Tag Archive for: #vancecountynews

Filing Complete for Local Elections

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Filing for the City of Henderson:

 

Ward 1 At-Large Sara Coffey – Incumbent

Ward 2 At- Large William Burnette

Ward 3 – Garry Daeke – Incumbent

Ward 4- Fearldine Simmons – Incumbent and Blakely Bates

 

Filing for the Town of Kittrell:

 

Jerry Joyner – Mayor – Incumbent

Susan Pulley – Commissioner – Incumbent

Joshua Boyd – Commissioner – Incumbent

Todd Murray – Commissioner

 

Filing for Town of Middleburg:

 

Gary Plummer – Mayor

Ruth Nance – Council member – Incumbent

Mamie Turner – Council member

Annie Fudge – Council member – Incumbent

Better Lighting Coming for Interstates and Major Highways Across North Carolina

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RALEIGH – It will be a brighter drive along many interstates and major highways in North Carolina, as a result of a $30.8 million contract awarded by the N.C. Department of Transportation to upgrade more than 10,600 roadway light fixtures at more than 350 locations across the state.

In addition to improving lighting, the agreement with Trane U.S. Inc. and J. Brady Contracting Inc. will save the state money, as it is expected to result in more than $56 million in reduced electrical and maintenance costs over 15 years. That savings will primarily come from switching from existing high intensity roadway lights to longer-lasting and lower-maintenance LED lights.

Improvements are planned for lights along such interstates as I-95, I-40, I-77 and I-85, as well as I-440, I-540 and the Triangle Expressway in the Raleigh-Durham area, I-485 and I-277 in Charlotte, I-73/74 in the Triad, and I-240 and I-26 around Asheville. Several non-interstate highways around the state will also see lighting improvements.

The contract also calls for upgrading more than 12,000 building lights, including those at rest stops and visitor centers around the state, in addition to weigh stations and NCDOT county maintenance facilities.

The project includes the installation of a lighting and control system that will not only support the maintenance of the lights, but will also save and measure energy usage and lower costs.

Construction work is scheduled to start in September of 2017, with the initial locations still being determined. The light and equipment installation should wrap up in November 2018.

***NCDOT***

Walmart Distribution Presents $5,000 to Boys and Girls Club

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Around 100 Walmart Associates gathered today at the Walmart Distribution Center in Henderson to present the Boys and Girls Club of North Central North Carolina a check for $5,000.

Walmart and the Boys and Girls Club enjoy a unique partnership. Last month, a number of Walmart Associates volunteered their time to help paint much of the Boys and Girls Club on Clark Street in Henderson.

Robert Avery, maintenance operations manger for the Walmart Distribution Center, said, “We appreciate the opportunity to help in the community. We want to thank the 53 associates that volunteered around 260 hours at the Boys and Girls Club last month. We are grateful to be able to help the Boys and Girls Club.”

Mary Ann Avery, Resource Development Director for the Boys and Girls Club of North Central North Carolina, said, “Thanks Walmart for your continued support both financially and with the volunteers you provide. We’re so thankful that Walmart took the lead in helping us revitalize the Boys and Girls Club on Clark Street. We thank them for coming back to volunteer again in August.”

Pictured from left to right are Mary Ann Avery, Evelyn Taylor, Curtis White and Elaine Chavis-Young. All of the above represent the Boys and Girls Club of North Central North Carolina in varying capacities.

Vance County Early College High School holds Orientation

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Vance County Schools

For Immediate Release

July 20, 2017

 

Ninth-grade students and their parents attended the orientation session on July 20 for the Vance County Early College High School in preparation for the start of the new school year.

 

Classes begin at Early College on August 3.

 

A large turnout of parents and students gathered in the Civic Center on the campus of Vance-Granville Community College near Henderson for the opening of the orientation session. Vangie Mitchell, college liaison with Vance-Granville Community College, led the session and shared an abundance of important information with those in attendance.

