Month: December 2012

YMCA Good Works Programs. 50/50 Raffle Tickets on Sale

Proceeds from ticket sales to benefit the Ridgewood YMCA Good Works Programs. Tickets are $20 each and one lucky winner will receive 50% of the proceeds generated from ticket sales.

The raffle drawing will be held on Friday, december 21 at 10am at the Ridgewood Y and participants do not need to be present to win.

To purchase a ticket, please contact Gary Imhoff at 201-444-5600 x313 or email gimhoff@ridgewoodymca.org.

Tickets are also available from the Ridgewood YMCA, located at 112 Oak Street in Ridgewood.

PURCHASE A HANDSOME RIDGEWOOD ORNAMENT AND SUPPORT RHS CHOIRS

Help the RHS Choir secure a new Music Library System by purchasing a unique RHS ornament, available through the choir, or at North Jersey Community Bank (E. Ridgewood Avenue), Folly Flowers & Joy ( N. Broad Street, lower level), or Lucy Rieger (lucy@libraryupdate.com).

Valley Awarded Elite Distinction as a 2012 Leapfrog Top Hospital

December 4, 2012 – The Valley Hospital is proud to once again be included on The Leapfrog Group’s prestigious annual list of Top Hospitals. The class of top hospitals – 89 hospitals from a field of nearly 1,200 – was announced today. Valley has been included on Leapfrog’s Top Hospital list five times, and is one of only three New Jersey hospitals to be included on the list this year.

“We are honored to once again be among the best hospitals in the country for quality and patient safety standards, “said Audrey Meyers, President and CEO of Valley Health System and The Valley Hospital. “Valley has made patient safety a priority, and our staff has worked diligently over the past several years to implement many successful quality and patient safety initiatives.”

The selection is based on the results of the Leapfrog Group’s annual hospital survey, which measures hospitals’ performance on patient safety and quality, focusing on three critical areas of hospital care: how patients fare, resource use, and management structures in place to prevent errors. The results of the survey are posted at on a website www.leapfroggroup.org/cp.

As a 2012 Top Hospital, The Valley Hospital met the standards for safe, high quality care in several areas including:
• A hospital must fully meet Leapfrog’s standard for Preventing Medication Errors through the use of Computerized Physician Order Entry
• A hospital must fully meet Leapfrog’s standard for ICU Physician Staffing
• A hospital must fully meet Leapfrog’s standards for high-risk surgeries and procedures
• Hospitals eligible for a Hospital Safety Score must receive an A on the letter grades publicly reported at the time of the Top Hospital public announcement.

“The Leapfrog Top Hospital distinction is by far the most competitive award a hospital can receive,” said Leah Binder, President and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “Leapfrog holds hospitals to the highest standards on behalf of our purchaser members and their employees. By achieving the Top Hospital accolade, The Valley Hospital has demonstrated exemplary

performance across all areas of quality and patient safety that are analyzed on the Leapfrog Hospital Survey. This hospital stands out as one consistently providing safe, high quality care, and I would be comfortable sending my family to Valley for care.”

The Valley Hospital was selected as a Top Hospital out of nearly 1,200 hospitals participating in The Leapfrog Group’s annual survey.

Appeals Court OKs reopening of Pascack Valley Hospital
December 4, 2012
The Staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, A state appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling to allow the reopening of Pascack Valley Hospital that closed after seeking bankruptcy protection in 2007.

The 128-bed facility in Westwood, was taken over by Hackensack University Medical Center who has been seeking to reopen it.

The application had been opposed by competitors The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center. Who argued that reopening the Pascack Valley facility would cause financial harm to existing hospitals.

In February, Health and Senior Services Commissioner Mary O’Dowd approved Hackensack’s application for Pascack Valley Hospital. In its opinion Tuesday, the appeals court upheld O’Dowd’s decision and wrote that the benefits of reopening the hospital outweighed the competitive concerns.

