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The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has certified Green Mountain Psychiatric Care Center as an approved provider. GMPCC received a Notice of Decision on March 20, 2014, that the temporary, eight bed, state-run hospital in Morrisville has been accepted as an approved CMS provider.
This milestone allows a State of Vermont psychiatric hospital to be a participating CMS provider, thereby eligible for federal funding,
for the first time since 2003.
This CMS notification decision carries an effective date of March 7, 2014, for the small hospital. The certification follows two on-site surveys, one in December 2013 assessing standards applied to all hospitals, and one in February of this year that assessed standards for psychiatric hospitals.

Related Company: Vermont Hard Cider Company, LLCOne of America’s original craft ciders is once again “going pink” to support an important community organization. Last year, the Vermont Hard Cider Company, makers of Woodchuck Hard Cider, unveiled the newest addition to their Private Reserve Line, Woodchuck Pink. This cider was created to honor and support the work of Survivorship NOW, a Vermont-based nonprofit organization dedicated to offering wellness programs to cancer survivors. Along with a pink label that incorporates the Survivorship NOW logo, Woodchuck Pink Cider is naturally colored with grape skins to give it a pink hue.
Although Woodchuck Hard Cider has grown from a two car garage into a national brand, it works to remains true to its roots, and operates under the credo, “Good people, doing good things, in a good way.”

NMC’s Diagnostic Imaging Department recently received ACR accreditation for its Magnetic Resonance Imaging program --- a medical imaging procedure that uses a magnetic field and pulses of radio wave energy to make pictures of the body’s organs and structures. This adds to the department’s accreditations already received in CT, Mammography and Ultrasound.
Lead MRI Technologist Erica Finnegan talks with a patient in NMC’s MRI suite. Photo courtesy of Northwestern Medical Center.
The MRI team, led by Erica Finnegan RT(R)(CT)(MR), Lead MRI Technologist, worked tirelessly to assure that all standards required by the ACR were met in full and in some cases, exceeded the standards set by the ACR. "ACR Accreditation is voluntary, but we felt it necessary because Northwestern Medical Center always puts the patient first. This accreditation assures the community that we are committed to providing the best patient care and image quality possible," says Erica.

by Patrick and Marcelle Leahy It’s uncomfortable, though not as much as most of us fear. The preparation the day before is unpleasant. I don’t have time for this, we think to ourselves. I don’t want to think about this. These are all excuses some people might give when told it’s time to schedule a colon cancer screening, such as a colonoscopy. But by putting it off, you could be risking your life. And if you think a colonoscopy might be uncomfortable, unpleasant or time-consuming, consider the implications of colon cancer, and think again.
March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, and colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosed in the United States. This year, nearly 137,000 people will be diagnosed with it. Worse, more than 50,000 people will die from it. In Vermont this year, 290 new cases of colorectal cancer are expected, and 100 deaths.

A gift of $10 million to Dartmouth-Hitchcock (D-H) will be used to create an advanced clinical facility to provide integrated, patient and family-centered care for patients with life-threatening illness and complex medical needs.
The Center for Palliative and Hospice Care will combine the latest thinking and techniques to advance interdisciplinary patient and family-centered, care, while offering unprecedented opportunities for teaching, training, and research for health care providers and clinicians in training from across the country.
The $10 million gift, the largest in Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s history, has been made anonymously. It will be used to establish a 12-bed Center, intended to fill a growing need for specialized care for seriously ill people whose pain or other medical needs are difficult to manage at home or in a nursing home.

by Kate Robinson vtdigger.org A patient’s medical records used to be more or less a closed book. The large, sometimes inches-thick file sitting on the counter in the examination room, which the doctor might refer to but did not discuss with the patient, is a thing of the past.

An overnight fire in Burlington has forced residents of a 131 Elmwood Avenue apartment building from their homes, leaving some to wonder what’s next. The building has four units, three of which were occupied.
Throughout the day, volunteers with our Chittenden County Disaster Action Team have met with the residents of two of the impacted units, one of which took the brunt of the blaze. The residents of a second apartment are unable to return at this time due to smoke damage and the fact that power to the building remains cut off. In each instance, our volunteers have made arrangements for temporary lodging for the residents, including the pet that lived with the couple residing in one of the units. In addition, financial support was provided for food, clothing, shoes and seasonal garments as appropriate. Referrals to additional avenues of support, whether that be state or non-profit resources, were also shared.

North Country Hospital Medical Staff President, Dr. Jennifer Ladd, delivered several boxes of food and well over $2,300 last week to the NEKCA food shelf from a month long effort.
"The medical staff wanted to donate to the community and decided to give food and money to the local NEKCA food shelf," she said.
Accepting the donation is April Mead of NEKCA. She commented how grateful NEKCA is to receive this donation, as this time of year the shelves are very much depleted.
Photo courtesy of North Country Hospital
Source: North Country Hospital

Governor Peter Shumlin announced today that he will appoint his Secretary of Civil and Military Affairs Louis Porter to replace Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Patrick Berry when Berry leaves his post in May.
Louis Porter, right, with Governor Shumlin in 2012. vtdigger file photo.
Berry, who has been the head of Fish & Wildlife for the length of the Shumlin administration, is leaving to work for the Vermont Community Foundation as Vice President for Philanthropy near his East Middlebury home.
"It has been the greatest honor of my career to serve as commissioner of the department," Berry said. "I am humbled by the commitment of the staff and their tireless efforts to protect and conserve Vermont’s fish, wildlife, and plant resources."

US Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) Monday recommended Vermont Supreme Court Justice Geoffrey Crawford to President Obama, to be the next judge on Vermont’s US District Court. He was appointed to Vermont's highest court last September.
Justice Crawford was one of two finalists suggested by the nine-member, nonpartisan Vermont Judicial Nominating Commission, to fill the upcoming vacancy on the court when Judge William Sessions takes senior status. Leahy interviewed the finalists in Vermont earlier this month.
Leahy said, “Justice Crawford is an experienced and well-respected jurist. In the finest Vermont tradition, he is known for his modesty and humanity, for his warmth, for his pragmatism, and for his unwavering commitment to the highest standards of public service.”

Related Company: Saint Michael's CollegeThis year’s commencement at Saint Michael’s will be an immersive experience. The college is proud to announce that Dr Sylvia A Earle, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and world-renowned oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer, will be the guest speaker at the 2014 Commencement exercises on Sunday, May 11 at the Ross Sports Center starting at 10 am.

The state of Vermont ranks fifth nationwide in statewide graduation rates for its four-year public higher education institutions. The state also ranks fifth when students who begin school at a Vermont four-year public university or college but graduate elsewhere are taken into account.
The data was compiled by the National Student Clearinghouse and tracks six-year graduation rates in every state.
In Vermont 73.9 percent of students who began college in 2007 graduated in 2013, 61.5 percent from their original institution and 12.4 percent from a different school.
The University of Vermont’s six-year graduation rate is 76 percent (not including students who start at the university but graduated elsewhere), 18 percentage points higher than the national average for U.S. public doctoral/research universities. Its four-year rate of 65 percent is 36 percentage points higher than the average in that category.
Source: University Communications, March 24, 2014.