Written by Greensburg Daily News — The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) has declared March 2 to 8, “Patient Safety Awareness Week.”

According to NPSF’s website, the event is an “annual education and awareness campaign for healthcare safety,” designed to create awareness in the communities served by hospitals both within the United States and around the world.

At local hospital Decatur County Memorial (DCMH), vice president of patient care Diane McKinney told the Daily News the hospital isn’t holding special events or doing anything out of the ordinary to observe patient safety awareness. In McKinney’s view, no one week of any given year at DCMH can be singled out as being more important for patient safety than any other.

“Every week is patient safety week,” she said.

According to McKinney, DCMH has “all kinds of initiatives and processes in place to insure that [patient] care is safe.”

The hospital, she explained, works through a partnership with the Indiana Hospital Association (IHA), which supplies DCMH with a Federal grant to focus on 10 key areas of patient safety. Those areas include the prevention of hospital-developed infections, DVT (deep vein thrombosis – a specific, serious type of blood clot) prevention, adverse-drug-event prevention, patient-fall prevention and pressure-ulcer prevention (which are caused when a patient lays or sits in one position too long). The 10 IHA key focus areas also include an obstetrics-related (the OB of OB/GYN) emphasis on preventing early-elective deliveries in women less than 39 weeks pregnant.

Written by the Greensburg Daily News - Women (SOW) Day of Dance didn’t host a “featured performer,” but that didn’t stop Decatur Countians from turning out en masse to the Decatur County Family YMCA for the annual event.

Y members and non-members alike turned out for a day of swimming, aqua bootcamp, water jogging, aqua arthritis, bouncing, Yoga, Pilates, basketball, soccer, tee-ball, Jujitsu and, of course, dancing.

In a preview article for the event, DCMH SOW coordinator Annie Wilkison previously explained that she intentionally left out a featured performer in 2014 , hoping the omission would encourage more attendees to participate in the various exhibitions and activities offered. A featured performer, she explained at the time, doesn’t encourage participants to “Get Up and Move” – quite the opposite, in fact – which is the event’s driving mantra.

If the number of attendees to Saturday’s event is any indication, Wilkison was wildly successful in her objective.

The lack of a featured act didn’t appear to dampen turnout in the least. The Daily News saw a range of age groups, from infants to seniors – both male and female, participating in a wide array of activities. Participants were packed into the YMCA, with the facility’s main gym serving as the staging area for the non-stop Zumbathon held at Day of Dance.

Upstairs, Y instructors conducted free Pilates and Yoga classes – among others – while numerous booths were set up to disseminate information and conduct numerous free health screenings, including screenings for blood-pressure, body mass index, neuropathy, blood sugar and others.

 
“Our mother was blessed to have lived a long and healthy life. Spiritually, mentally and physically, she has always been a very positive person!” Cheryl Linville said about her  93-year-old mother, Freda Mae Volz Pleak who passed away, Thursday, January 23, 2014. Upon entering DCMH she continued to be herself very thankful and appreciative for the service they provided, from ER to the third floor patient care unit.  “They truly made you feel like you were at home away from home," she continued. “During a difficult time in our lives, all of us Rick, Terri, Rock, Sonja, Cheryl and Alex in spirit were amazed of the transition from life to everlasting life. Not only comfort for Momma but us too!”

Pleak’s children were so grateful for the hospitality demonstrated by Decatur County Memorial Hospital that they wanted to share their story. “We didn’t know every single care-taker that stepped foot through our door, but they did such a wonderful job of showing us they cared,” Linville said. 

read more...