Study Foresees Shortage of Primary-Care Doctors

Reasons include medical students pursuing specialties, older physicians retiring

December 4, 2012 RSS Feed Print

By Denise Mann
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Dec. 4 (HealthDay News) — Fewer medical students are choosing careers in primary care, and instead are opting to become specialists, a new study found.

The study, which appears in the medical-education-themed Dec. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, fuels concerns that there will be a shortage of primary-care doctors available when patients need them most.

Researchers surveyed internal medicine residents about their career plans. Of nearly 17,000 third-year residents, only 21.5 percent were planning on a career as an internal medicine doctor. This included about 40 percent of students in a primary-care residency program and about 20 percent of those in a categorical residency program. These are two different tracks available within an internal medicine residency program.

Women were more likely to choose internal medicine than men, and U.S. medical school graduates were slightly more likely to opt for a career in internal medicine than international graduates, the study showed.

“This is worrisome,” said study author Dr. Colin West, an internist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “In the next decade, we will be 50,000 primary-care physicians short for the needs of the country.”

https://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/12/04/study-foresees-shortage-of-primary-care-doctors

Is the U.S. Postal Service the Next Greece?

Postmaster General Likens Agency to Worst of European Fiscal Crisis

Washington, D.C., December 4, 2012—Concerns over the perilous financial condition of the U.S. Postal Service have caused observers, including its own Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, to compare the agency’s prospects to the spiraling economic crisis in Greece. While the scope of the problem warrants the comparison and their finances are unsustainable in the absence of genuine reform, the Postal Service’s reaction to its own bleak budgetary prospects offers some encouragement, according to a new study from the Tax Foundation.

“Although the postmaster general has made the Greek analogy only a few times in passing, the topic is worth considering in more detail,” said Tax Foundation fellow Michael Schuyler. “Greece’s disastrous experience holds valuable lessons, applicable to the Postal Service, regarding the dangers of large and persistent deficits and the desirability of addressing financial problems sooner rather than later.”

Even without the postmaster general’s comments, the Greek analogy would have come to mind on August 1, when the Service defaulted on a legally required $5.5 billion contribution to the Retiree Health Benefits Fund. The Service also maxed out its credit line at the U.S. Treasury in September, reaching its statutory borrowing limit of $15 billion. It has warned that it will be perilously short of cash throughout 2013, meaning that if receipts are even slightly below expectations or costs above, it may be unable to pay workers and suppliers promptly and in full. Thankfully, the Postal Service’s problems are less serious and easier to solve than Greece’s.

“Postmaster General Donahoe used the Greek analogy to help people understand the peril to mail users if the Postal Service were to resist the operational changes needed to control its costs,” said Schuyler. “Although some of the Service’s proposals are open to criticism, it is to be praised for firmly rejecting the Greek approach and, instead, attempting proactively to return to financial self-sufficiency.”

Tax Foundation Special Report No. 206, “Is the Postal Service Like Greece?” by Michael Schuyler, Ph.D. is available here.

The Tax Foundation is a nonpartisan research organization that has monitored fiscal policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937. To schedule an interview, please contact Richard Morrison, the Tax Foundation’s Manager of Communications, at 202-464-5102 or morrison@taxfoundation.org.

Photo by Boyd Loving

In Ridgewood We Wrestle Bears We dont Hunt Them

Bear Wrestling is a way of life 

December 4,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ , Today marks the second day of New Jersey’s yearly black bear hunt. The hunt began yesterday morning, with hunters killing 122 bears.

The hunt runs until sunset Saturday, concurrent with the firearm deer hunting season, in an area north of Interstate 78 and west of Interstate 287.The hunt aims to control the state’s black bear population, now estimated at about 2,900 in the hunting area, about 500 fewer than in 2010.

Environmental Protection Department biologists expect a harvest similar to last year’s, when 469 bears were killed.

In Ridgewood we don’t hunt bears we wrestle them . No bears are hurt during the matches and our former mayor Keith Killion though retired is still the world title holder.