Pumpkin Chase ready to take off
A caring canine
Classes on tap for November
String concert series returns
Learn about difficult people
RNA symposium set this month
Town meeting set
Cafeteria closing
Leave scheduling updates announced
Receipts help CC school
Worksite health program offers exam
Campaign begins
Clinical Center News, Building 10, Room
1C255, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892. (301)
496-2563. Fax: 402-2984. Published monthly for CC employees by the
Office of Clinical Center Communications, Colleen Henrichsen, chief. News,
articles ideas, calendar events, letters, and photographs are welcome.
Deadline for submission is the second Monday of each month. |
Appointed by HHS Secretary Donna Shalala, the board will advise the NIH and CC directors on aspects of Clinical Center operations and management, including budget and strategic plans.
Changing how the CC is governed topped the list of recommendations contained in a report to Shalala earlier this year. An Options Team she put together had spent most of 1995 scrutinizing the CC's structure and organization as part of Vice President Gore's Reinventing Government II initiative.
A collection of NIH committees and groups has historically governed the
CC.
The new board will include eight members from NIH and nine from outside
the organization.
Their names were not available for publication at press time.
That means faster investigations of allegations, improved and streamlined communications, and the chance for quicker resolution for CC employees who feel that they have been discriminated against or sexually harassed.
Joining the CC in the pilot, which began Sept. 15, are the NIH Office of the Director, the Office of Research Resources, and NCI.
There is an informal and a formal process for dealing with allegations of discrimination and harassment, explains Carl Lucas, chief of the CC Office of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO).
It's the informal, or pre-complaint, phase that the Clinical Center and other pilot participants will handle.
During the informal stage, he says, EEO counselors investigate specific allegations and talk with everyone involved. Most problems, Lucas points out, are settled in this phase.
If not, the person with the complaint can move into the formal phase of the process, which is handled by the NIH Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO), for resolution.
"We have more of a vested interest in taking care of our own, to quickly settle disputes," Lucas says. "This new approach also gives us more of an opportunity to become involved before a situation evolves into a formal complaint."
Conflict resolution-the earlier in the process the better--is crucial. "Most of the time, complaints arise from a breakdown in communications. We in EEO don't take sides, and we serve all employees, managers and staff. NIH developed this pilot project to give the ICDs more flexibility in doing business," he added.
In the past, employees with a complaint would take it directly to the NIH Office of Equal Opportunity's complaints management and adjudication branch. An NIH EEO counselor would, in the informal phase of the process, investigate and prepare a report for NIH OEO review in the formal phase.
"Historically, we at the Clinical Center would help the assigned counselor conduct the investigation and handle paperwork," he said.
In preparation for their new roles, three staff EEO specialists and seven counselors recruited from throughout the Clinical Center have had special training in how to mediate conflict and formally lodge complaints found to be legitimate. The NIH OEO staff will work with the CC counselors on the initial cases. (by Sara Byars)
Go To The Clinical Center Office of Equal Opportunity & Diversity Management (OEODM) Web Page
The Office of Management and Budget has said that it expects that the Clinical Center will generate some $18 million by collecting health-insurance payments for the routine care of patients in clinical trials here in FY97.
Appropriations bills passed by the House of Representatives on July 12 and by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Sept. 12 authorize NIH to collect this money and credit it to the NIH Management Fund. The Clinical Center does not receive a separate budget. Our budget comes from the institutes through this management fund.
Tapping this pool of health-care dollars isn't a new--or particularly simple-idea. In order for it to work effectively, we must:
Finally, both the House and the Senate agree on the need to continue to fund construction of the new Clinical Research Center. Bills now before Congress earmark about $90 million for the new facility in FY97.
While we had hoped that Congress would approve the plan to fund the entire $310 million project in FY97, as outlined in President Clinton's budget request earlier this year, Congressional support for the new center is clear.
Naming the new Clinical Research Center for Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Oregon) was included as an amendment to the Senate appropriations bill awaiting a final vote as this issue of CCNews goes to press, and it's anticipated that it will be included in the final funding bill.
Sen. Hatfield has long been a proponent of biomedical and clinical research. Under his chairmanship of the Senate appropriations committee, funding for NIH has increased by more than $2.5 billion. Last year he led Congress in maintaining overwhelming support for biomedical research by offering an amendment to the budget resolution that spared NIH from a 10 percent cut in funding.
