UMMC

Press release:

United Memorial’s Education Department will host an Open House on Wednesday, Oct. 24, from 2 – 5:30 p.m. in room 202 at the hospital in order to demonstrate the new patient simulator. The simulator, a $60,000 piece of equipment was provided to United Memorial at no cost from CHART, the organization’s insurance carrier. It will be used to educate clinical staff.

The simulator is wireless, lifelike and can be used to assist with training for multiple airway skills, catheter placement, airway complications and breathing complications. It has cardiac and circulation features, vascular access, blinking eyes, secretions, urine output, bowel sounds and the instructor can make it speak. The simulator can function as a male or female patient.

Pam Lynch, director of education; Kevin Aldrich, 2nd Floor nurse manager; Mary Lama, 3rd Floor clinical care coordinator and Judy Clark, ICU nurse manager were educated as trainers for the new equipment. The simulator assists in improving patient care and safety. It allows new students to practice basic nursing skills and veteran nurses to learn the latest technologies and use of new practices and equipment.

The public is welcome to attend this open house.

Press release:

The Cancer Services Partnership of Genesee and Orleans County will hold its annual cancer awareness program, Pink Hatters, on Thursday, Oct. 11 at the Clarion Hotel, 8250 Park Road, Batavia.

A Chinese Auction will be held from 4 to 6:30 pm. Hors d’oeuvres and dessert stations will available from 5 to 7 pm. Cancer survivors will be recognized and prizes awarded for the best pink hats. “Breadtime Stories” will be presented by the evening’s featured speaker, Chet Fery.

The evening is a colorful, celebratory event filled with laughter. However, when survivors stand up based on the number of years since they received their cancer diagnosis, an awe-inspiring hush fills the room. Women who are currently battling the illness are applauded with support. Women who have been cancer free for 20 years, 30 years or longer provide hope to everyone.

Tickets are $20 each and available by pre-sale only. Call the UMMC Healthy Living Department at 344-5331 for registration information. Reservations are available for tables of 10.

Payment and registrations must be received by Oct 4. This event is funded in part by a grant from Susan G. Komen for the Cure of Western New York.

The Cancer Services Partnership is a grant funded program which provides access to free colorectal, breast and cervical cancer screenings for men and women, age 18 to 64, who are uninsured or underinsured. United Memorial manages the Partnership for Orleans and Genesee counties.

To help address a possible shortage of primary care physicians in the future, UMMC today announced a partnership with Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine to transform the local hospital into a teaching hospital.

UMMC completed a credentialing process by American Osteopathic Association in August and will begin accepting medical students in residence in 2013.

“This is an exciting moment for United Memorial Medical Center,” said President and CEO Mark C. Schoell (top photo). “As a teaching hospital, United Memorial will be at the forefront of the latest medical developments and be able to provide improved quality of care; advanced treatment therapies; a shorter length of stay for major illnesses; and achieve superior outcomes and survival rates for our patients.”

Dr. Anna Lamb, herself an osteopathic doctor, said the announcement today is "awesome" news for Batavia.

"We need to grow our own," Lamb said. "We’re going to have significant primary care shortage in the next few years as some of our physicians are getting a little older. We have to grow our own. Batavia is just not on people’s radar, so we have to get people in here to see it, to like it, and as Dr. Terry said, 'if we grow our own, they’ll stay here.'"

Dr. Richard Terry also said that local kids with medical aspirations will now have a way to complete their education locally and stay in their hometown, if they choose that route.

UMMC will use a variety of incentives, such as student loan repayment, to help convince residents to stay in Batavia and become primary care physicians.

Many young doctors, Schoell said, no longer want to go into private practice and would rather work for a medical institution.

The reason, he said, are reductions in government medical reimbursements, increasing regulation and the difficulty inherent in owning and running your own business.

There will be four residents accepted for each year of the program (for an eventual total of 12). They will reside in the community and receive compensation and benefits from United Memorial while participating in the program.

Serving as program director for United Memorial is Laurie Kilbury-Taylor, D.O.  Dr. Kilbury-Taylor is an emergency room physician at United Memorial with the group FDR Medical. She is a graduate of the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine and holds additional degrees including a master of science degree from the State University of New York-Roswell Park Division, and bachelor of science degrees in Biology and Engineering.

The first year of residency emphasizes the inpatient experience. For second-year residents,a significant emphasis is placed on taking more clinical responsibilities and enhancing decision-making skills. There are four months of inpatient medicine where residents are the primary physicians for their patients.

Each resident will manage his/her own inpatient service with supervision by an attending physician. The third-year resident has a significant role in teaching and supervising junior residents and assumes direct responsibility for leading the Medicine Teaching Service and Family Medicine Inpatient Teaching Service.

