Health department applies for accreditation Thursday

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

The Christian County Health Department applied for accreditation on Thursday afternoon — six months ahead of its deadline.

The next step is to get a national inspector here to spend a week conducting interviews and watching procedures. If the health department passes every test, it could get the accreditation before the end of the year.

Department Director Mark Pyle surprised his staff and board members with the news on Thursday. He invited Mike Cayce, director of the county’s board of health, to click the “submit” button on the website of the Public Health Accreditation Board. Watching it on a projector, the staff cheered and clapped.

Integrated health plan proposed for schools

Health department says it could alleviate nurse shortage

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer 

Donna Crick no longer needs to worry about the school nurse being absent from Crofton Elementary, where her insulin-dependent daughter attends.

The school no longer shares a nurse with Lacy Elementary School — because Lacy now has a diabetic student as well.  

The Christian County Health Department's initial plan for saving on payroll costs hasn't worked out. So in the midst of serious budget shortfalls, the department is now considering an alternate model, called Coordinated School Health, that would depend more heavily on educators.

"There is so much more that should be done in the schools with school health other than nursing," Health Department Director Mark Pyle wrote in an email. "As a community we will need to figure out how to use all tax dollars (school system, health department, others) to efficiently offer a coordinated school health program."

17-page plan details steps for improving our health

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

Several months ago, Mark Pyle, director of the Christian County Health Department, promised a more proactive approach to this area’s health — one that unified the hospital, local government and others toward a common goal.

Now those organizations are getting their assignments.

Jennie Stuart Medical Center needs to bring in more doctors, according to the 2012 Community Health Assessment and Improvement Plan, which the health department will make public next week.

Hopkinsville City Council needs to improve public transportation, so people can get to their doctors’ offices, and get serious about adding sidewalks and walking trails.

Our Opinion: Leadership right plan for board of health

New Era Staff Editorial

What happens inside the walls of the Christian County Health Department on Canton Street, and what happens outside those walls in the second-largest county in Kentucky, are both concerns for the local health board. Mark Pyle, the county health director, acknowledged this fact during a board meeting Monday. He told the board members their focus should shift from managing the department’s finances to addressing the county’s health needs.

Christian County has serious health problems, and it is consistent with the public health department’s focus to lead the community’s response to those problems. That’s why Pyle’s plan to shift the focus of the health board is an important positive step for the community.

Pyle: Board of health must shift focus to community health

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

The Christian County Board of Health needs to spend less time on the health department’s budget and more time addressing big questions of community health, said Health Department Director Mark Pyle.

Pyle announced this opinion in a presentation Monday night that closed the board’s quarterly meeting.

For the board members, this will mean informing themselves better about the community’s health needs beyond the department’s doors, he said. He plans to discuss this in more specific terms at the next meeting Nov. 19.

“How many of you, when you signed up for the board of health, thought that the only thing that you would do when you came to a board meeting would be talk about money?” he asked the board. No hands went up. “If you haven’t noticed, the past four years, we haven’t talked about a lot of health issues. That’s going to change.”

Digital records empower many medical patients

Timeline fuzzy for county’s conversion

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

Just before Dr. Terry Fuqua closed his internal medicine practice in 2008, he ran ads in the New Era that encouraged patients to come pick up their medical records.

Only about a third of his patients took the offer. So Fuqua destroyed the records from patients who hadn’t visited in more than five years, and he brought the remaining 50 to 75 cases home and stored them in his garage.

He continues shredding records that pass the five-year mark.

He still has word processor documents with detailed notes from patient visits. But since his retirement, he estimates that fewer than a dozen former patients have called him for records.

Fuqua retired on the cusp of a new era. Technological developments are sweeping situations like this into the past. One day nearly all patient records, including those at hospitals and doctors’ offices throughout this area, will survive the way Fuqua’s notes have: on computer hard drives or in cyberspace.

Blood trail

A circuitous journey from donors to patients

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

Lisa Troutman gets an emotional lift each time she donates. She knows it saves lives, she says.

She just doesn’t know exactly how. After staff members bag up and seal her blood, Troutman never sees it again.

On the other end, patients at six Western Kentucky hospitals routinely have blood Troutman donated pumped into their veins.

They never find out where it came from, and few ever wonder where it went in between.

Read the full entry here.