Franciscan St. Francis Health nurses recognized with DAISY awards

INDIANAPOLIS – Two registered nurses at Franciscan St. Francis Health have been praised by patients and peers for above-and-beyond the call in care giving.

Registered nurses Joan Frith and Taren Popovich have been named the December 2011 recipients of the hospital’s DAISY Awards.

The DAISY Award for Extraordinary Nurses is a national program which honors the compassionate care and clinical excellence. Franciscan St. Francis localized the program in 2010 to recognize its nurses for their achievements.

Frith, a nurse in the intensive care unit at Franciscan St. Francis Health-Mooresville, was nominated for her compassionate caring way with a patient.

“Joan is an angel from heaven. I never realized there were people like her here on earth,” wrote the daughter of the patient. “She is the most loving, kind, caring, patient woman I have ever met at Franciscan St. Francis.”

This is Frith’s second DAISY award.

Popovich, an adult inpatient unit nurse at the Indianapolis hospital, was nominated by a clinical instructor.

“Taren stood out to all of the students,” wrote the clinical instructor who nominated her. The students wrote on their evaluations that they wanted to be as good as Taren. “I can’t say enough positive things about Taren.”

The DAISY Award was established by the DAISY Foundation in memory of J. Patrick Barnes who died at 33 an auto-immune disease. His family was so impressed by the clinical skills, caring and compassion of the nurses who cared for him that they created this national award to say “thank you” to nurses everywhere. For more information, go to www.daisyfoundation.org.

To learn more about nursing careers and programs at Franciscan St. Francis, go to www.stfrancishospitals.org/nursing.

St. Francis Hospice seeks volunteers for Morgan Co. patients

MOORESVILLE, Ind. – Franciscan St. Francis Hospice is seeking volunteers who live in the Mooresville and Martinsville area to visit hospice patients in their own homes and extended-care facilities, offering respite and or companionship.

Spending two-to-three hours a week with a patient can be most rewarding. Volunteers offer friendship to patients and also allow caregivers the time to run errands, bowl in a league, or visit with friends. In essence, a volunteer adds quality of life for both patients and their caregivers.

Hospice is seeking licensed massage therapists and hair stylists? Therapists help alleviate stress and sometimes pain when used appropriately. Also, many patients are unable to physically go to stylists so having a volunteer provide this at-home service is much needed

“All St. Francis Hospice volunteers complete an orientation program provided by our staff and to shadow a member of our team to patients’ homes", said volunteer coordinator Glenda Dennison. “Our goal is to create a meaningful experience for volunteers and the patients and families they will work with.”

Volunteers must be 18 or older and willing to commit to four hours a week for six months. They must complete a hospital volunteer application process and attend orientation.

To learn more about the hospice volunteer program, contact Glenda Dennison at 317-859-2874, or Glenda.dennison@ssfhs.org.

More information about St. Francis Hospice is at www.stfrancishospitals.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=280.

Franciscan Alliance selected to participate in Medicare Accountable Care Organization

Health system is first in Indiana and among few nationally to participate in program

INDIANAPOLIS – Franciscan Alliance today (Dec. 19) announced it has been selected to participate in the Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model, a transformative new initiative sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center.

The Franciscan Alliance ACO is the first and only Pioneer ACO in Indiana and among the first in the country to partner with Medicare as an ACO. Initially, this partnership includes Franciscan St. Francis Health (which operates hospitals in Indianapolis, Beech Grove and Mooresville) and other affiliated hospitals and physician groups.

“More than 22,000 Medicare patients in Indianapolis and central Indiana will be served initially by our ACO,” said Jennifer Westfall, Franciscan Alliance ACO executive director. “From an industry perspective, the ACO model encourages organizations such as hospitals, physician practices, and other healthcare providers to collaborate closely, thus bringing down the overall costs of medical care.”

Franciscan Alliance will work with CMS to provide area Medicare beneficiaries with higher quality care, while reducing growth in Medicare expenditures, through improved care coordination.

The Pioneer ACO Model is designed to encourage the development of patient-centered, team-based care, with health-care providers delivering coordinated, high-quality care for their patients. Franciscan Alliance ACO was chosen specifically by Medicare for the Pioneer Program.

“These Pioneer ACOs represent our nation’s leaders in health systems innovation, providing highly coordinated care for patients at lower costs,” said Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator of CMS. “Franciscan Alliance has demonstrated significant experience in providing high quality, coordinated care, and we are excited to partner with them.”

Under the Pioneer ACO Model, CMS will provide incentives for participating health care providers who form an organization to coordinate care for patients. Providers who band together through this model will be required to meet quality standards based upon, among other measures, patient outcomes and care coordination among the provider team.

