tested by NHSBT. Renfrew Group International’s winning Donation Chair design is currently undergoing national trials.

NIC’s pre-commercial procurement process represents an innovation in the procurement process and a breakthrough in competitive tendering. For the first time a comparative quotation scenario exists that is supported and controlled by the procurement team. Potential manufacturers also benefit by receiving clear product specifications and the removal of the necessity to design and develop products themselves in isolation, resulting in optimal cost savings. The procurement process won an HSJ award last November.

Read more: http://www.dexigner.com/news/24655#ixzz1pUzlS7oR

What if every time a practitioner used an electronic medical record system to order a procedure or test for a patient, an electronic shopping cart appeared, indicating how much that “purchase” would cost? What if at the end of the day the practitioner received a statement indicating precisely how much money he or she had ordered to be spent on behalf of patients? What would happen? Would anybody care? Some evidence suggests that providing this type of information to physicians may be helpful. For instance, in a study at one hospital, following the initiation of a weekly announcement informing the surgical house staff and attending physicians of the actual dollar amount charged to non–intensive care patients for laboratory services (ie, daily phlebotomy) ordered during the previous week, there were reductions in daily per-patient charges for laboratory services, with estimated cost savings of more than $50 000 over the course of the 11-week intervention.

As Austin Frakt points out , the health reform law’s Accountable Care Organizations should give providers a reason to care: The goal there is to provide higher quality care at a lower cost, with incentives for providers to spend less. But as the study Brook cites suggests, simply presenting data on prices — without restructuring the payment system — could have an impact on its own.

 

Posted by Sarah Kliff at 10:53 AM ET, 02/22/2012

New York state will be providing $291,858 in grants to the county’s Department of Social Services  for education, training and subsidized job placements for eligible residents within the industries of health care, green jobs and customer service.

The health care industry offers employment opportunities in skilled nursing, direct patient care, phlebotomy and EKG.

The green jobs sector includes retrofitting, weatherization and office positions. In addition to job skills training, trainees will receive additional supportive services to include case management, child care and job development leading to placement.

County officials said this latest round of grant funding brings the total amount New York state has awarded to Nassau County to $1.85 million for employment training and placement initiatives since January 2010.

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Several former students and employees of a San Francisco Bay area nursing school that was shut down by state regulators are suing the institution.