Jean & Stephen Szilagyi are honored!

On July 8, 2008 the Ambassador of the Ukraine, Oleh Shamshur, presented Dr. Stephen Szilagyi with the order “For Merits” III degree, awarded by the President of Ukraine for significant personal contribution to the strengthening of Ukraine’s authority in the world, promotion of its history and cultural heritage.

Dr. Szilagyi is founder and Executive Director of SARA (Sharing America's Resources Abroad) – a non-profit organization which has been supplying medical equipment and expertise to Ukraine.
Stephen Szilagyi assists physicians from Ukraine to come to the United States to receive additional medical and surgical training to provide improved health care in hospitals back in Ukraine. He has been very active in helping to establish long-term cooperation between the medical institutions of the two countries.

Dr. Szilagyi's wife and partner in SARA is our very own Jean Szilagyi, adjunct instructor for Long-Term Care Laws & Regulations. Jean is also a graduate of SJC! We are very proud of their efforts to bring health care services to areas of the world in which they are not otherwise available. It is an honor to be associated with them.

Long Term Care Educator Receives National Award

Reston, VA, June 8, 2008 – John R. Pratt, FACHCA, professor of Health Administration at Saint Joseph’s College in Standish, Maine and Director of the Long-Term Care Management Institute at the College, was honored with the 2008 Education Award by the American College of Health Care Administrators (ACHCA) at its 2008 Convocation in Covington, Kentucky on May 18. This annual award recognizes an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to education in long term care.
Having served as a health care administrator for twenty-five years before joining academia, Pratt brings a broad range of knowledge and experience to his role of educator. He is author of a textbook, Long-Term Care: Managing across the Continuum, now in its second edition. In 2008, Pratt developed and taught the highly-rated and innovative workshop Leadership Skills for Long-Term Care Administrators, which was hosted by the New England Alliance of ACHCA. “John is exceptionally deserving of this honor,” commented Stephen Esdale, chair of the ACHCA Board of Directors. “His unique perspective and creative approach to education has made him one of the leaders in our field.”
Founded in 1962, the American College of Health Care Administrators is the only professional association devoted solely to meeting the professional needs of today's long-term care administrator and executive. The College's mission focuses on advancing leadership excellence in long term care through the provision of leadership education, promotion of professional advancement programs such as Fellowship and professional Certification, and facilitation of leadership development. The College’s diverse membership includes administrators across the continuum of long-term care and senior housing.
For more information about The College, call the National Office at (703) 739-7900, visit www.achca.org, or email mailto:ccandrews@achca.org.

Class of 2008 Graduates!

We are pleased to announce that 114 students have completed health administration program degrees and are proceeding to graduation! Of these 75 students have earned a Master of Health Administration degree, six have earned Bachelors degrees in Long-Term Care Administration, one in Radiologic Science Administration and 32 in Health Care Administration!

Congratulations to each of you! We are very proud and we welcome you as alumni!

New "Get Connected" Feature on Web Site

We are pleased to announce an exciting new feature on the Saint Joseph’s College website www.sjcme.edu/gps.

It is called “Get Connected”. Although it can be found on the Current Students page, it is available to anyone.

In this section, you can:

• Read the SJC Magazine
• Buy SJC merchandise
• Read the SJC student newspaper
• Attend a summer session
• Tell us your stories and send us your pictures
• Make a gift

This new initiative is another way we are trying to help you to remain connected to your college! We hope you will take advantage of it.

We especially would like students and graduates to “Tell us your stories and send us your pictures” and let us – and your fellow students and graduates – know more about you and what you are doing. We would also like to hear any comments or suggestions you have about this or any other section of our web site.

New Advisory Board Member

We are pleased to announce that Steve Chies has agreed to become an advisory board member for the health administration programs at Saint Joseph's College of Maine/Division of Graduate and Professional Studies!

Steven currently serves as Senior Vice President for Operations at the Benedictine Health System Corporate Office in Cambridge, Minnesota. In his role at BHS, he is responsible for operations at 60 long-term care facilities.

Mr. Chies has an extensive background in the healthcare field. Prior to joining the Benedictine Health System, Mr. Chies served as an administrator at Park River Estates Care Center for 21 years where he had overall responsibility for the operation of a skilled nursing facility. He also was district director for U.S. Congressman Gerry Sikorski.

In addition, Mr. Chies served as the president of Care Paradigms Management, Inc. and president of North Cities HealthCare, Inc. Active in professional and community organizations, Mr. Chies has served as a member of the board of directors and president for Care Providers of Minnesota, and has recently served as Chairman of the American Health Care Association. He is also a past chair and officer for the National Association of Boards of Examiners of Long Term Care Administrators.