Pre-K Dabney Students Complete Mi Centro Program

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Vance County Schools

For Immediate Release

July 20, 2017

 

Pre-kindergarten students who participated in the Mi Centro program this summer at Dabney Elementary School completed their participation in the camp on July 19.

 

A total of 35 Hispanic students completed the summer program this year and are now ready to begin the new school year.

 

The students participated in sessions to prepare them for the new school year in three classes that were taught by Deris Mora, Kelly Smith and Tamekia Thompson, all teachers in Vance County Schools. They were assisted by Sherry Compton, Lesli Miranda, Kathy Pernell, Malinda Puckett, Janet Rodriguez and Connetta Terry. One student volunteer, Reina Banda-Orozco, also helped in the classes.

 

The Mi Centro program is coordinated through the school system’s English as a Second Language (ESL) Program and is designed to provide educational services to pre-school Hispanic children to help them prepare to begin the school year.

 

Each of the students was recognized during a “graduation” ceremony held in the multipurpose room at Dabney Elementary on the morning of July 19. Their teachers presented them with certificates for their participation in the program. Each student wore a light blue cap and gown and came up to accept their certificate from their teacher.

Maria Parham Health Named 2017 Most Wired

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Maria Parham Health has been named a Most Wired Hospital for the fourth year in a row. Technology is making it easier for patients and providers to interact, thus improving communication, safety and patient-provider relationships. New tools are helping patients become more actively involved in their care and maintaining their health, according to results of the 19th Annual Health Care’s Most Wired® survey, released today by the American Hospital Association’s (AHA) Health Forum.

According to the survey, Most Wired hospitals are using smart phones, telehealth and remote monitoring to create more ways for patients to access health care services and capture health information. This year’s results show:

  • 76 percent offer secure messaging with clinicians on mobile devices.
  • When patients need ongoing monitoring at home, 74 percent use secure e-mails for patients and families to keep in touch with the care team.
  • 68 percent simplify prescription renewals by letting patients make requests on mobile devices.
  • 62 percent add data reported by patients to the electronic health record to get a better picture of what is going on with the patient.
  • Nearly half of the hospitals are using telehealth to provide behavioral health services to more patients.
  • 40 percent offer virtual physician visits.
  • More than 40 percent provide real-time care management services to patients at home for diabetes and congestive heart failure.

“We have had an aggressive IT strategy in place for several years now with the goal of improving the overall quality and coordination of patient care,” said Randy Williams, director of IT at MPH. “Technology is a rapidly changing environment but vital to providing quality care to our patients. We have been able to advance our technology goals and the benefits have been felt throughout the hospital and community. Physicians and clinical staff have greater access to patient health information; hospital support roles have been made more efficient and effective; and patients now have greater access to their health records, including billing information, discharge instructions, and future needs.

“The Most Wired hospitals are using every available technology option to create more ways to reach their patients in order to provide access to care,” said AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack. “They are transforming care delivery, investing in new delivery models in order to improve quality, provide access and control costs.”

Innovation in patient care embraces emerging technologies and underscores the need for secure patient information exchange. Hospitals have increased their use of sophisticated IT monitoring systems to detect patient privacy breaches, monitor for malicious activities or policy violations and produce real-time analysis of security alerts.

  • 97 percent use intrusion detection systems.
  • 96 percent perform data access audits.
  • Nearly 90 percent run targeted phishing exercises.

Most Wired hospitals are transforming care delivery with knowledge gained from data and analytics.  They are investing in analytics to support new delivery models and effective decision-making and training clinicians on how to use analytics to improve quality, provide access and control costs.

