Rating Indicates Wellington Regional as one of the Safest Hospitals in the Country
 
April 29 2021 – Wellington Regional Medical Center received an “A” grade in the spring 2021 Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, a national distinction recognizing Wellington Regional’s achievements protecting patients from errors, injuries, accidents and infections. 
 
“We are thrilled to be rated as an ‘A’ hospital by The Leapfrog Group,” said Pam Tahan, CEO, Wellington Regional Medical Center.  “Patient safety remains the top priority for Wellington Regional and earning an ‘A’ rating by one of the nation’s premier review organizations is an indication of our team’s commitment to providing the highest quality care possible.  The rating signifies that Wellington Regional is among the safest hospitals for patients in the nation.” 
 
The Leapfrog Group is an independent national watchdog organization committed to health care quality and safety. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade assigns an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or “F” grade to all general hospitals across the country and is updated every six months. It is the only hospital ratings program based exclusively on hospitals’ prevention of medical errors and other harms to patients in their care. 
 
“An ‘A’ safety grade is an elite designation that your community should be proud of,” said Leah Binder, president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. “The past year has been extraordinarily difficult for hospitals, but Wellington Regional shows us it is possible to keep a laser focus on patients and their safety, no matter what it takes.”
 
Developed under the guidance of a national expert panel, the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade uses up to 27 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,700 U.S. acute-care hospitals twice per year. The Hospital Safety Grade’s methodology is peer-reviewed and fully transparent, and the results are free to the public.
 
 
About Wellington Regional Medical Center
Wellington Regional Medical Center is a 233-bed acute care hospital accredited by The Joint Commission. Celebrating more than 30 years of treating residents in Wellington and the surrounding community, the hospital offers a wide range of services, including comprehensive stroke care, comprehensive lung program, minimally invasive services, cardiac services, a birthing center and level III NICU, comprehensive women’s center, hepatobiliary surgical procedures, intraoperative radiation therapy, interventional procedures and a wellness and weight loss center. To learn more about the hospital, please visit www.wellingtonregional.com.
 
 
About The Leapfrog Group
Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey and new Leapfrog Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Survey collect and transparently report hospital and ASC performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog’s other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. 
 


Aimed to Serve the Emerging Psychedelic Market
 
April 29, 2021 — Dustin Robinson, Esq., CPA, the founding partner of one of the leading law firms in the psychedelic industry, in partnership with seasoned private equity investor Robert Velarde, has launched Iter Investments, a venture capital firm that will aim to deploy capital primarily in businesses operating in and around the burgeoning psychedelic industry. Robinson explains: “Our mission is to help entrepreneurs build great companies that use medical and scientific research to reimagine the health care industry’s approach to addressing mental health disorders.”
 
Robinson sits at the cross-section of many aspects of the psychedelic ecosystem. His law firm has been recognized by Psychedelic Invest as one of the top law firm that specializes in psychedelics. Robinson also co-founded Mr. Psychedelic Law, a non-profit focused on driving legal reform through medical and scientific research. Through Mr. Psychedelic Law, Robinson and his team have drafted various psychedelic bills and resolutions, including a Florida bill filed by State Representative Michael Grieco that seeks to legalize psilocybin mushrooms and decriminalize entheogenic plants and fungi. Dustin also co-founded other non-profits in the psychedelic space, including Mind Army, and currently represents the Psychedelic Pharmacists Association. Due to his active involvement in many areas within the psychedelic ecosystem, Robinson has early-stage businesses, investors, doctors, therapists, and other stakeholders reaching out to him for guidance in various capacities. 
 
When Robinson decided to launch Iter Investments, he teamed up with Robert Velarde. Velarde is a seasoned private equity investor with over 25 years of global private equity investment experience in a broad range of industries in US, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Velarde earned his MBA from Harvard University; and has proven experience building and managing private markets investment platforms as a senior leader in institutional, family office, and impact investment firms. 
 
“I believe that Robert’s deep expertise in originating, structuring and managing direct private investments and managing funds, combined with my expertise in the psychedelic space, make us a unique partnership to capitalize and assist this emerging industry,” said Robinson. 
 