Individuals who have completed a baccalaureate program and wish to pursue a career as a physician in the United States must be accepted to and complete an additional four-year course of study at an accredited osteopathic medical school in order to continue in the osteopathic residency program.

Press Release:

United Memorial's Urgent Care and Diagnostic Services currently located at 3 Tountas Ave. in Le Roy will move on Tuesday, Sept. 11 to their new location at 8745 Lake Road, Le Roy.

Urgent Care and Le Roy Diagnostics will be closed on Sept. 11 for the move, and will reopen at their new location on Wednesday, Sept. 12. Patients who require laboratory, X-ray or urgent care services and usually visit the Tountas Avenue site will be welcomed at the Jerome Center at 16 Bank St. in Batavia.

United Memorial greatly appreciates the understanding of our valued patients during the moving process and looks forward to serving them again on Wednesday, when they will be greeted and cared for by the same dedicated staff members they have relied on for their diagnostic testing and urgent care services in the Le Roy community.

Care at the Le Roy Diagnostics Center and Urgent Care is provided on a walk-in basis to patients and appointments are not necessary. To reach the center by phone, please continue to call (585)768-4220. Le Roy Diagnostics will maintain the same hours of operation Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Urgent Care will be open Monday thought Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and weekends from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The new location will provide greater visibility in the Le Roy community and is conveniently located.

At Summer in the City this Saturday, United Memorial Medical Center will have a Health Fair featuring free health screenings, giveaways, raffles, refreshments, information and more.

It will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. under the tent at Cary Hall, located at 211 E. Main St. -- near the car show.

Bring your kids and grandkids!

Jeremy Newman of WBEE 92.5 will have a live remote broadcast from 2 to 4 p.m.

The free health screenings offered are for blood pressure, blood glucose, total cholesterol. Also, men's prostate health checks will be available from 2 to 4 p.m.

Community partners for the event, which will be there with giveaways and information, are:

• Genesee County Sheriff's Office
• Genesee Veterans Support Network
• Community Action
• County Department of Health
• Lovey's Imagination Station
• UMMC Infection Prevention
• Summit PT and OT
• UMMC Cardiac Rehab
• UMMC Foundation
• Healthy Living
• Wound Care and Hyperbaric Medicine Center
• Maternity
• Fidelis Care
• Dr. William Guthringer
• GC Office for the Aging
• VNA of WNY
• NYS Public Service Commission
• Genesee ARC
• Jerome Senior Apartments
• Cornell Cooperative Extension
• MVP
• GCASA
• Homecare and Hospice
• Dr. Irene Burns
• Allergy Advocacy Association
• Justice for Children Advocacy Center
• ProcAir and UMMC Sleep Services
• Crossroads

In an effort to better match patient care training with patient needs, UMMC recently eliminated eight licensed nurse practitioner positions in one department, but most of the people in those positions still have jobs, said Colleen Flynn, spokeswoman for UMMC.

Four part-time LPNs -- employees working no more than 20 hours a week -- were offered positions elsewhere in the hospital, Flynn said. Two accepted, one decided to go back to school and Flynn hasn't heard yet what the fourth LPN decided to do.

The four per diem positions -- LPNs who filled in for vacations or to shore up other staffing shortfalls -- in the medical surgical floor unit were eliminated but these nurses were given the opportunity to train for new per diem positions with the hospital.

Three were retirees who elected to stay retired, Flynn said, and the fourth will continue to work on a per diem basis for UMMC.

"We separated the positions to better match up skill sets for staffing reasons," Flynn said. "In most cases, hospitals no longer utilize LPNs in acute-care settings, but we still need them in other places. The scope of the practice and licensure determines what they can do for a patient."

In modern health care, patients are not as routinely hospitalized as in the past, so when patients arrive at UMMC now, Flynn said, their needs are much more acute.

"To be a hospitalized patient these days, you have to be very sick," Flynn said. "Because the acuity of patients there are more demands for patient care, so that’s why we decided just to use registered nurses (in that department)."

There's no doubt bath salts have added to the workload at UMMC's ER, according to Chief Medical Officer Michael Merrill.

Merrill said emergency room staff deals with patients coming into the hospital on practically a daily basis who often need to be restrained and sedated.

"We see fairly frequently individuals coming in with intoxication and basically acute psychosis from (bath salts)," Merrill said. "It's quite common."

While Merrill is not working directly in ER, so he can't confirm specifics of patient behavior, they are often described as confused, delusional and agitated.

Those are all common traits with amphetamine-type drugs taken in high doses.

"I don't think people are trying to achieve psychosis," Merrill said. "They are just looking for the high.