  • 82 percent analyze retrospective clinical and administrative data to identify areas for improving quality and reducing the cost of care.
  • Three-quarters use sophisticated analytics such as predictive modeling and data to improve decision-making.
  • Nearly 70 percent interface electronic health record data with population health tools for care management.
  • More than 70 percent are providing data analytic tools training to physicians and nurses.
  • 45 percent initiate a patient pathway using health IT to follow a care plan.
  • Nearly 40 percent deliver quality metrics to physicians at the point-of-care.
  • 32 percent have tools for real-time patient identification and tracking for value-based care conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

HealthCare’s Most Wired® survey, conducted between Jan. 15 and March 15, 2017, is published annually by Hospitals & Health Networks (H&HN). The 2017 Most Wired® survey and benchmarking study is a leading industry barometer measuring information technology (IT) use and adoption among hospitals nationwide. The survey of 698 participants, representing an estimated 2,158 hospitals — more than 39 percent of all hospitals in the U.S. — examines how organizations are leveraging IT to improve performance for value-based health care in the areas of infrastructure, business and administrative management; quality and safety; and clinical integration.

Detailed results of the survey and study can be found in the July issue of H&HN. For a full list of winners, visit www.hhnmag.com.

About the Most Wired Survey

The 2017 Most Wired Survey is conducted in cooperation with the American Hospital Association and Clearwater Compliance, LLC.

About the American Hospital Association
The AHA is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the improvement of health in their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which include nearly 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks and other providers of care. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit www.aha.org.

About Health Forum

Health Forum is a strategic business enterprise of the American Hospital Association, creatively partnering to develop and deliver essential information and innovative services to help health care leaders achieve organizational performance excellence and sustainability. For more information, visit www.healthforum.com.

About Clearwater Compliance, LLC | https://clearwatercompliance.com/

Clearwater Compliance, LLC is a leading provider of healthcare compliance and cyber risk management solutions. Its mission is to empower hospitals and health systems to successfully manage healthcare’s evolving cybersecurity risks and ensure patient safety. Exclusively endorsed by the American Hospital Association, Clearwater solutions have been deployed within hundreds of hospitals and health systems, Fortune 100 organizations and federal government institutions. More information about Clearwater Compliance is at https://www.Clearwatercompliance.com.

VGCC Completes Renovation of Histotechnology Lab

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A laboratory has been renovated to house the new Histotechnology program on Vance-Granville Community College’s Main Campus, the VGCC Board of Trustees was informed at its Monday, July 17, bi-monthly meeting.

The renovation, which cost $15,230, was part of a project covering miscellaneous repairs and renovations on the college campus between Henderson and Oxford, according to Trustee Donald C. Seifert, Sr., chair of the board’s Building Committee.

The Bioprocess Technology laboratory that was previously located in Building 8 was retrofitted to house the health sciences curriculum program. The Bioprocess program has moved to the Franklin County Campus.

The Histotechnology program prepares students for the medical laboratory field. The two-year associate’s degree Histotechnology program provides students the knowledge and skills necessary to prepare tissue specimens for microscopic examination using various stains and dyes to identify tissue and cell structures in medical laboratories. Course work covers scientific concepts related to laboratory testing, microscopy and quality assurance. Graduates may be eligible to apply to take the American Society for Clinical Pathology Board of Certification national examination.

In other Building Committee updates, Seifert said roofing replacement is progressing on Building 6 on the Main Campus, and repairs and the resealing of the parking lots at South Campus are expected to be complete by the end of July.

Board Officers

Trustee Danny W. Wright of Henderson was re-elected as the chair of the board, Trustee Herb Gregory of Oxford was re-elected as vice-chair, and Trustee Deborah F. Brown of Henderson was re-elected as secretary after nominations from a committee chaired by Trustee L. Opie Frazier, Jr.

North Carolina Ninth District Court Judge Henry Banks, who is working part-time after his recent retirement, swore in Trustee Brown for a third four-year term on the board. Brown was appointed by the Vance County Board of Commissioners. She first joined the Board of Trustees in 2009 and will serve though 2021.

Moment of Silence

At the start of the meeting, Trustee Chair Wright acknowledged the recent death of Trustee Emeritus John King Nelms of Oxford. Nelms, who died at the age of 95 on June 22, served on the Board of Trustees in an advisory capacity from 1971 to 1973 and as an active member from 1973 until 2005. He served as chair in 1983-84 and from 1999 to 2003. He was named VGCC’s first — and to date, only —Trustee Emeritus upon his retirement.

