Valley Hospital - Page 25 of 36 - THE RIDGEWOOD BLOG.

Posted on October 16, 2015October 16, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

“SPECTRUM FOR LIVING GIVES BACK TO LOCAL HOSPITALS IN HONOR OF BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH”

Breast-Cancer-Awareness-Month-Activities-1

October 15,2015

RIDGEWOOD, NJ In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Hackensack UMC at Pascack Valley and Valley Hospital of Ridgewood welcomed some special individuals from Spectrum for Living to their Breast Care Centers. In support of those receiving treatment for breast cancer, day program attendees from Spectrum for Living delivered handmade cards and good cheer. The cards will be displayed throughout both Breast Centers for the month of October.

This annual visit means a lot to all those who are involved. For several weeks prior to their visit, the day program participants are busy creating the cards and bundling them together. Joe, who attends program at Spectrum’s North Haledon Adult Training Center, said it best when asked why he like to visit every year, “To make someone feel better
and cared for is the most important thing when they are hurting.”

Currently, Spectrum for Living facilities and services touch the lives of individuals with developmental disabilities in over 100 New Jersey communities. Spectrum for Living is one of New Jersey’s most respected and recognized not-for-profit organizations assisting adults with developmental disabilities in Bergen, Passaic, Middlesex and

Monmouth counties. Spectrum provides a wide array of housing, medical, clinical, habilitative, social and educational services to more than 200 residential consumers and hundreds of community clients.

Posted on October 13, 2015October 13, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

Ridgewood Planning Board accelerates master plan reexamination

OCTOBER 12, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2015, 9:41 AM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

With just a few months remaining to complete and adopt its state-mandated master plan reexamination report, village officials acknowledged the need to accelerate the process and tackled its next subject at last Tuesday’s Planning Board meeting.

The master plan reexamination report, which is an evaluation of a municipality’s master plan and its development regulations, is required to be undertaken by the Planning Board at least every 10 years. Ridgewood’s reexamination report is due in early February 2016.

With Planning Board meetings often dominated by higher-profile topics, such as the multifamily housing hearings, which wrapped in June, the reexamination has appeared sparingly on board agendas this year.

Village Planner Blais Brancheau expressed his opinion to the board that, due to the compressed timeframe, a “minimum requirement” examination be completed to satisfy state requirements before delving in depth into the numerous issues that need to be addressed.

“I think it’s important we get this adopted,” Brancheau said. “It’s not intended to limit discussion. We can continue discussion once we’ve adopted the reexamination. In fact, it’s my personal feeling a number of sections of the master plan really should be updated and we’ll get into that more as we move forward.”

If Ridgewood fails to meet the state’s deadline, it will be opened up to possible exposure in a legal challenge involving the village’s regulations.

In litigation, a village’s regulations are presumed valid and the litigant bears the burden of proof to show otherwise. Without a properly adopted reexamination report, the burden shifts to the village, said Brancheau.

Chairman Charles Nalbantian asked if the board could simply note, as part of the reexamination report, where the areas in the master plan are that warrant in-depth work.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/board-accelerates-reexam-process-1.1430654

Posted on October 6, 2015October 6, 2015 by James — 4 Comments

Reader says the Village Council had Tinkered with Ordinance 3066

May 2015, the Village Council tinkered with it and sent it to the Planning Board for comment, the Planning Board liked the tinkering. I don’t know whether the Village Council adopted the changes yet or not.

“Board member David Thurston asked if the new language opened up the board to a charge of making an arbitrary decision if it decides not to move forward with an application.
Village Planner Blais Brancheau said it should not be a problem in obvious cases,…..”