Next, Robinson and Velarde built an advisory board to assist the team with opportunity identification, diligence, and portfolio management: 
·Dr. Scott Fisher, MD, is the Psychiatric Lead for Iter Investments. He has his Certificate in Psychedelic Therapy Research from California Institute of Integral Studies; and he is the Lead Facilitator with Segal Clinic in the Usona FDA Phase 2 clinical trial assessing effectiveness of psilocybin for major depressive disorder.
·Dr. Michelle Weiner, DO, MPH, is the Clinical Lead for Iter Investments. Her practice includes psychedelic-assisted therapy through ketamine.
·Edgar Asebey, Esq., is the FDA Lead for Iter Investments. He has over two decades of experience in federal regulation of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.
·David Wood, Esq., Ph.D., is the Intellectual Property Lead for Iter Investments. He specializes in patents and other intellectual property in the psychedelic space.
·Andrew Hall, Ph.D., is the Scientific Lead for Iter Investments. He has his PhD in Natural Products Chemistry and Pharmacognosy; and he is the Chief Science Officer of Green Scientific Labs.
·Matthew Savarick, is a mental and behavioral health executive, and is an expert in coaching high-performing individuals and teams to reach even higher levels of success.
 
Velarde explains, “Our advisory board represents the end-to-end psychedelic value chain. By creating what we consider to be a team of experts and professionals within the psychedelic industry, Iter Investments aims to provide investors with an unparalleled opportunity to access a broad range of emerging companies in the psychedelic sector. The psychedelic industry has received an increasing amount of acceptance and early-stage firms are looking to scale.  Many believe that there is a current funding gap between psychedelic drug research and mass commercialization. We look to serve that gap while aiming to offer portfolio companies what we consider to be expert guidance to support their growth and success.”
 
 
 
About Iter Investments
Iter Investments is a newly started investment firm that will aim to primarily deploy capital in and around the burgeoning psychedelic industry. Iter Investments will seek to invest with the mission of re-imagining how the mental health and wellness industry delivers care. For more information, visit www.iterinvestments.com or email contact@iterinvestments.com.
 


 
 
April 29 2021 – The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings for 2021 shows 25 hospitals in the State of Florida with a rating of five stars.
 
These are the hospitals in Florida that received a five-star rating from CMS: 
 
AdventHealth Daytona Beach
 
AdventHealth North Pinellas (Tarpon Springs)
 
AdventHealth Orlando  
 
AdventHealth Sebring 
 
AdventHealth Wauchula  
 
AdventHealth Wesley Chapel  
 
Ascension St. Vincent’s Clay County (Middleburg)
 
Baptist Medical Center Beaches (Jacksonville Beach)
 
Baptist Medical Center-Nassau (Fernandina Beach) 
 
Bartow Regional Medical Center  
 
Cape Canaveral Hospital (Cocoa Beach)
 
Doctors Hospital (Coral Gables) 
 
Doctors Hospital of Sarasota  
 
Florida Hospital Carrollwood (Tampa) 
 
Florida Hospital Zephyrhills  
 
Gulf Breeze Hospital 
 
Holy Cross Hospital (Fort Lauderdale)
 
Jupiter Medical Center  
 
Lakewood Ranch Medical Center (Bradenton) 
 
Mayo Clinic Florida (Jacksonville)
 
Mease Dunedin Hospital 
 
Memorial Hospital Miramar  
 
Morton Plant Mease Healthcare Countryside (Safety Harbor)
 
Palm Bay Hospital  
 
Sarasota Memorial Hospital  
 


April 29 2921 – A $100,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Broward is helping advance research at Memorial Cancer Institute that provides oncologists a clearer and timelier picture of the impact of targeted therapy drugs on lung cancer. That’s good news for patients whose medical teams can utilize that information to refine treatments and incorporate drugs known to be effective against specific types of tumors, an approach known as “precision medicine.”
 
The current standard of care uses liquid biopsies to determine the makeup of tumor DNA in the bloodstream and combines it with next generation gene sequencing (NGS), which surveys the genome in search of genetic anomalies. The resulting data is especially helpful when diagnosing and evaluating new cancer patients and enables doctors to customize therapies for all patients. The Community Foundation grant, administered through the nonprofit Memorial Foundation, enables Memorial Cancer Institute to go even further with its research, using the biopsies to predict treatment outcomes in lung, breast, and colon cancer patients. 
 
“We’ve been able to follow the changes of the tumoral DNA in these patients and, in most cases, predict the response to targeted therapy,” said Dr. Luis E. Raez, chief scientific officer and medical director at Memorial Cancer Institute, which was recently recognized by the state’s Department of Health as a “Florida Cancer Center of Excellence.” “That enables us to be able to predict treatment response or failure ahead of CT scans or PET scans, meaning patients will be able to monitor their response to cancer therapy without being irradiated.” 
 
Earlier this year, Dr. Raez and his colleagues at Memorial and Florida International University made a virtual presentation of their findings at the World Conference on Lung Cancer in Singapore. 
 