Steve is also a past treasurer of the Long Term Care Foundation and is a past officer for the Anoka Country Division of the Minnesota Affiliate of the American Heart Association. He has presented at many national and regional meetings as well as a guest lecturer at several colleges and universities.

Mr. Chies is a graduate of the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts and attended the Long Term Care Administration program also at the University of Minnesota.
Areas of Expertise:
· Long Term Care Payment Systems
· Organizational Management
· Strategic Positioning

Summer Session in Maine

It is nearly time to register for our summer programs for 2008!!!

We are offering traditional 2-week summer courses during summer session 1 (June 9th to 20th).

During summer session 2 we are offering two options that are brand new!!! During the first week (July 15th through 19th), we will be holding a health care symposium that will bring together experts in the various areas of the business of health care. We are offering ten 3-hour sessions that will provide important information and opportunities for health care administrators. The symposium may be attended for 3 credits in either HA 401 or HA 685 (Special Topics) or it may be attended for continuing education credits.

We are also offering some hybrid courses that will include one week on campus during summer session 2 (July 21st through 25th). The hybrid courses include five weeks of online work with just one week on campus. The hybrid course offers a terrific opportunity to take only one week away from your busy life to come to campus but still complete a 3 credit course.

These summer offerings provide an opportunity to significantly accelerate your program completion!! It would be possible to take two courses in summer session 1 (6 credits), as well as attending the symposium (3 credits) and taking hybrid course (3 credits) for a total of 12 credits earned over the summer and you would only need to be on campus for two 2-week periods.

These options also offer a great opportunity to build a network of peers, meet your instructors and advisors, experience the campus and allow you to spend time on beautiful Sebago Lake!!

Registration begins March 17th!! You will be able to register on-line at our new web site.

If you have not visited the web site lately, you will want to see the amazing changes we’ve made!!

New Web Pages

After seemingly endless effort and time spent by a lot of people, the GPS web site has been upgraded. Many thanks to Colleen Cunningham of GPS and Brent Wooten and Travis Soule of the SJC marketing department for getting this done so well.

The URL hasn't changed. It's still www.sjcme.edu/gps. Take a look at it . We think you'll like the changes. It is much more attractive and easy to navigate. We would also appreciate any feedback.

Managing the Business of Healthcare

Saint Joseph’s College of Maine is pleased to announce our first annual
Symposium for Health Administration Professionals.

Managing the Business of Healthcare

The last fifty years have been a period of dynamic growth, evolution and change perception and roles of healthcare. The reality is that, in order to be successful two important facts needs to be understood and accepted: (1) healthcare is a business and should be managed as a business; and (2) there is an emerging trend of patients transforming themselves into consumers of healthcare. Through a series of workshops, special, focused topics relevant to these two concepts will be discussed under the guidance of experts in the field.

JOIN US!
Students, graduates, and anyone else interested in the business of health care administration is welcome to attend. The dates of the symposium are Tuesday, July 15th through Saturday, July 19th. The sessions will be scheduled for three hours each in the morning and afternoon each of those days.

The general learning objectives are to equip participants to:

1. Better understand human behavior in organizations.
2. Apply ethical principles to real health care situations.
3. Prepare your organization for providing health care to the baby boomers.
4. Employ new leadership models as organization culture changes.
5. Analyze changing health care trends and service delivery models.
6. Construct positive physician/hospital relationships.
7. Build and manage effective interdisciplinary teams.
8. Prepare your organization for disaster and/or pandemic events.
9. Identify relevant constructs for applying health information system technology in LTC systems.
10. Discuss the differing administrative needs of nursing directors and health care administrators.

For more information, please visit our web site:

http://www.sjcme.edu/gps/summer/healthsymposium.htm

Press Release

For Immediate Release:
Standish, Maine
January 8, 2008

Saint Joseph’s College Of Maine
Long-Term Care Administration Programs Accredited