All of this is good news for clinical research in general and the Clinical
Center in particular.
Theme for this year's observance is "Ability for Hire." Persons with disabilities work on Main Street and on Wall Street. They are trained accountants, bricklayers, scientists, chefs, dishwashers, radio announcers--the list goes on. Their skills and talents are needed and their abilities are for hire. Improved accessibility and acceptance has resulted in more job opportunities for persons with disabilities.
In the CC EEO office, Jerry Garmany coordinates the Disability Employment Program, which ensures reasonable accommodations, often making it possible for a qualified person with a disability to do the same job as anyone else, but in a slightly different way. Some accommodations are simple adaptations. Others require technically sophisticated equipment.
The EEO office also coordinates requests for sign-language interpretation for deaf applicants, employees, and patients, and provides Teletypewriter (TTY) devices to deaf or hard-of-hearing employees.
For program details, contact Garmany at 496-9100 (TTY), through the Maryland
Relay Service on 1-800-735-2258, or e-mail him, jgarmany@pop.cc.nih.gov
(by Jerry Garmany)
There'll be t-shirts for participants, prizes in several categories, and
refreshments. For more information on the Pumpkin Chase, call Wendy Ladas
at 230-4817. To sign up as an FOCC volunteer to help with the event, call
Pat Turner at 496-9271.
The series--Tuesdays at the Little Theater-is free, open to all employees, and requires no reservations. Just drop by the Little Theater, which is in the Visitor Information Center, at noon. Sessions run an hour. Other programs will be offered Oct. 22, and Nov. 5, 12, and 19.
Call 496-3164 for details.
According to HHS, this includes any leave restored to employees as result of the furlough, which employees have until January 1999 to use.
And speaking of leave, employees with use-or-lose leave have until Nov.
23 to schedule a time to take it.
Located on the 10th floor, the school is classroom to more than 300 students
each year. If you'd like to help enhance the program, drop off the receipts
or send them to room 10S235.
The center's mammography van will be in the parking lot behind EPS and EPN on Executive Blvd. Oct. 30; on Convent Drive near the CC on Oct. 31; and at Natcher on Nov. 6. Hours are 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
The mammography costs $75. The mobile program is accredited by the American
College of Radiology. To schedule an appointment, call (202) 994-9999. Call
Susanne Strickland at 496-1105 if you have general comments or suggestions
about the worksite mammography program or other initiatives offered by the
Worksite Health Promotion Plan.
Pam Brye, Melissa Zafonte, and Rosemary Parisi
(from left), CC Nutrition Department, were tapped
to help provide food inspections during the Olympics in Atlanta. They
joined a cadre of federal, state, and local sanitarians to make sure the
foods available at various venues were safe, a critical public-health
mission during the games. They were among recipients of the Hammer Award
given last month by the National Performance Review Agency.
Ann McNemar (pictured right), a nurse on 9 West, had a behind-the-scenes,
front-row seat to the
Olympic Games as a scorer for the equestrian events.
Pam Brye, manager of patient services for the CC Nutrition Department and PHS chief dietitian, received the call. The Public Health Service was needed to help with food inspections provided by the Fulton, Ga., health department.
That was Saturday morning. By Tuesday, Brye was in Atlanta, along with CC research dietitians Melissa Zafonte and Rosemary Parisi. They joined a cadre of federal sanitarians, dietitians-and one veterinarian--from ten states.
Hundreds of vendors were licensed to sell meals and snacks on the streets of Atlanta. Olympic planners had underestimated the number of sanitarians needed to make sure that the food was safe. Huge crowds and hot temperatures made that monitoring crucial. "There was great potential for food-borne outbreaks of illness," pointed out Brye, who staffed the food inspection command post.
Zafonte and Parisi joined teams that worked two shifts a day performing the inspections. "The team members made sure that foods were kept at the correct temperature, that handwashing and toilet facilities were available, and that the vendors had the proper permits," Brye explained.
"The teams were responsible for specific areas. My team covered the area around Centennial Park," said Zafonte. "The vendors in this area had proper permits, but we had the authority to shut down anyone not in compliance."
SWAT teams were called in when a food vendor was ordered to shut down and didn't.
