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June 1, 2006 The Board of Directors of Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation held its regular monthly meeting May 29 at the Community Centre in St. Martin’s. The following are highlights of that meeting: Pandemic Influenza AHSC Emergency Management Coordinator Murielle Provost updated Board members on planning for a pandemic influenza. She explained that a pandemic is inevitable; though when or how it will arrive is very unpredictable. “Experts do agree that we may be looking at simultaneous outbreaks in multiple locations and that the illness will come in waves,” she said. ”For months now AHSC has had 18 working groups developing contingency plans to look at how best to continue to care for an increased volume of patients while up to 50 percent of staff may be impacted by the pandemic.” AHSC Board chairman William Teed, Q.C. thanked Provost for the excellent presentation. “It is good to know that Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation is accepting its responsibility to the residents of this health region by actively planning for such a situation.” Report of the CEO In her report, AHSC CEO Dora Nicinski told Board members that Nancy Savage, Vice President Patient Programs, has secured one of 26 fellowships awarded to the 2006 Executive training for Research Applications (EXTRA) program. EXTRA is a strategic activity with the primary goal of providing health system managers the skills to better use research in their day to day work. Nancy’s project will be “Development and Implementation of a Succession Plan for Nursing Leadership”. Dr. Rachel Morehouse, clinical head of psychiatry with Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation, was the investigator for the Saint John portion of a study that compared the effectiveness of bright artificial light and antidepressant treatments for seasonal affective disorder in four Canadian cities over three winter seasons. The findings show that the use of bright light therapy is equally effective as the antidepressant fluoxetine in treating winter seasonal affective disorder The complete findings are presented in “The CAN-SAD Study: Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effectiveness of Light Therapy and Fluoxetine in Patients With Winter Seasonal Affective Disorder” led by Raymond W. Lam, M.D., of the Mood Disorder Centre at Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and the University of British Columbia and published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, May 2006. Dr. Lam was pleased to have the Saint John Regional Hospital participate in the study due to the solid and respected reputation of the research facilities located here and the capabilities of Dr. Rachel Morehouse as a co-investigator. Drs. Christine Davies and Mary Goodfellow have been selected to receive the 2006 Dr. Garfield Moffatt Award sponsored by the York-Sunbury-Queens District Medical Society. Executive Committee A Motion was passed to renovate sleeping quarters for medical residents using $450,000 of funds supplied by the Board of Directors. Professional Advisory Committee Chairman Ken Baird reported that the Professional Advisory Committee advised AHSC Board members to pass the following motion involving membership of the committee. “The Professional Advisory Committee recommends to the Board of Directors that Public Health and Community Mental Health Representatives be included in the 15 full voting members of the Professional Advisory Committee. AHSC’s Board of Directors passed this motion. Finance Committee
The following motion was passed: That approval be granted to award a contract in the amount of $1,107,600 to Bristol Myers Squibb for the supply of F-18 Fluoro-deoxy-D-Glucose (FDG agent) for AHSC’s Positron Emission Tomography (PET/CT) program, in accordance with AHSC RFP # 006-004.
Contact: Patricia Crowdis Copyright © 2006 Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation. All rights reserved. |
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