"What drug users do is dose themselves for drugs," Merrill added. "They make a calculation on how much they want to take and I don’t think that is an easy calculation to make."

A miscalculation leads to an overdose and the bizarre behavior now associated with bath salts.

In Batavia, recently, we've seen reports of people climbing on roofs, waving knives and calling 9-1-1 to report the sounds of gushots fired.

Talk to just about anyone about bath salts and invariably somebody mentions face eating.

Rumor has it, people high on bath salts have a propensity to try and take a bite of other people's faces.

Merrill said there's no reliable evidence that's a behavior associated with bath salts.

"I don't know if there's anything specific about bath salts that would make anybody want to bite anybody's face," Merrill said. "I know that’s in the news, but I don’t know that’s an intoxicating feature of bath salts. It’s not known to be a typical intoxicating feature of bath salts."

One interesting aspect of reports about bath salts is the patchy nature of the seeming epidemic across the United States. Some communities, such as Batavia, Utica, Fulton and even big cities such as Los Angeles, seem to have significant problems with bath salts. Yet Merrill said he talks to colleagues in places such as San Francisco and Buffalo and is told bath salt problems are rare.

Meanwhile, the Batavia Daily News reported today that 420 Emporium, 400 Ellicott St., Batavia, has been selling a bath salt known as Amped.

The story doesn't even use the word "alleged" to describe the assertion that 420 Emporium has been selling the controlled substance.

A reporter said she observed Amped transactions Saturday night and that an employee handed a package of Amped to Councilwoman Rosemary Christian after she inquired about purchasing the drug (Christian did not complete the purchase). 

An employee reportedly said the shop would continue selling Amped until today.

U.S. Attorney for Western New York William Hochul confirmed today something he told The Batavian last week, that as he understands the new law, as of July 9, when President Barack Obama signed legislation sponsored by Sen. Chuck Schumer, it is a federal crime to sell and possess bath salts.

If it's true that 420 Emporium sold bath salts through Sunday, and the law was effectively immediately upon the president's signature, any such alleged sales would be in violation of federal law.

Also, if the store employee said sales would be discontinued, he is implicitly admitting to bath salt sales prior to today. Besides the new law, bath salts were on a Drug Enforcement Administration emergency controlled substance list prior to July 9 and illegal to sell, though the federal government had a much higher bar to cross to prove any crime.

When The Batavian entered 420 Emporium today, as soon as we identified ourselves, a stocky male employee pointed to the door and said, "Have a nice day."

We asked, "Is the information in this article accurate?"

He repeated the gesture and said, "Have a nice day."

When asked if he wanted a chance to correct any issues, he said, "Please leave." 

The employee refused to answer a number of repeated questions, saying each time, "Have a nice day."

The Batavian then attempted to contact the owner of the 420 Emporium chain by calling the Brockport store and the Fulton store. Both employees took messages and the employee in Fulton offered to send a text message to the owner with our interview request. So far, the owner has not called The Batavian.

Press release:

United Memorial Medical Center is pleased to announce that Urgent Care Services will open at the Jerome Center located at 16 Bank St., Batavia on July 2. Urgent Care will be co-located with Laboratory and Medical Imaging Services.

Urgent Care services are a cost effective and convenient way for patients to receive quality medical care when their primary care physician is unavailable and they do not want to spend time waiting in an emergency room to be treated for a non-life-threatening injury or illness. Co-payments for urgent care are typically less than emergency room co-pays.

UMMC’s Urgent Care Center in Batavia will be well equipped to treat a variety of ailments, including sprains and fractures; cuts and lacerations, animal and insect bites and stings, cold and influenza symptoms; ear infections, pneumonia, bronchitis, urinary tract infections, asthma, sore throats/strep and mono and influenza vaccines.

Urgent Care at the Jerome Center will be supported by United Memorial’s state-of-the-art medical imaging services, the most advanced in Genesee County. The Jerome Center is conveniently located in the heart of Downtown Batavia. It offers handicap accessibility, convenient parking, a gift shop and refreshment kiosk.

In July 2010, United Memorial opened Genesee County’s first Urgent Care Center at 3 Tountas Ave., Le Roy. There were more than 5,000 patient visits to the Urgent Care Center in Le Roy during 2011. This volume had no noticeable impact on the number of emergency room patients treated at United Memorial during the same time period.

Both Urgent Care centers will operate from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends.

Press release:

United Memorial Medical Center has earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval™ for accreditation by demonstrating compliance with The Joint Commission’s national standards for health care quality and safety in hospitals. The accreditation award recognizes United Memorial’s dedication to continuous compliance with The Joint Commission’s advanced standards.