Support has been provided by the following Funds at the Community Foundation of Broward: 
Harold D. Franks Cancer Fund 
Mary N. Porter Cancer Research Fund
 
The six-figure research grant is part of the nonprofit’s ‘Cancel Cancer’ initiative that seeks to “advance local, breakthrough cancer research that makes lifesaving clinical trials accessible to all Broward residents.” 


April 29 2021 – To bolster research to help communities disproportionately affected by COVID-19, the National Institutes of Health is funding $29 million in additional grants for the NIH Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities. This funding was supported by the American Rescue Plan. The awards will provide $15 million to 11 teams already conducting research and outreach to help strengthen COVID-19 vaccine confidence and access, as well as testing and treatment, in communities of color. An additional $14 million will fund 10 new research teams to extend the reach of COVID-19 community-engaged research and outreach.
 
“The goal of this effort is to foster community-engagement research in communities which have been hit hardest by the pandemic,” said Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). “The alliance is designed to meet people where they are with the help of trusted messengers, including family doctors, pastors, and community health workers, and to forge lasting partnerships to address health disparities.”
 
Eleven research teams received $17 million in grants in 2020 to reach residents at risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes. Spread throughout the country, CEAL research groups have used different strategies to coordinate educational outreach, raise awareness about the importance of inclusive participation in COVID-19 testing, vaccine uptake, and clinical trials, and conduct research to understand barriers surrounding prevention and treatment. CEAL researchers also study the best ways to address these challenges and establish trust in the scientific process, while equitably distributing COVID-19 resources tailored to each community.
 
“It’s one thing to have strong national messages about the science behind vaccines,” said Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., director, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). “It’s another to have those messages delivered by local, trusted sources, who can ensure questions from their communities are honestly and clearly addressed.”
 
For example, mobile units in the Mississippi Delta helped rural residents access COVID-19 vaccines, while pop-up vaccine clinics played similar roles in California, Michigan, and other states. Focus groups in multiple CEAL regions identified information-based needs and perceptions about vaccines and treatment, including concerns about medical mistrust, which guided future outreach.
 
“The most promising scientific discoveries benefit all populations and the way we ensure that is through inclusive research participation and community engagement,” Pérez-Stable added. “CEAL researchers are creating the community-engaged model to transform research practice.”
 
Throughout 2021, CEAL researchers will tap community leaders, trusted organizations, and experts familiar to their communities, including NIH Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) testing centers, state health departments, and certified diabetes educators, and community health workers.  These community assets will partner with each other to strengthen a national response to COVID-19 by focusing on local outreach. As teams within the CEAL Alliance personalize these outreach strategies, they will also share their findings with each other and the broader community of those working to move the country past the pandemic.
 
“The power of community-engaged partnerships extends beyond state borders,” said Catherine Stoney, Ph.D., the CEAL Alliance scientific program lead and deputy director of the Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science at NHLBI. “The CEAL Alliance provides a central research hub where findings from one region may inform or guide best practices in another.”
 
CEAL, guided by community-engaged researchers and supported by trusted community organizations and messengers, is an NIH-wide effort co-led by NHLBI and NIMHD.
 
The 10 new research teams joining the CEAL Alliance include:
 
Jose Arturo Bauermeister, Ph.D., M.P.H.
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
 
Cheryl Himmelfarb, Ph.D., R.N.
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
 
Matthew Kreuter, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Washington University in St. Louis
 
Benjamin Linas, M.D.
Boston Medical Center
 
Vivian Colón-López, Ph.D., M.P.H.
University of Puerto Rico Medical Sciences, San Juan
 
Molly Martin, M.D. 
University of Illinois at Chicago
 
Pearl McElfish, Ph.D.
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock
 
Donald Nease, M.D.
University of Colorado Denver
 
Chau Trinh-Shevrin, DrPH
New York University School of Medicine, New York City
 
Lisa Cacari Stone, Ph.D.
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
 
For more information about the CEAL Alliance, visit the NIH COVID-19 communities page.
 
About the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI): NHLBI is the global leader in conducting and supporting research in heart, lung, and blood diseases and sleep disorders that advances scientific knowledge, improves public health, and saves lives. For more information, visit www.nhlbi.nih.gov.
 
About the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD): NIMHD leads scientific research to improve minority health and eliminate health disparities by conducting and supporting research; planning, reviewing, coordinating, and evaluating all minority health and health disparities research at NIH; promoting and supporting the training of a diverse research workforce; translating and disseminating research information; and fostering collaborations and partnerships. For more information about NIMHD, visit https://www.nimhd.nih.gov.
 
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.