"The streets had a carnival atmosphere," noted Parisi. "When people bought food from a street vendor, there was nowhere to sit, except on the curb. But the city needed the vendors during the Games--the permits meant income for the city."
"When a vendor applied for a permit, there was no way to know if they had had training in food handling," Brye added.
"Many of those vendors had invested thousands of dollars and were making only hundreds," said Zafonte. "People weren't buying."
That made the inspectors easy targets for the vendors' frustrations.
"They saw us often and they sometimes vented their frustration on us. But they also understood that we had a lot of people to protect," Zafonte explained.
The teams performed about 3,400 inspections during their 10 days in Atlanta. They responded to 49 complaints and mounted six food-borne illness investigations. More than 20,000 pounds of food had to be discarded as result of their inspections, including nearly 11,000 pounds of quiche.
"This was the first time that dietitians have been called to participate in an emergency effort," said Brye.
"The experience put a new perspective on our profession's role in the
PHS," Zafonte said. "We, too, are public servants."
And for the reluctant student, riding became a life-long love and her ticket to an up-close, behind-the-scenes look at Olympic competition. McNemar, a nurse on 9 West, was tapped as a scoring assistant for the equestrian competition during the Summer Games in Atlanta.
When the call for applications for volunteers appeared in an equestrian magazine three years ago, friends encouraged her to apply. She was one of about 20 accepted.
"In many ways, scoring at the Olympics was easy," admits the veteran scorer for local events. "There's a lot more technical support." Timing information, penalties at cross-country fences, and movement scores during the dressage events were entered into timing equipment linked to computers, which reformatted the data for television and the commentators, and printed the results.
Everything was also recorded by hand so that manual and electronic scores could be compared before the final results were published. During grand prix jumping, McNemar oversaw the manual scoring master sheet. On endurance days, she was one of two scorers for the steeple chase events. For dressage events--competitions in which the horses move through a series of specific movements--she served as a computer scribe. "I fed the scores directly into the computer," she says. "I was very nervous about doing it right. Once the whole screen disappeared! I certainly have a better appreciation as to what goes on behind the scenes."
The weather and security concerns topped the agenda of behind-the-scenes worries for Olympic participants. "Having the games in Atlanta spurred a world-wide research effort on horse and heat-related issues," McNemar says. "A good bit of data was developed."
Because of the South's sultry summer weather, the cross-country course was shortened, rest stops added, and mist machines installed. "Competitions started early and ran late, with breaks during the middle of the day. Weather sensors and temperature monitors were in place and the competitions would have been stopped if necessary."
Heightened security meant thorough inspections of vehicles and individuals coming in for the competitions. "I kept hearing people talk about sanitizing things. I thought they were talking about ticks on the horses, but it turned out to be for bombs."
McNemar's involvement in international competitions didn't end with last summer's Olympics. She'll be involved in next year's North American dressage event and plans to attend the world equestrian championship in Ireland in 1998.
She and her horse Avenue may participate in some local games as well. "I
don't love jumping that much because I'm becoming breakable," she says
with a laugh. "Avenue knows more than I do and I'm learning from her.
We'll compete once we both figure it all out." (-by Sara
Byars)
Last year, five patients being treated at the CC were later diagnosed with the flu. During the course of caring for them, 90 health-care workers and support staff were exposed to the virus. Twenty-five hadn't been vaccinated and went to OMS for evaluation; at least six developed the flu.
That's why an annual flu shot is important. If many hospital workers become incapacitated, patient care could suffer.
You can't predict where you will be exposed to influenza, whether at home, in your community, or at work. Because you work in a hospital, disease prevention experts recommend that you get an annual flu shot. By doing this, you can help prevent this highly contagious virus from spreading among high-risk persons such as the elderly and those with underlying health problems.
If you received a vaccination in the past, you still need to be vaccinated because influenza viruses change every year. The vaccine is made of safe, inactive particles that cannot cause influenza.
To make it convenient for patient-care employees in building 10, OMS will
administer shots for these workers on various nursing units from 6:30-11:30
a.m. and 4-6 p.m. on Oct. 7, 9, and 11. Watch for posters in clinics and
patient-care units for times and places.
For details on the immunization schedule and other commonly asked
questions, contact the hospital epidemiology
section.
The lectures, which are free and open to the public, are held at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays in Masur Auditorium.
This year's schedule:
Comments?
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National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Last modified 10/31/05