I am sure anyone who makes an application, particularly a big developer, will not regard their application as one that should obviously be turned down. We need to do what other towns do, not have such an ordinance.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/changes-in-store-for-controversial-village-ordinance-1.1335079?page=all

https://www.northjersey.com/news/plannerson-board-with-new-changes-1.1340532

Posted on September 2, 2015September 2, 2015 by James — 6 Comments

Driver Transported to Valley Hospital after collision with Utility Pole

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photo courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook page

Driver Transported to Valley Hospital after collision with Utility Pole
September 02,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Glen Rock NJ, The adult male driver of a Ford Expedition was transported by ambulance to The Valley Hospital following an 11:45 AM crash into a utility pole at the intersection of Glen and South Maple Avenues in Glen Rock on Tuesday, 09/01. The victim’s injuries were reported to be non-life threatening in nature. A juvenile female passenger was uninjured in the mishap.

A traffic control sign was downed in the crash; there was minimal damage to the utility pole and no utility service outages resulted from the incident. Glen Rock PD and EMS responded to the crash. The vehicle was removed by a flatbed tow truck. Traffic on Maple Avenue northbound was rerouted at Rodney Street until the scene was cleared.

Posted on August 31, 2015August 31, 2015 by James — 5 Comments

Valley’s Cardiac Surgery Program in the Top 1.2 Percent Nationally

August 31,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood bog

Ridgewood NJ, Valley Hospital recognized for top quality in bypass, aortic valve surgery, and combined procedure:

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons has once again recognized The Valley Hospital’s cardiac surgery program with a three-star rating – its highest designation of quality and clinical excellence. Of note, the program has been awarded a total of three (3) three-star ratings, an extremely rare distinction that puts Valley in the top 1.2 percent of hospitals nationwide.

This current designation recognizes Valley’s excellence in:

· coronary artery bypass surgery (from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014);
· aortic valve replacement surgery (from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2014); and
· performing a combination of the two procedures (from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2014).

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) conferred this designation as part of a comprehensive rating system that compares the quality of cardiac surgery among hospitals across the country. Valley’s current STS designation of three-star ratings in all three categories has been achieved by only 1.2 percent of hospitals nationwide.

“Very few cardiac surgery programs have the privilege of receiving a distinctive triple three-star rating conferred by our peers in heart surgery,” says Alex Zapolanski, M.D., Director of Cardiac Surgery at Valley. “This gold standard of quality care and clinical excellence is important to our patients and their families in their decision-making process of where to undergo the highest quality cardiac surgery.”

Valley is an affiliate of the Cleveland Clinic’s Heart & Vascular Institute. To learn more about Valley’s cardiac surgery services or to view the latest Cardiac Surgery Outcomes Report, visitwww.valleyheartandvascular.com.

Posted on August 28, 2015August 28, 2015 by James — Leave a comment

Valley Hospital using EMT house calls to cut down on readmissions

AUGUST 27, 2015, 9:39 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2015, 11:07 PM
BY MARY JO LAYTON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

An ambulance crew dispatched from The Valley Hospital headed out to a Ridgewood home, sirens silenced and the rig moving at normal speed. They were making a house call.

The patient was a 79-year-old man recovering from heart surgery, one of a select group the hospital has targeted in the last year to prevent costly readmissions and provide better care by delivering treatment to the front door.

The Valley team has made 34 such visits, arriving quietly and parking a discreet distance from a patient’s house to prevent panic at home or on the block. Only one patient had to be readmitted, a success rate that has encouraged officials to expand the service, said Lafe Bush, a paramedic and director of emergency services at Valley.

Dispatching the emergency crews is one of the more innovative and cost-effective strategies developed by hospitals across the state to cover critical gaps in treatment that result in readmissions and costly fines, experts said.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/valley-hospital-using-emt-house-calls-to-cut-down-on-readmissions-1.1399739

Posted on August 16, 2015August 16, 2015 by James — 1 Comment

Dying woman sues her New Jersey doctors for using a hysterectomy device that the FDA says can spread cancer

BY ASHLEY LEWIS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, August 14, 2015, 6:08 PM

A 43-year-old New Jersey mother is lying on her death bed, her body racked with cancer a year after she underwent a hysterectomy, and she’s blaming her doctor for using a controversial device in the procedure.

