Humility of Mary receives award

Humility of Mary receives award

YOUNGSTOWN

Humility of Mary Health Partners received the prestigious Melvin Creeley Environmental Leadership Award during the Ohio Hospital Association’s annual meeting Monday in Columbus.

The award honors hospitals that promote sound environmental practices through environmental stewardship and exemplify best practices for other hospitals to emulate.

This is the second- consecutive year HMHP has received the award. It is among 10 hospitals throughout Ohio to be honored this year.

“We are very deliberate in all of our new construction to make sure we are diverting construction waste so it is not buried in a landfill, and in choosing sustainable building materials,” said Matthew R. Waggle, regional director of environmental services at HMHP.

The award is named after Melvin Creeley, the retired president and CEO of East Liverpool City Hospital who served as chairman of the Ohio Hospital Association’s Environmental Leadership Council from its inception in 2001 to 2010.

Low-interest loans for medical students

YOUNGSTOWN

Application forms for low-interest student loans are available from the Mahoning County Medical Society Foundation.

Students applying for loans must be residents of Mahoning or Trumbull counties and must be enrolled in medical school, school of osteopathic medicine, or participating in the bridge program at the three-year level or higher with Northeast Ohio Medical University.

Interest on the loans is 1 percent below the prime rate at the time the loan is granted. Interest is forgiven if the recipient returns to either Mahoning or Trumbull to practice medicine and becomes a medical society member.

The application deadline is June 30. For information or to receive an application, call the society at 330-533-4880 or email at mahoningcountymed@zoominternet.net.

Rescue Mission seeking donations

youngstown

The Rescue Mission of Mahoning Valley is encouraging Valley churches to bring awareness to the issue of local homelessness July 22.

Mayor Charles Sammarone has proclaimed the day as Summer Relief Day for the mission.

Because the summer months have proved to be lean in regard to monetary and food donations, the mission is urging local churches to consider volunteering sometime this summer and also having a special one-time offering for the mission July 22.

Preventive cigarette trafficking act

columbus

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has joined attorneys general from 40 states and the District of Columbia in filing a brief with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals defending the constitutionality of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act.

Affordable Care helps 477,579 Ohioans

washington

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that the Affordable Care Act helped 477,579 people in Ohio with original Medicare receive at least one preventive service at no cost to them during the first five months of 2012.

This includes 28,357 who have taken advantage of the Annual Wellness Visit provided by the Affordable Care Act.

Swim lessons

YOUNGSTOWN

The Central YMCA branch offers swim programs that teach water safety skills and give children and adults the chance to explore the many benefits of swimming.

The second 2012 SPLASH! week is next week at the Central Y from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday and 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday.

Contact Tara Deagan, Central YMCA aquatics director, at 330-744-8411 by this Friday to register for the free community event. Sponsors include Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley and the American Red Cross of the Mahoning Valley.

The YMCA of Youngstown also offers year-round progressive swim lessons from age 6 months to adults. Visit www.YoungstownYMCA.org for information on class schedules and costs available.

The Central YMCA is located downtown on the corner of Commerce and Champion Streets. The Davis YMCA is located off McClurg Road in Boardman.

Ohio Dept. of Aging seeking war stories

COLUMBUS

Bonnie Kantor-Burman, director, Ohio Department of Aging, and Thomas N. Moe, director, Ohio Department of Veterans Services, have announced the launch of the departments’ joint War Era Story Project.

The effort will pick up where the Department of Aging’s award-winning 2009 Great Depression Story Project left off by collecting Ohioans’ memories from the start of World War II through the 1940s.

The agencies are seeking stories by the people who lived them — from veterans of World War II, to the men, women and children who held steady on the home front.

Stories should focus on the storytellers’ experiences during the war and the years that followed, and should be 500 to 1,000 words long.

You may include photographs, but note they cannot be returned. Send stories with the author’s name, location and current age to: Ohio Department of Aging, Attn: War Era Story Project,

50 W. Broad St., 9th Floor, Columbus, OH 43215-3363.

You also may e-mail stories to WarEraStories@age.state.oh.us.

West Penn joins patient-safety initiative

pittsburgh

West Penn Allegheny Health System officials have announced the system’s five member hospitals have joined the Pennsylvania Hospital Engagement Network, a new two-year patient-safety initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Pennsylvania Hospital Engagement Network, one of only 26 such networks in the nation, is a component of the HHS Partnership for Patients initiative, and unites more than 130 hospitals throughout the state with The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, The Health Care Improvement Foundation, Quality Insights of Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Health Care Quality Alliance in an effort to implement strategies to achieve goals of reducing preventable hospital-acquired conditions, readmissions, and complications during hospitalization.

Be an organ donor

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Hospital Association launched a yearlong campaign, Hospital Champions, with Donate Life Ohio to promote organ donation registration in Ohio. The campaign began Tuesday. Donate Life Ohio is a coalition of organ, eye and tissue recovery agencies across the state and includes the Ohio Department Health’s Second Chance Trust Fund. SCTF funds organ-donation research and promotes education and awareness efforts in Ohio.