RxTraA publication for the staff of Hartford Hospital Sept. 24, 2012 Vol. 68 No. 36

National Preparedness Month: Hospital Hosts Regional Decontamination ExerciseThis is National Preparedness Month, a nationwide effort to encourage Amer-icans to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes, busi-nesses and schools. The theme this year is “Resolve to be Ready 2012,” and we at Hartford Hospital are doing our part to be ready.

Hartford Hospital is one of only two Centers of Excellence for Emergen-cy Medical Preparedness in the state. Along with Connecticut Children’s Med-ical Center, we serve a major role in emergency medical response to disas-ters in the Capitol Region and the State of Connecticut.

Last week, Hartford Hospital hosted a Regional Resources Decontamination Exercise. Mass Decontaminant Trailers from the Connecticut Division of Emer-gency Management and Homeland Se-curity were brought to our campus by Fire Departments from Hartford and neighboring towns for a training exer-cise with our Fire Safety Department.

During the drill, the trailers were hooked up to the wa-ter and utility systems of the hospital build-ings around the ambulance entrance, and were integrat-ed with equip-ment owned by the hospital and operated by the ED and Fire/Safety.

This was the first time a training exercise of its type and scale has been carried out at any hospi-tal in Connecticut. It will assist the hospital, the fire departments and the regional and state agen-cies hone the emergency response plans that have been developed over the past several years.

This drill is another ex-ample of how we demon-strate our commitment

to safety and our eagerness to learn and develop the most effective ways of deal-ing with extraordinary events.

Next month, we will participate with the Hartford Police Department in a full scale drill about response to an armed intruder or active shooter in the hospital. In antici-pation of this, all departments and units

have been asked to develop expanded Safety Plans. These should now include Security/Workplace Violence Prevention responses, and Armed Intruder/Active Shooter information including a list of access points to the department, a list of all locking doors in the department, and a list of equipment that could be used to blockade un-lockable doors.

In addition, the hospital always encour-ages its employees to make personal pre-paredness plans.

For more information and links, please visit the Center for Emergency Medical Preparedness web page at http://intranet.harthosp.org/hh/docs/6034.

The Women’s Ambulatory Health Services team at Hartford Hospital recognized the need for pregnant women and new moms to have healthy food. They decided to hold a “Jeans for Greens” day, allowing staff to wear jeans if they contrib-uted $5 to Foodshare.

The project collected $145, which is enough to provide a month’s worth of healthy food for five local women.

Evette Martinez initially contacted Foodshare to ask how she and her coworkers could help the group, whose motto is “When hunger stops, so will we.”

Foodshare works to engage the greater Hartford community for the purpose of distributing food and increasing self-sufficiency. By working closely with other local

partners – individuals, businesses, schools, faith groups and govern-ment agencies – Foodshare seeks to increase awareness of hunger within our communities.

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Nine-Year-Old Collects Books for Babies

Foodshare staffer Sarah Santora (center, in red) accepts the donation from the Women’s Ambulatory Health Services staff.

Abigail Sprinsky wasn’t a typical child when she turned six years old, nor is she today as a nine-year-old. For both birthdays, Abigail chose to forego presents for her-self, and asked her guests to do-nate a children’s book for Hartford Hospital’s “Read to Grow” Program.

This year, Abagail collected 400 beautiful books for the program.

“Read to Grow” is a literacy program that is supported by volunteers and staff who make sure every new-born receives a new book, contained in a literacy packet for parents.

Parents of newborns are able to request more books when their babies are three months, six months and a year old.

The books they receive are most-ly gently used children’s books that have been donated and are distributed out of the “Read to Grow” facility in Branford.

There is always a need for donat-ed books. Our maternity unit has a bookcase containing children’s books for the newborns’ siblings. Volunteer Services replenishes the bookcase on a weekly basis.

Hartford Hospital will distribute the books in this generous donation from

Abigail. It will be of significant help to the nonprofit “Read to Grow” orga-nization’s inventory of sibling books.

Abigail said she knows she’s done a kind thing and it makes her feel good.

“She’s the only child, to my knowledge, who has done this,” said Kelley Boothby, co-director of Volunteer Services.

According to the “Read to Grow” web site, “Read to Grow helps build literacy right from birth. We are the only statewide nonprofit orga-nization that connects with par-ents in the hospital setting and pre-pares them to take an active role in their child’s literacy development from day one. To help parents cre-ate language-rich homes in which children can develop critical early skills, we provide books to families and to the program that interact with infants, toddlers, and school-age children and their parents.”

Women’s Ambulatory Health Team Collects Money for Foodshare

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Five Trinity College students helped beautify the Hartford Hos-pital campus during the college’s annual “Do It Day” on September 8.

Under the direction of David Cou-tu, the students planted colorful mums in front of the Women’s Am-bulatory Health Services Building at Park Street and filled the plant-ers on the mall between Conklin Building and CCMC.

“Do It Day” is an annual half-day event of community ser- v i c e that engages hundreds of Trinity students, faculty, staff and alumni in service projects throughout the Hartford area.

A 23-year-old tradition, the pur-pose of this event is to strength-en relationships between Trinity College and local organizations, as well as to give the students the op-portunity to gain a better under-standing and appreciation for the Hartford community.