Viviana Ruscitto is suing her oncologist, Dr. Howard Jones, for malpractice, alleging he used a device that she blames for spreading cancer cells in her uterus throughout her internal organs.

“My sister’s prognosis is poor, and I do not know how much longer she can continue fighting this cancer,” Mirian Riviera told a judge last week in a sworn statement.

Ruscitto had a minimally invasive hysterectomy performed in October 2014 to remove a large fibroid in her uterus at The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, N.J.,The Record reported.

Jones used a controversial surgical tool, a power morcellator, to cut and tear tissue so it could be removed from her body.

The device was approved to remove uterine fibroids in 1991 because the small incisions from morcellation helped patients recover quicker and easier.

The device has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years, however, and in April 2014 the FDA released a safety alert against morcellators, acknowledging that the device can spread undetected cancer cells.

The agency said some of the minced undetected cancerous tissue fragments could be left behind in the abdominal cavity and spread to other parts of the body.

The government discouraged doctors from using the morcellators and encouraged professionals to discuss the risks and benefits with their patients.

The device’s largest manufacturer, Ethicon, a division of Johnson & Johnson, promptly pulled the morcellator off the market.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-sues-doctors-controversial-hysterectomy-device-article-1.2326455

Posted on August 6, 2015August 5, 2015 by James — 2 Comments

Medicare cuts funds from N.J. hospitals

AUGUST 4, 2015, 11:10 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2015, 12:09 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD

Nearly every hospital in New Jersey is being penalized by the federal government because too many Medicare patients had to be readmitted within a month of their discharge — the highest percentage of hospitals penalized in the 50 states.

The cuts — of up to 2.49 percent of a hospital’s Medicare payments — total $23 million for the state, the New Jersey Hospital Association estimated. It is the second year in a row that nearly every hospital was penalized, except for a handful that are exempted.

Only Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus received no penalty.

Medicare, the health care program for those over 65, provides more than $3 billion annually to New Jersey hospitals, making it the single largest source of their revenue and a huge influence on hospital policies. This is the fourth year that payments from the government program have been tied to readmissions, in an effort to reward the quality rather than the quantity of hospital care.

Fourteen New Jersey hospitals will see cuts of more than 1 percent to their Medicare reimbursements beginning in October, including three in North Jersey: Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson and The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. Their patients returned at higher-than-expected rates after being treated for pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, heart attack, heart failure, and knee or hip replacements, the five conditions measured.

Nationwide, about one in five patients treated for those conditions returned to the hospital within a month.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/medicare-cuts-funds-from-n-j-hospitals-1.1386123

Posted on August 4, 2015August 3, 2015 by James — 4 Comments

Pascack Valley hospital seeks Approval to Expand ER

Pascack Valley hospital in Westwood seeks to move ER

JULY 2, 2015 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2015, 12:30 AM
BY SARAH NOLAN
MANAGING EDITOR |
PASCACK VALLEY COMMUNITY LIFE

Two years after reopening its doors as Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) at Pascack Valley, the hospital is before the Westwood Planning Board with an application to relocate its emergency room.

During a June 25 public hearing, hospital chief executive officer (CEO) Emily Holliman said the updates are part of HUMC at Pascack Valley’s “long-range plan to expand,” and will include relocating the emergency department from the rear of the building, to the front, which she said will “provide for a much-enhanced department for patients” with better access.

The plans also call for dedicated, separate entrances for emergency medical vehicles and walk-in patients or visitors, a security vestibule and bereavement room, as well as a drop-off area for patients or visitors, and continued valet parking, a service the hospital currently offers.

The new location will essentially double the square footage of the emergency department to 22,000 square feet, Holliman said, and provide 25 private patient rooms, including five pediatric treatment rooms, which the hospital does not currently have.

It will allow for direct access to several other departments, from the emergency department, improving the flow of the department.

Holliman said that while the hospital currently sees six or seven inbound ambulances per 24 hours, she anticipates with the new department it will be able to handle 14 a day, and double annual Emergency Room visits from 18,000 a year to 37,000. The new emergency department will be located in an area of the hospital that is not currently being utilized – the old obstetrics unit, Holliman said.

