Current News

Vermont Business Magazine Dr Esther Sternberg's best-selling book, "Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being" (Harvard University Press) inspired the Susan Sebastian Foundation to install original artwork in virtually every patient room in every hospital in Vermont. The just-completed installation of an estimated 400 works of art will be on permanent display in about 400 inpatient rooms at Vermont's 14 hospitals. This project, which took five years from conception to completion, may be the largest of its kind in any state.

Vermont Business Magazine Governor Peter Shumlin on Monday celebrated a law that establishes dental therapists as a new designation of mid-level providers that will expand access to basic dental care across Vermont. The governor signed the bill into law on June 2. The celebration of the new law was held at Vermont Technical College’s Williston Campus which houses the state’s dental hygiene program and will also create a new program to train dental therapists.

Vermont Business Magazine Becker’s Hospital Review announced Monday that the University of Vermont Health Network - Central Vermont Medical Center (CVMC), based in Berlin, was named to its “100 Great Community Hospitals” list for 2016. The monthly publication is the pre-eminent source of cutting-edge business and legal information for health care industry leaders. The “community hospitals” on the list all have fewer than 550 beds and minimal teaching programs, and are spread across the country. Regardless of their location, Becker’s regards them as a vital part of their respective communities.

CVMC's Waterbury ExpressCare. File photo.

Vermont Business Magazine US Secretary of Education John B King Jr has announced 10 winners in the $200,000 Career and Technical Education (CTE) Makeover Challenge at the Champions of Change for Making event, including Burlington Technical Center (BTC). The Challenge called for high schools to create models for transforming classrooms or other spaces into MakerSpaces - places where students create and learn through making, with access to the tools to design, build and innovate, while acquiring 21st Century career skills.

"Designing a collaborative space for students to create and invent is the intent for our MakerSpace,” Burlington Technical Center Director Tracy Racicot commented. “Bringing innovation to schools and creating a community of learners that identify and solve problems is key in preparing students for their future.”

Vermont Business Magazine New Hospital Safety Scores, which assign A, B, C, D and F letter grades to hospitals nationwide and provide the most complete picture of patient safety in the U.S. health care system, were announced today by The Leapfrog Group, a national patient safety watchdog. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital was one of 798 hospitals to receive an A, ranking among the safest hospitals in the United States.

Vermont Business Magazine Formal groundbreaking will take place Wednesday, June 22, as construction begins on the Jack Byrne Center for Palliative and Hospice Care, an advanced clinical facility to provide integrated, patient- and family-centered care for patients with life-limiting illness and complex medical needs and to strengthen palliative and hospice care region-wide. In March, Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H) Trustees approved construction of the Jack Byrne Center, pending successful fundraising efforts to cover much of the construction costs. Site preparation has been underway since May, and fundraising for both construction of the Center and accompanying programming has gained strong momentum and continues. Plans call for the Center to open in late 2017.

by John McClaughry The mere existence on our planet of the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch drives Sen. Bernie Sanders to torrents of outrage. They, according to Sanders’ imagination, are the secret owners of the Republican Party, the Tea Party (is that still around?), and a long list of organizations opposed to the Sanders agenda, such as the political action group Americans for Prosperity. This is amusing, inasmuch as the Koch brothers, being libertarians, couldn’t possible own the Republican Party that seems to have selected the eminent crony capitalist Donald Trump as its presidential nominee.

Vermont Business Magazine Known to everyone in town as "Deac," the City of Winooski announced today that City Manager Katherine Decarreau will be resigning effective August 1, 2016. Decarreau has accepted a position as Executive Director of Finance and Operations at the Chittenden Central Supervisory Union.

Vermont Business Magazine In Vermont, agriculture adds by far the most phosphorus to Lake Champlain and the EPA wants to cut farm-based sources by more than half under the plan it released on Friday. The EPA wants to cut total phosphorus pollution by about a third. The Otter Creek segment was the chief culprit, closely followed by the Missisquoi Bay segment. The EPA will begin judging Vermont's effort to set up a plan of action to reduce lake pollutants starting as early as the end of this year and issue a final report card by early 2018. The VNRC, for one, does not believe that the state's current rules governing Required Agricultural Practices are strict enough to achieve the EPA's goals.

by Public Assets Institute In May the Vermont labor force increased for the fifth straight month, the best stretch of growth in seven years. The labor force, which includes people work­ing and those actively looking for work, climbed to 345,821, the highest level in 15 months. Employment also rose in May, while unem­ployment dropped.

Vermont Business Magazine The Board of Finance voted unanimously (4-0) last Monday, June 13, to recommend approval of a development agreement for the Burlington Harbor Marina project to City Council for its consideration on June 27. Burlington is the largest city on Lake Champlain but has the ninth largest marina.  The City has had long waiting lists for slips for many years, and the lack of transient mooring options causes the City to turn away many would-be visitors every year.  Expanding the number of boat slips is an important strategy for creating economic opportunity and increasing the use of our waterfront.

by Mike Smith Alcoholism is a terrible disease. Like any disease of this seriousness, it affects not only the alcoholic; it has devastating impacts on family and friends. The lasting impact of the disease, however, is that it steals away so many memories of who that person actually was — or might have been — absent this disease. My father was an alcoholic, and he died at the age of 44. He essentially drank himself to death. It is easy to focus on his disease; after all, the impact on our family was catastrophic. I could talk about the impacts of my father’s alcoholism — how our family’s downward spiral resulted in financial ruin, or how we were torn apart. Many could, and probably have, viewed his life as a failure because he was not able to overcome or control his addiction. And one cannot argue that his full potential was never reached.