CMS will use robust quality measures and other criteria to reward ACOs for providing beneficiaries with a positive patient experience and better health outcomes, while also rewarding Franciscan Alliance for reducing growth in Medicare expenditures for the same patient population.

Unlike a managed care plan, Medicare beneficiaries will not be locked into a restricted panel of providers. The Pioneer ACO Model is not a health plan or managed care plan. Under the Pioneer ACO Model, beneficiaries seeing doctors participating in an ACO will maintain the ability to see any doctor or healthcare provider, as well as the full benefits associated with traditional Medicare, but with the added benefit of a more coordinated care experience.

Today’s announcement was the culmination of a competitive selection process that began in May 2011 with the national release of a Request for Applications from CMS. Franciscan Alliance was selected based on its demonstrated capabilities to offer high quality, coordinated care.

With 14 hospitals in Indiana and Illinois, Franciscan Alliance provides care for more than 2.9 million outpatient visits and more than 100,000 inpatient discharges every year with the most effective medical treatments and innovative technology.

Franciscan Alliance, one of the largest Catholic health care systems in the Midwest, employs 18,200 co-workers and has more than 3,300 affiliated physicians – both primary care and specialists – serving nearly 4 million people in the system’s service areas.

To learn more about Franciscan Alliance and Franciscan St. Francis Health, go to www.franciscanalliance.org and www.stfrancishospitals.org.

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About the Pioneer ACO The Pioneer ACO Model is one of a number of initiatives developed by the new Innovation Center. The Innovation Center was created by the Affordable Care Act to test new models of health care delivery and payment. For more information about the Pioneer ACO Model, visit the Pioneer ACO website at www.innovations.cms.gov/areas-of-focus/seamless-and-coordinated-care-models/pioneer-aco/. The Pioneer ACO Model is one of several initiatives underway at CMS designed to encourage the formation of ACOs. For more information, visit www.cms.gov/aco. For more information about the Innovation Center, visit innovations.cms.gov.

St. Francis Health employees deliver help to needy before holidays

BEECH GROVE, Ind. – Eighty-five families on Indianapolis’ south side and south-central recently received a helping hand for the holidays.

In that spirit, that’s what continues to drive the Gift-a-Family program, coordinated by the Mission Integration Committee and Service Excellence Department at Franciscan St. Francis Health. The annual program serves residents primarily on the city’s south side to an area near the border line of Morgan County.

Franciscan St. Francis employees and their respective departments adopted families earlier and began collecting new clothing, small household items and children’s toys and gifts.

“Each year we identify families who have been referred to us, and while they have different backgrounds they all share a common denominator – they’re needy and often in desperate situations,” said Shirley Fox, chair of St. Francis’ Mission Integration Committee. “Our initial goal this year was to assist 50 families, but our employees stepped up and we easily surpassed that goal.

Employees of Franciscan Alliance Information Services, which has partnered with the hospital for many years on the Gift-a-Family program, also provided all of the food baskets and toiletries.

The food baskets were blessed by Father John Mannion of St. Francis Spiritual Services on Dec. 15 before employees delivered the items to families.

New colorectal fellow begins residency program at Franciscan St. Francis Health

MOORESVILLE, Ind. -- Phuong Nguyen, M.D., has been chosen for the 2012 fellowship in the Indiana University School of Medicine Colon and Rectal Residency Program at Kendrick Colon and Rectal Center at Franciscan St. Francis Health. He will begin his residency July 1, 2012.

This is the fourth year of the program, the only one of its kind in Indiana.

Nguyen received his medical degree from the Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee, Fla. He is completing his general surgery residency at Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, N.C.

Upon completing his fellowship training, Nguyen will be eligible for the qualifying and certifying exams of the American Board of Colon and Rectal Surgery.

The residency program was established in 2008 through a partnership between IU, Franciscan St. Francis and Kendrick and marks the first educational joint venture between Franciscan St. Francis and the medical school, the nation’s second-largest academic medical institution.

The teaching staff comprises surgeons with Kendrick Colon and Rectal Center and assistant clinical professors with the IU School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery. They are Drs. Olaf Johansen, Fred Lane, R. Barry Melbert, Bridget Sanders, Dipen Maun and Ben Tsai from Kendrick; and Drs. Bruce Robb and Virgilio George from IU.

More information about the fellowship is available by calling 317-834-9618 or at the Kendrick website www.kendrickcenter.com, or the IU School of Medicine site, www.medicine.iu.edu.

In 2007, St. Francis established the Colorectal Cancer Center center of excellence for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of colorectal cancer. It’s one of the largest programs of its kind in Indiana. To learn more about its services, go to www.stfrancishospitals.org/Cancer/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=38.