This is the first year that the five students who chose to serve Hart-ford Hospital are sophomores in-terested in pursuing medical ca-reers. One of them happens to be a regular Friday evening volunteer who partners here with another Trinity student.

“This year’s volunteers expressed an interest in serving the hospital on a weekly basis, and we look for-ward to placing them in the near future,” said Kelley Boothby, codi-rector of Volunteer Services.

As many as 20 students at a time have been assigned to Hartford Hospital on “Do It Day” in past years.

Trinity Students Volunteer Here on “Do It Day”

Compliance Questions

or Concerns?

If you need to obtain information about

compliance issues or raise

concerns regarding internal and

regulatory practices or policies,

please contact your supervisor or

call the ComplianceLine, a

confidential and toll-free service, at

1-855-HHC-OCAP

or online at

HHC.OCAPComplianceLine.com

Give To the United Way! There’s only two more weeks of the Unit-ed Way campaign, and as of today we have a ways to go! Our participation goal is 35% and our pledge goal is $230,000. So far, only 13% of our employees have contributed. Please help us reach our goal! Pledging is easy using our eWay Pledge site, or using a paper form (avail-able through your campaign champi-on or department head). Remember, ev-eryone who pledges will be placed in a drawing for some great prizes, with spe-cial prizes for first-time donors, and do-nors who increase their pledge from last year! Don’t forget to check out the Unit-ed Way Online Auction. You can bid on assigned parking spots in the employ-ee garage, a South Africa photo safa-ri, limo package, framed artwork, and much more! The auction will run until 10 p.m. on Sept. 28. Visit the auction site at http://apps.harthosp.org/auction.

Designs By Kathleen in Auxiliary Store Sept. 27Designs By Kathleen Schlentz will be at The Auxiliary Store this Thursday, Sept. 27 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Kathleen fea-tures exclusive, hand-crafted jewelry de-signs using the finest sterling silver, semi-precious stones and lampwork beads, with necklace sets, earrings, bracelets, key chains, badge holders and more.

Annual N95 Respiratory Fit Testing – Last Session

is FridayWe have added one last respira-tor fit test ses-

sion for this fiscal year on Friday, Sept. 28 from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. in the ERD 4 East Side. All staff in the respiratory program are required by OSHA to have this fit test-ing. This is the last session available for FY 12 for compliance. Registration is rec-ommended; go to HealthStream catalog tab and search N95.

Retirements This Week: Emil Sapere, Bruno Tedes-chi, and Archie Norman

There will be a retire-ment tea to honor Emil Sapere, Jr., asso-ciate director of Facil-ities Development, Fire and Environmen-tal Safety, on Tues-day, Sept. 25, in the Special Dinning Room

between 2-4 p.m. Emil will retire after more then 43 years of service.

There will be a retire-ment tea to honor Bruno Tedeschi, Food and Nutrition Services manager, on Thursday, Sept. 27 from 1-4 p.m. in Gilman Auditorium. Bruno has worked at Hartford Hospital for 40 years.

There will be a re-tirement tea for Se-curity Officer Archie Norman on Friday, Sept. 28 from 2-5 p.m. in the Special Dining Room. Ar-chie has more than 43 years of service to

the hospital.

Schwartz Rounds To Be Wednesday Sept. 26All staff, volunteers and physicians are invited to the next Schwartz Rounds meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 26 at 11:30 a.m. in Gilman Auditorium. Topic is Sex, Drugs and the End: Extreme Care Planning. The panel is: Rich Gannon, PharmD; Ki Miller, VNA Healthcare Chaplain; and Jennifer Dupuis, RN CB2. For more infor-mation, contact Kathy Burns at 545-5712 or Dr. Evan Fox at 545-2629.

Due Friday: Team of the Year Nominations Friday, Sept. 28 is the deadline for nomi-nations for Team of the Year 2012. Nom-inate any teams that have introduced measurable improvements of any type. We will select the winning teams for clin-ical and non-clinical areas. Cash prizes of $5,000 for the winning teams, $2,500 for the first runner-ups and $1,000 for the second runner-ups will be awarded, to be spent at the discretion of the teams. Send nominations to Cathy Torcia in Adminis-tration. Nomination form can be found at http://intranet.harthosp.org/h3w.htm.

Deadline is Sunday for HealthStream Courses Have you completed all of your required HealthStream assignments? All full time, part time and per diem employees must complete all of the required Health-Stream e-learning each year by this Sun-day, Sept. 30. Non-completion carries serious consequences including no sal-ary increase and performance rating of “needs improvement.” You can access HealthStream through the Intranet.

Training for New IT Service Request System Training sessions have been scheduled for users of the new IT Service Request Sys-tem (BMC Remedy Service Request Man-agement), which allows you to request services to IT, such as ordering/requesting PCs, laptops, application access, or relo-cation of your IT equipment. Training will

be held in the Conklin Building, floor 5, Training Room A. Train-ing for managers/approvers will be held on Wednesday, Oct.

3; Thursday, Oct. 4; and Friday, Oct. 12. Training for staff/requesters will be held Monday, Oct. 8, and Friday, Oct. 19. Please e-mail Bethany Clancy at bclancy@har-thosp.org to schedule your training.

Happening at Hartford Hospital

Questions or comments about RxTra? Contact editor Annie Emanuelli at aemanuelli@harthosp.org or 860-545-2199