“This new department will allow us to grow and expand in the future and continue to provide high quality, efficient service,” she said.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/hospital-seeks-to-move-er-1.1366722

Posted on August 3, 2015August 3, 2015 by James — 9 Comments

Reader says Valley has become more of a Liability to this town than an asset

I really hope the mediator that has been appointed in the Valley lawsuit concludes that Valley, through their own doing over the years, has become much more of a liability to this town and it’s residents than an asset. Nice to have it, but in no way really needed, especially when you factor in their ridiculous expansion plans, as well as their attitude towards the financial obligations they should have operating in a town that has helped make them extremely profitable. Make a ton of money and don’t pay taxes on a good portion of your assets. What a gig.

Posted on August 2, 2015January 21, 2019 by James — 1 Comment

Washington Twp man fished out of the back yard pool durring cardiac arrest

Washington Twp man , Washington Twp NJ, back yard pool , cardiac arrest

photo courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook page

Washington Twp man fished out of the back yard pool durring cardiac arrest

August 2,2015

the staff of the Ridgewood blogWashington Twp NJ, The Washington Township Police Department received a frantic 911 telephone call at approximately 1:50 PM on Saturday, 08/01 from a woman who reported finding her husband on the bottom of their back yard pool.

Local police and ambulance personnel, along with a nearby paramedic unit, responded to the location where they found the victim in full cardiac arrest.. He was transported by an ambulance with a police escort to The Valley Hospital, Ridgewood. Washington Township Police were assisted by the Washington Township Volunteer Ambulance Corps and a paramedic unit from The Valley Hospital.

Posted on July 31, 2015April 9, 2020 by James — 5 Comments

Valley lawsuit is troubling

JULY 31, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2015, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

Wealth shouldn’t determine future of community

To the Editor:

The litigation with Valley Hospital over its $780 million expansion plan is in the news again. I’m having a lot of trouble trying to reconcile Valley’s position with my understanding of what democracy is all about. I thought the people in the village, through elected officials, determine the nature of the village. We have established a master plan that presumably gives guidelines of a general nature about the village, such as defining ourselves as a residential community as opposed to, say, a home for heavy industry like the oil refineries that we see from the NJ Turnpike. We also have zoning specifying the maximum height of buildings, etc. All these plans and regulations were established by officials elected by the citizens of Ridgewood.

Now along comes Valley who seems to be saying: “Your master plan and zoning regulations are restricting our expansionary vision. Change your regulations!” Valley has been here for a long time, and it certainly knew our regulations when it decided to build and operate in Ridgewood, but now it has decided it wants to change the regulations established by the citizens of Ridgewood. Hmm. I know a number of people who have settled in Ridgewood because they like the community as it is, its ambiance, its schools, its zoning and other regulations. If we now give in to Valley, have we not abandoned an implicit trust?

The Valley litigation says to me democracy is not about the majority of citizens deciding on our regulations. No, instead it says to me it’s about wealth deciding the fate of the community. Valley, with its $780 million allocated for expansion (where did a non-profit, suburban hospital get $780 million anyway?), can out-litigate the Village of Ridgewood simply because the village doesn’t have Valley’s budget of discretionary funds. This is democracy?

Martin Cohen

Ridgewood

https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-letters-to-the-editor/letter-to-the-editor-valley-lawsuit-is-troubling-1.1384024

Posted on July 21, 2015January 21, 2019 by James — Leave a comment

US News and World Report Rates Valley Hospital Number 15 in New Jersey

Ridgewood NJ, U.S. News and World Report sifted through data for nearly 5,000 hospitals and results from surveys of more than 140,000 physicians to rank the best centers in 16 adult specialties from cancer to urology, according to the publication

Death rates, patient safety and hospital reputation were a few of factors considered. Only 137 hospitals were nationally ranked in a specialty.

Here is the list for New Jersey:

1. Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack

Bed Count: 685