Two programs at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine have been granted accreditation by the National Association of Boards of Examiners of Long-Term Care Administrators NAB). The undergraduate Long-Term Care Administration (LTCA) program, which had been accredited twice before, received an additional five-year accreditation, while the Master of Health Administration (MHA) program received initial accreditation. Only a select group of such programs has been accredited to date, and the Saint Joseph’s programs are the only accredited ones delivered through distance education. Also, Saint Joseph’s College is the only institution with both undergraduate and graduate programs accredited by NAB.
“The accreditation provides national recognition of our programs’ quality and means that many state nursing home administrator licensing boards will automatically accept the Saint Joseph’s programs as meeting their licensure requirements,” said John Pratt, Director of the Long-Term Care Management Institute at Saint Joseph’s.
“It shows that we have met stringent criteria for top quality education and training of long-term care administrators,” he added. “To achieve it, we had to provide a great deal of information about our curriculum, faculty, and students, culminating in a two-day site visit last June,” Pratt stated.
The accreditation site team called the programs “excellent” and particularly noted the excellence of the faculty, quality of the curriculum, state-of-the art online technology, and the programs’ advisory board. They called the programs “important for the profession” and “an excellent model for distance education programs to follow.”
The college’s Division of Graduate and Professional Studies offers a bachelor’s degree program in long-term care administration with specialty tracks in nursing home administration and assisted living administration, a certificate program in long-term care administration and a Master’s degree in health administration as well as unrelated degrees.

For more information, visit www.sjcme.edu/gps.

MHA Graduate, Virginia Lipke, Receives International Award

APIC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Denise Graham, Vice President, Public Policy—(202) 454-2617 dgraham@apic.org

FORT THOMAS, KY—A St. Luke’s Hospital infection control practitioner whose successful efforts to initiate a program whereby inpatients receive influenza and/or pneumococcal vaccines has earned her the prestigious international title of “2007APIC Hero of Infection Prevention.”
Virginia “Ginny” Lipke, RN, BS, ACRN, CIC, Infection Control Practitioner for both St. Luke’s east and west hospitals, has been named December’s Hero by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), an 11,000 member international association headquartered in Washington, DC. The “Heroes” program recognizes those who have contributed significantly to the reduction of infection and who are impacting the health, safety and well-being of patients, healthcare workers and the public. Lipke, a Cincinnati resident, launched a personal campaign to implement a series of infection prevention programs, including a policy whereby hospitalized patients are approached by a nurse and asked if they would be interested in either a flu or pneumonia vaccine, or both. Prior to Lipke’s initiation of this program, no policy along these lines existed at St. Luke’s Hospital. Today, this is a standing order to both screen and administer vaccines if patients so choose, without need for a physician order, making The St. Luke’s hospitals the first among Cincinnati and/or northern Kentucky hospitals to implement this program.
As a result, between 96%-98% of qualified patients are being screened and vaccinated; a figure that was as low as 10% less than three years ago.
“Our goal is to have 100% of our patients asked if they want either vaccine, once it’s determined they’re eligible,” said Lipke.
In addition to this successful program, Lipke has also authored the oral care component of St. Luke’s ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) bundle program.
“This is a very important program,” said Lipke. “Bacteria from the mouth can drain into a patient’s system and easily set up a case of pneumonia. We added oral care for our patients every four hours to our bundle.”
The program resulted in no new cases of ventilator-associated pneumonias reported during a 19-month period, which has become a hospital record. For the past 34 months, none of the patients who have occupied the 29 combined Intensive Care Unit beds within St. Luke’s two hospitals have had a VAP.
“One of the keys to our success—besides oral care—is because we do in-services every six months and oral care has become standard for ICU patients,” said Lipke.
Lipke also created a policy for rapid HIV testing for mothers with no prenatal care, making St. Luke’s the first in the region to offer such testing. While the HIV rate is relatively low in northern Kentucky, Lipke said, “I felt it should still be offered as a tool for pregnant women with no prenatal history. “If we can get anti-viruals to women during labor, there’s a good chance the baby will be born negative from these diseases.”
She has also started an early sexually transmitted disease treatment program within the hospital’s Emergency Department, which includes free STD medication from the state and the Centers for Disease Control. This comes in response to increases in area cases of Chlamydia and Gonorrhea.
Lipke has been a registered nurse since 1994 and an Infection Control Professional since 1999. For many years prior, she was a licensed practical nurse.
She is among 12 other healthcare professionals to be honored this year through APIC’s highly-successful “Heroes of Infection Prevention” program, funded through a grant from Tyco Healthcare/Kendall, makers of DoverTM urological and AMDTM wound care products.
APIC’s mission is to improve health and patient safety by reducing risks of infection and other adverse outcomes. The Association’s more than 11,000 members have primary responsibility for infection prevention, control and hospital epidemiology in health care settings around the globe. APIC advances its mission through education, research, collaboration, practice guidance, public policy and credentialing. Visit APIC online at https://mail.apic.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://mail.apic.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.apic.org/