United Memorial underwent a rigorous unannounced on-site survey in late January 2012. A team of Joint Commission expert surveyors evaluated UMMC for compliance with standards of care specific to the needs of patients, including infection prevention and control, leadership and medication management.

"Achieving Joint Commission accreditation, demonstrates United Memorial’s commitment to the highest level of care for our patients," said Mark C. Schoell, CEO of United Memorial. "With Joint Commission accreditation, we are making a significant investment in quality on a day-to-day basis from the top down. Achieving Joint Commission accreditation, for our organization, is a major step toward maintaining excellence and continually improving the care we provide.”

The Joint Commission’s hospital standards address important functions relating to the care of patients and the management of hospitals. The standards are developed in consultation with health care experts, providers, measurement experts and patients.

United Memorial has received accreditation for three years, from January 28, 2012 to January 27, 2015.

The auditorium at UMMC's Cary Hall (next to the YMCA) is all set up for important patient care -- with all of the care stations, instruments and devices of good medical care ready to help heal any teddy bears or dolls that are brought in today.

The event is UMMC's annual Teddy Bear and Doll Clinic, designed to give pre-schoolers, kindergarteners and first-graders an understanding of what is involved in medical care in case they or anybody else they know needs significant medical care.

The clinic is sponsored by Healthy Living Department and is open until 5 p.m.

Press release:

United Memorial Medical Center is pleased to announce that it has received $500,000 in NYS Economic Development funding. Five years ago, United Memorial began a multi-phased project to rehabilitate the former St. Jerome Hospital building, which is located at 16 Bank Street in the heart of Downtown Batavia.

The first phase renovated the ground floor to create an outpatient diagnostic center along with offices for primary care and occupational medicine services. The second phase addressed the upper floors and created 37 housing units for seniors 55 years of age or older earning less than 50 percent of the area median income. Several of the units contain features to assist those with mobility, hearing or visual impairments.

At the beginning of the second phase of the project, New York State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, Senator Mary Lou Rath and then County Legislator Mike Ranzenhofer announced $500,000 in NYS Economic Development Assistance funding to assist with the redevelopment.

At that time, United Memorial’s President and CEO Mark C. Schoell stated, “The support from the State Senate will help us reinvigorate an important area of Downtown Batavia and re-purpose a vacant structure so that it once again serves the residents of Genesee County by providing the necessary elements of employment, housing and access to health care.” 

The adaptive reuse of the building was completed in November 2010; however the NYS Economic Development Assistance funding had not been received. United Memorial solicited help from the 61^st District, New York State Senator Mike Ranzenhofer’s office.

“Senator Ranzenhofer has been diligent in assisting the hospital access the funds promised in 2008,” Schoell said. “The Jerome Center Project is an exemplary illustration of cooperation between government and the private sector to preserve an historic property and provide important services to the community. We greatly appreciate Senator Ranzenhofer’s dedication and commitment to healthcare, housing for our vulnerable population and economic growth.”

Senator Ranzenhofer said "Mark and I have been working closely together for many months to ensure that United Memorial received the funding it had been promised in 2008 for the Jerome Center Project. As a result of our collaborative efforts, we were able to push the funding part of this project across the finish line.

"The Jerome Center Project has had a positive impact -- particularly, the many jobs it has created and the services the site now offers to the community. I hope that the project serves as a paradigm to encourage both organizations and individuals in the community to contact me when encountering a state-related issue."

The Jerome Center currently houses a comprehensive diagnostic center offering medical imaging and laboratory specimen collection; the Corporate Health Center for occupational medicine services; Batavia Family and Pediatric Care; Surgical Associates; Hope Haven, the only secure inpatient chemical dependency rehabilitation unit in the GLOW region; and the fully occupied Jerome Senior Apartments.

The site also hosts a gift shop, refreshment kiosk and cafeteria. Next month an Urgent Care Center will open in the Jerome Center to provide an affordable and timely alternative to emergency room care for non-life threatening illnesses and injuries.

United Memorial Medical Center will offer FREE important health screenings to uninsured Genesee County residents between the ages of 40 and 64 next week.

The screenings will take place from 4 to 8 p.m., Thursday, March 8, at the Jerome Center, 16 Bank St., Batavia.

Please call United Memorial’s Healthy Living Department to schedule an appointment at  344-5331.

Services will include blood-sugar testing, total cholesterol and take-home colorectal cancer screening kits. Healthcare providers will also give free mammograms, pap smears and clinical breast exams for women and prostate screening exams for men.

Light refreshments, health information and free giveaways will also be available.

This event is planned by the Cancer Services Partnership of Genesee and Orleans Counties, and made possible by a state grant administered by United Memorial.