“He just loved this college and did so much for it,” said Wright before leading the board in a Moment of Silence.

Nelms, who served for three decades as director of the Granville County Economic Development Commission, was instrumental in getting Granville involved in supporting what was originally Vance County Technical Institute, leading eventually to VGCC’s main campus near the Vance-Granville county line.

Budget Amendments

Upon recommendation from the Budget Committee, chaired by Trustee Abdul Rasheed, the 2016-2017 Budget Resolution was amended. The State Current Fund increased $1,915,633 to $22,460,933, the County Current Fund was unchanged at $2,515,573, and the Institutional Fund increased $436,178 to $11,202,582, for a combined Amended Operating Budget of $36,179,088. The Capital Improvement Budget was unchanged at $746,068. The total Combined Amended Budget is $36,925,156.

Fall Semester

In her report to the board, VGCC President Dr. Stelfanie Williams informed the Trustees that the new Fall Semester starts Monday, Aug. 14, with signs pointing to an increase in enrollment compared to last fall. Registration for curriculum classes runs through Thursday, Aug. 10.

Among various events and activities since the last board meeting, Dr. Williams updated the Trustees on VGCC receiving high national rankings from various national organizations. The college placed seventh on the list of top community colleges in North Carolina by BestColleges.com and 19th among online schools in the state by the Community for Accredited Online Schools. She also reported on VGCC’s recently signed agreement with North Carolina Central University to offer two bachelor’s degree programs on Main Campus. The new Eagle Voyage offerings include a bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education and a bachelor’s in Family and Consumer Sciences with a concentration in Child Development and Family Relations.

Dr. Williams announced the Trustees will have a Board Retreat on Monday, Aug. 28.

Other Action

In other action:

  • New and amended board policies for the 2017-2018 Policy Manual were approved by the Trustees on recommendation from the Executive Committee, chaired by Trustee Wright. The policies cover areas of institutional governance, public information and campus safety, personnel policies, academic affairs, institutional research and technology, and finance and operations.
  • Trustee L. Opie Frazier, Jr., chair of the Investment Committee, reported on the progress of the college’s investments.
  • An informational report on new employees, retirements, resignations and changes in positions was given by the Personnel Committee, chaired by Trustee Sara C. Wester.

The next meeting of the VGCC Board of Trustees will be held on Monday, Sept. 18, at the Main Campus.

–end–

Local Police, Fire and EMS team up to save life

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Earlier today, I witnessed an incredible series of events in Downtown Henderson. I was walking out of a meeting at the Henderson Police Department, when a call came out for local police, fire and EMS to respond to the intersection of Breckenridge and Chestnut Street for a medical emergency. When I heard that, I turned around and was able to witness Corey Adams of the Henderson Fire Department, and Chief Williams of the Vance County Fire Department begin the process of resuscitating a man that had apparently overdosed. The man was unconscious at the wheel of his vehicle (with the car still in drive and his foot on the brake) when Adams noticed that something was wrong. Adams turned around and placed the call in to other area agencies. Adams, Williams and representatives from the Henderson Police Department and EMS were able to resuscitate the man before placing him inside of an ambulance.

It was hard for me to believe what I saw.

I asked for a description of what had happened from Adams, and his response is below.

“Kevin I really appreciate the gratitude, but I really didn’t do nothing special. Just like you have gone to school for broadcasting and marketing, I went to school for situations like that. I did nothing else that any police, fire or ems person would have done, I was just the one in the right place at the right time. I just happen to notice a person that seemed in distress, when I checked on him I knew he was having a medical emergency. At that moment all of my  EMS training kick in to help the patient the best of my abilities. I was lucky enough to have Chief Williams from Vance County Fire Department around the corner to assist me in helping the patient. I removed the patient from the vehicle  so me and Chief Williams could better assist the patient until the arrival Of EMS. The Public Safety services  here in Vance County And the City as you saw firsthand work very well together. The citizens of this city are very lucky to have the service they have here, because you won’t find no better.”

