Salem Family Honors Mother With Special Gift to Women in Need

Last month, Kathy Harris’ birthday celebration included a unique twist. Harris, of Salem, is a breast cancer survivor. Her daughters decided to honor their mother’s successful fight against cancer, and asked family and friends to bring donations to the Every Woman’s Life Program (EWL), instead of presents this year. EWL provides free mammograms to women who are uninsured and can’t afford them. At a reception held at the Carilion Clinic Breast Care Center in Roanoke, Harris and her family presented a $720 donation to EWL. Harris’ daughters, Amy Hobbs and Jennifer Stump, say they are grateful their mother’s cancer was detected and treated in time, and want to help other women who may not be able to afford a lifesaving mammogram.You can find more information about Every Woman’s Life on the web, or by calling toll-free,  877-388-4620.

Minimizing the Impact of Disaster by Planning Ahead

 The American College of Surgeons presented a day-long seminar on disaster planning.  Participants included Dr. Leonard Weireter, a critical care surgeon from Norfolk, and Carilion Clinic trauma surgeons Stephen Smith and Carol Gilbert.  WVTF/National Public Radio reporter Connie Stevens covered the seminar.  You can listen to her story here.

We Remember

Join us in remembering those lost and injured three years ago today in the Virginia Tech tragedy.www.weremember.vt.edu

Carilion Clinic CEO on Top Physician Executives List

Carilion Clinic President and CEO, Edward Murphy M.D., was again named one of the country’s 50 Most Powerful Physician Executives by Modern Healthcare Magazine.  Dr. Murphy was ranked 24th in the 2010 list.  He was also recognized as one of only five people to make the list in all six years that a vote has been taken.  To see who else made the list, view this photo gallery.

Carilion CMO Dr. Mark Werner Comments on ACOs, Health Reform Legislation

Dr. Mark Werner, President of Carilion Clinic Physicians and Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Carilion Clinic, is quoted in a Modern Healthcare article out this week about Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) and health reform legislation.Carilion is one of three sites participating in an ACO pilot project sponsored by the Dartmouth Institute and the Brookings Institution’s Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform. The ACO model stands to curb health spending growth by tying payment to quality and cost-savings, rather than how much care patients receive.An excerpt from the Modern Healthcare article titled “Tackling cost, quality: Designing accountable-care pay model not easy”:

At the Carilion Clinic, in Roanoke, Va., the effort to decide how much would be enough to make bonus payments worthwhile hasn’t produced a clear-cut formula. “It’s very difficult to approach it as a math problem,” said Mark Werner, chief medical officer for Carilion, one of the three announced Dartmouth pilot sites. “I think you have to approach it with a certain degree of faith.”Networks need solid accounting to give system officials an idea of what incentive payments will mean to revenue, Werner said. Bonuses could be calculated as a boost to yearly changes in rates insurers pay for care, such as an amount equal to another 1% for hospitals that saw rates climb 3%. But hospitals should also brace for slower revenue growth. “That we’ve just got to live through,” he said. “This is part of the psychological challenge of accountable care and health reform in general. Reducing spending in healthcare is also reducing the income and revenues of healthcare providers,” he said.

Read more about Carilion’s participation in the ACO pilot project.