Penn State Health

IRVING, Texas--( BUSINESS WIRE )-- Vizient, Inc. announced top performers in clinical quality, supplier diversity and environmental sustainability excellence. The awards recognize the achievements of participating hospitals and health systems in patient care quality and supply chain excellence and were announced at Vizient Connections Summit Sept. 17 in Las Vegas. “Top performers set a precedent in leadership and culture for other health systems and hospitals to follow," said Byron Jobe , Vizient president and CEO. "We celebrate each of these organizations for their efforts to deliver cost-effective, high-quality patient care in their communities." The Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Award recognizes participating healthcare organizations in four cohorts through the Vizient Quality and Accountability Study, which measures performance on the quality of patient care in six domains: safety, mortality, effectiveness, efficiency, patient centeredness and equity. The study factors in measures from the Vizient Clinical Data Base and includes performance data from the HCAHPS survey and the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network. Top performers in the comprehensive academic medical center cohort are: NYU Langone Health Rush University Medical Center UC Irvine Medical Center Houston Methodist Hospital Intermountain Medical Center Memorial Hermann - Texas Medical Center UCSF Medical Center Froedtert Health - Froedtert Hospital UC San Diego Health Northwestern Memorial Hospital Mayo Clinic Rochester The University of Kansas Hospital Keck Hospital of USC University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics Top performers in the large, specialized complex care medical center cohort are: St George Regional Hospital Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital NYU Langone Hospital - Long Island Cleveland Clinic - Fairview Hospital Baptist Memorial Hospital - North Mississippi ThedaCare Regional Medical Center-Neenah Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center Memorial Hermann - The Woodlands Hospital Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire NewYork-Presbyterian - Brooklyn Methodist Hospital Mayo Clinic Florida McKay-Dee Hospital Center NYU Langone Hospital - Brooklyn Utah Valley Regional Medical Center Fairview Southdale Hospital Endeavor Health - Evanston Hospital Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital AdventHealth Daytona Beach Top performers in the complex care medical center cohort are: Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital Houston Methodist West Houston Hospital Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital AdventHealth Fish Memorial AdventHealth Palm Coast Odessa Regional Medical Center Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital The Chester County Hospital and Health System Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital ThedaCare Regional Medical Center-Appleton Corewell Health Grosse Pointe Hospital AdventHealth New Smyrna Beach Greenwich Hospital St. Joseph Medical Center Prisma Health Baptist Hospital AdventHealth Celebration The Medical Center of Southeast Texas Saddleback Memorial Medical Center-Laguna Hills Campus UCHealth Highlands Ranch Hospital Stanford Tri-Valley Endeavor Health - Highland Park Hospital Top performers in the community hospital cohort are: Novant Health Mint Hill Medical Center Alta View Hospital Parkview Huntington Hospital Cedar City Hospital Mountain West Medical Center Lehigh Valley Hospital - Hecktown Oaks Parkview Noble Hospital University of Kansas Health Systems - Great Bend Campus Garrett Regional Medical Center Riverton Hospital Parkview Whitley Hospital Corewell Health Zeeland Hospital Fairview Northland Regional Hospital Houston Methodist Clear Lake Hospital Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital Mayo Clinic Health System in Fairmont Prisma Health Hillcrest Hospital Layton Hospital Prisma Health Greer Memorial Hospital OhioHealth O'Bleness Hospital Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin Holy Family Memorial Southeast Georgia Health System-Camden Campus INTEGRIS Grove Hospital Sharon Hospital Baptist Medical Center - Nassau Fairview Lakes Medical Center Integris Miami CHRISTUS Spohn Hospital Beeville The Rising Star Award recognizes academic medical centers that made significant improvement in care quality, measured by a rise in at least 20 positions in the annual Vizient Quality and Accountability Study from the prior year and scoring in the top 25. Rising Stars are: Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center NewYork-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center University of Chicago Medicine The Vizient Ambulatory Quality and Accountability Award measures the quality of outpatient care in five domains: access to care, continuum of care, quality, efficiency, and equity. The composite scoring system uses patient-level data from the AAMC-Vizient Clinical Practice Solutions Center ® , Vizient Access and Throughput data, as well as data from the Vizient Clinical Data Base. Top performers are: UCLA Health Systems Clinics NYU Langone Health University of Utah Health UCI Health Rush University Medical Group The Vizient Supplier Diversity Excellence Award recognizes provider clients across five cohorts on how they champion inclusion in their supply chain and accelerate economic growth in their local community. Selection criteria is based on contract purchases of minority-, woman-, veteran-, LGBT- and disabled person-owned business enterprises as a percentage of a provider client’s Vizient spend. The top performers are: Comprehensive academic medical center: University of Maryland Medical System Large, specialized complex care medical center: Novant Health Complex care medical center: Memorial Hermann Health System Pediatric cohort: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia The Environmental Sustainability Excellence Award ranks members across five cohorts on contributions to human and environmental health through responsible purchasing decisions. Ranking is based on the purchase of products that meet Vizient's Environmentally Preferred Purchasing Standard as well as those who commit to the White House-Health and Human Services Health Sector Climate Pledge. The top performers are: Comprehensive academic medical center: Stony Brook University Hospital Large, specialized complex care medical center: Memorial Health Complex care medical center cohort: Legacy Health Community hospitals: Buchanan General Hospital Pediatric: Children’s Hospital Los Angeles About Vizient, Inc. Vizient, Inc. , the nation’s largest provider-driven healthcare performance improvement company, serves more than 65% of the nation’s acute care providers, including 97% of the nation’s academic medical centers, and more than 35% of the non-acute market. The Vizient contract portfolio represents $140 billion in annual purchasing volume enabling the delivery of cost-effective, high-value care. With its acquisition of Kaufman Hall in 2024, Vizient expanded its advisory services to help providers achieve financial, strategic, clinical and operational excellence. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Vizient has offices throughout the United States. Learn more at www.vizientinc.com .