Henderson and Vance County may have its fair share of problems. Everywhere does. However, Adams’ last sentence is quite correct. We are lucky to have that type of service and expertise right here in our hometown.

New EMS training program to be offered at VGCC

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Vance-Granville Community College will soon expand its Emergency Medical Services training options to include the internationally-recognized Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) program.

Developed by the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians in cooperation with the American College of Surgeons’ Committee on Trauma, PHTLS is the leading continuing education program for prehospital emergency trauma care. The stated mission of PHTLS is “to promote excellence in trauma patient management by all providers involved in the delivery of prehospital care through global education.” The courses are intended to improve the quality of trauma care and, in turn, to save patients whose lives are in danger before they can reach the hospital. 

PHTLS promotes critical thinking as the foundation for providing quality care. It is based on the belief that, given a good foundation of knowledge and key principles, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) practitioners are capable of making reasoned decisions regarding patient care. The PHTLS course is continuously updated and revised to keep up with advances in the field.

“Adding this program will help our local responders have a better understanding of trauma and how to treat the patient,” said Stephen Barney, VGCC’s coordinator/instructor for EMS Programs. “It will bring students up to the national standard of trauma care. This will allow providers to give better care to patients.”

There are several different PHTLS courses, which, Barney said, VGCC will offer as needed, starting in the fall. The offerings include a 16-hour “Provider Course” for emergency medical responders, EMTs, Paramedics, nurses, physician assistants and physicians; an 8-hour “Refresher Course” for individuals who have successfully completed the PHTLS provider course within the past four years; a four-hour “Instructor Update,” and an 8-hour “PHTLS for First Responders” course for emergency medical responders, police officers, firefighters, rescue personnel and safety officers to prepare for rendering care to trauma patients until EMS personnel arrive. Barney said that VGCC will become one of several North Carolina community colleges offering PHTLS, while many others use the “International Trauma Life Support” training course.

VGCC offers EMS training from the basic to the Paramedic level, in addition to continuing education. For more information, call Stephen Barney at (252) 738-3273.

–VGCC–

VGCC Pharmacy Technology program ranked in top five nationwide

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The Pharmacy Technology program at Vance-Granville Community College was recently recognized as one of the top five programs of its kind in the nation.

VGCC placed fourth in the list of the top 50 pharmacy technician programs published by Seattle-based TheBestColleges.org and was the highest-ranked North Carolina community college. “This year, we reviewed all accredited pharmacy technician programs in the US to select 50 that provide students with the best learning experiences,” said Rachel Wagner of TheBestColleges.org. “VGCC stood out with an outstanding pharmacy technician program.”

Wagner said her organization looked at the most important factors to prospective students, mainly common predictors of future success and a school’s commitment to online programs. All data points are taken from information provided by colleges and universities to the National Center for Education Statistics, including graduation and retention rates.

“With a constantly growing elderly population, there is a growing need for pharmacy technicians in the workforce,” according to TheBestColleges.org. “The field has a projected growth rate of 9%, which is faster than the national average. Technicians help maintain the medication profiles, assist pharmacists, organize file systems, and compound the medications.”

The Pharmacy Technology program, based at VGCC’s Main Campus, trains pharmacy technicians for positions in hospitals, nursing homes, private and chain drug stores, research laboratories, wholesale drug companies and pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities. The college offers both a three-semester diploma and a five-semester associate degree option. Faculty members include program head Dr. Erica Fleming, a pharmacist; full-time instructor Brenda Harvey, a Certified Pharmacy Technician and IV Sterile Compounding and Aseptic Technique Educator; and adjunct instructor Leah Abbott, M.Ed., a Certified Pharmacy Technician.

“We are proud of this national honor for our outstanding Pharmacy Technology program, which prepares students for professional success in a growing, changing health-care field while also promoting opportunities to reach out and serve our community,” said VGCC Dean of Health Sciences Angela Thomas.

Registration is going on now for the fall semester at VGCC, which begins Aug. 14.

For more information on the VGCC Pharmacy Technology program, call Dr. Fleming at (252) 738-3482.

–VGCC–