Boca Raton Community Hospital has announced they are focusing on decreasing their carbon footprint and greening their facility by implementing Stericycle’s (NASDAQ: SRCL) Integrated Waste Stream Solutions service. 

The Hospital’s green initiatives, implemented in May, range from keeping plastic and cardboard out of landfills to increasing its percentage of recycled material. As a result, the Hospital has been able to shut down its onsite incinerator, which was used for treating all of its waste.
 
The integrated service provided by Stericycle focuses on environmental best practices, training to comply with complex federal and local regulations and standards, and lowering expenses by managing multiple waste streams with one provider.
 
The Stericycle service at Boca Raton Community Hospital emphasizes proper waste segregation by educating employees on the handling of multiple waste streams such as Regulated Medical Waste and recycling. This training increases the hospital’s overall recycling commitment through a single stream recycling program that includes aluminum, plastic, glass, and paper.
Boca Raton Community Hospital is switching from disposable sharps containers to Stericycle’s Sharps Management Service using Bio Systems reusable containers. Utilizing this proactive service, one Bio Systems reusable container prevents 600 disposable sharps containers from going into a landfill. Sharps containers are a place for items such as used needles, syringes and scalpels.
 
By using the Sharps Management System, the 400-bed Boca Raton Community Hospital will eliminate approximately 44,000 pounds of plastic and 3,400 pounds of cardboard, diverting an estimated 26,000 pounds of CO² annually. This annual carbon diversion is equivalent to not using 1,357 gallons of gasoline4.


Hospice by the Sea, Inc. has opened a Broward County Corporate Office in Fort Lauderdale. The new office, located in the heart of the business district, will provide a variety of non-patient programs, services and events for the Broward County community.

Hospice by the Sea, Inc. is committed to being a community resource for the residents of Broward County. The new Fort Lauderdale location will provide convenient access for members of the county’s residential and business communities who wish to take advantage of the resources the organization provides for patients, families and caregivers. Services to be offered on site include educational seminars, bereavement groups, volunteer training, community outreach and a variety of resources for caregivers, including support groups, skills training and complementary therapies for self-care. In addition, special events and meetings of local business and healthcare industry organizations will be held on an ongoing basis. The new office will be led by Managing Director, Pat Eileen O’Meara.


Miller Construction Company’s veteran healthcare team has completed a $2.2 million renovation and expansion project for Cleveland Clinic Florida that demanded expertise in air quality, infection control and complex compliance issues. The multi-phase project at the Cleveland Clinic Florida campus in Weston included constructing a second floor atop a one-story section of the hospital to accommodate a 10-bed expansion of the Post Anesthesia Care Unit, plus renovating adjacent space to add five beds to the Intensive Care Unit. 

In other projects, the team created a dialysis suite and reconfigured and expanded the hospital’s pharmacy, including addition of a clean room and negative pressure room built to USP 797 standards.


Clinical trials options are fast becoming common place in the armamentarium for treating medical conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and many other illnesses. According to the FDA, clinical trials are voluntary research studies, conducted in people, which are designed to answer specific questions about the safety and/or effectiveness of drugs, vaccines, other therapies, or new ways of using existing treatments. In the Broward Health system, we are proud to be able to offer this service to our patients, especially as part of our cancer services. The Broward Health North Broward Medical Center cancer service has the distinction of being an American College of Surgeon (ACoS) accredited cancer program and is also an affiliate of the H. Lee Moffitt Clinical Research Network.

Research involving human beings have come a long way from the days when research scientists were viewed as mysterious and unethical largely because of past misconduct in the field. Today every new drug and every new medical devise rely heavily on volunteers to participate in the final phases of testing before the new product is approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and released for general medical use.
 
One of the biggest challenges facing the development of new drugs is the lack of clinical research participants in the general population but particularly among subpopulation groups such as the elderly, children, racially and ethnically diverse communities, and medically underserved populations. People participating in clinical trials must give their informed consent.
 
Things to consider and discuss with the doctor include the purpose of the study, risks and benefits, and what to expect regarding treatment and care. Though no one can totally predict the results of a study, thousands of people are helped every year because they decided to take part in a clinical trial, not to mention the millions who benefit from others’ participation in clinical trials.
 
The goal among healthcare professions in clinical research is to identify barriers to research participation and to continually raise consumer awareness of treatment options and health conditions and motivate consumers to have productive discussions with their physicians about these important health issues.
 
To this end, national agencies including the FDA, Department of Human Health Services and the National Cancer Institute have developed numerous educational tools such as brochures, CDs, and DVDs in an effort to utilize the most effective ways to present and disseminate information to these target populations. The various websites are also a one stop shop for individuals who desire information about national clinical trials.


Chris Rakunas has been named Chief Executive Officer of Lehigh Regional Medical Center.

Rakunas moves up from chief operating officer, succeeding José Morillo, who was the head of the hospital for the past 3 years and relocated to Punta Gorda to be the head of Charlotte Regional Medical Center.
 
Rakunas says he looks forward to the new position and sees good things ahead for Lehigh Regional Medical Center.
After getting his degree at Berkeley, Rakunas was employed by Johnson and Johnson in global operations and strategic marketing. During that time he went back to graduate school at the University of Southern California (USC) where he earned a master’s in business administration and graduated on the dean’s list.
 
During his two years as COO at Lehigh Regional Medical Center, Rakunas was responsible for upgrading the CT and MRI, installing the PACS (Picture Archiving Computer System), building out the Joint Academy for elective orthopedic total joint replacements, constructing the current Wound Care Institute space, and installing and starting the Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers in the hospital.
 
He is very active in the community and serves as a board member of Lehigh Community Services. He is also a board member of the Kiwanis Club of Lehigh Acres as well as a member of the Knights of Columbus in Lehigh Acres.