SUNDAY, Sept. 15, 2024 -- Nearly a quarter of all ovarian cancers are fueled by family genetics, so what should you do if your mom or sister are diagnosed? According to one expert, knowing whether you are at high risk is the first step toward taking measures that can mitigate that increased danger. Getting a genetic test for yourself is how you find that out. What do you do if that test comes back positive? According to Dr. Shaina Bruce , a gynecologic oncologist at the Penn State Cancer Institute, women at increased risk for ovarian cancer are typically advised to have their fallopian tubes and ovaries removed when they are done having children. Mutations on BRCA1 and BRCA2, two genes known to also increase the risk for breast, prostate and other kinds of cancer, are the key culprits behind ovarian cancer. A patient with a mutation on their BRCA1 gene has a 40% greater likelihood of developing ovarian cancer, Bruce said, while a BRCA2 mutation increases cancer risk by 20%. “The trouble with removing ovaries in a young woman in her 30s and 40s is that it puts the patient into surgical menopause,” Bruce explained. “Also, the estrogen that your ovaries make is important,” because it protects a woman’s heart and bones and can lower her dementia risk, she added. However, doctors have discovered in the past decade that more than 80% of ovarian cancers actually begin in the fallopian tubes. Penn State is now participating in a study that will compare removing only the fallopian tubes of women with a BRCA1 mutation (with a plan to remove the ovaries later) to removing both the tubes and ovaries in these women. Another option to lower your risk if you’re “having your tubes tied” is to ask to have the tubes removed altogether, Bruce said. In any case, the surgery -- whether it’s removing just the fallopian tubes or the ovaries and tubes -- is a minimally invasive outpatient procedure. It’s three small incisions and usually takes a couple of weeks to recover, Bruce said. Still, some women opt to wait on surgery until they are done having children. Screening for ovarian cancer regularly with transvaginal ultrasounds and a blood test to look for cancer-indicating antigen is an option that’s often recommended in young patients, Bruce noted. For BRCA1 patients, doctors usually don’t recommend surgery until age 35 to 40. The recommended age for preventive surgery for BRCA2 patients is 40 to 45. “If a patient is younger than that, we can safely do screening until they’re ready for risk-reducing surgery,” Bruce explained. Currently, doctors don’t screen women for ovarian cancer unless they have a genetic predisposition for it. Besides genetics, there are other factors that can raise the risk of ovarian cancer, Bruce said: Still have qualms about getting preventive surgery? Compared with the surgery to remove ovarian cancer itself, preventive surgery is usually worth it, Bruce said. “Ignorance is bliss, right? Unfortunately, in oncology I hear that more often than I’d like to admit," Bruce said. "But I would say knowledge is power. If you know you have a predisposition, often there’s something that can be done about it. Usually, what can be done preventatively or to reduce your risk is less invasive than what would need to be done if you were diagnosed with the cancer in question.” SOURCE: Penn State, news release, Sept. 11, 2024 Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

Loneliness may be harmful to our daily health, according to a new study focused on understanding the subtleties of loneliness and how variations in daily feelings of loneliness effect short- and long-term well-being. The researchers said the work provides more evidence in support of the devastating impact of loneliness and isolation on physical health in the country, calling it a public health crisis. Loneliness may be harmful to our daily health, according to a new study led by researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development and Center for Healthy Aging focused on understanding the subtleties of loneliness and how variations in daily feelings of loneliness effect short- and long-term well-being. The researchers said the work provides more evidence in support of the 2023 statement made by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on the devastating impact of loneliness and isolation on physical health in the country, calling it a public health crisis. The work, published in the journal Health Psychology, also brings more attention to different experiences of loneliness, a focus during June 10-16 for Loneliness Awareness Week. The long-term health consequences of loneliness and insufficient social connection include a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia in older adults, according to the surgeon general. People who frequently feel lonely are also more likely to develop depression and other mental health challenges, compared to people who rarely or never feel lonely. In the current study, the researchers found that loneliness can lead to negative health symptoms for people even if they do not generally identify as lonely or typically experience loneliness. People who experience more temporary feelings of loneliness or have a lot of variability in their feelings of loneliness are likely to have daily health issues related to loneliness, including general fatigue, headaches and nausea. The data represents 1,538 participants in the National Study of Daily Experiences (NSDE), one of the studies in the MacArthur Foundation Survey of Midlife in the United States. NSDE is led by David Almeida, professor of human development and family studies at Penn State and senior author on the paper. The current study focuses on loneliness in midlife, using data from respondents between the ages of 35 and 65. Prior research on loneliness largely focuses on adolescents and older adults, the researchers said. NSDE participants engaged in telephone interviews that assessed their daily stress and mood for eight consecutive days. Respondents were asked to describe any stressful and/or positive situations they encountered and their feelings for each day, including whether they felt lonely and how often. They were also asked if they had physical symptoms that day, including general fatigue or headaches. These assessments were performed twice, 10 years apart. From this data, researchers found that when participants were less lonely on average, and on days when loneliness was lower than a person's average, they had fewer and less severe physical health symptoms. Additionally, participants who were more stable in loneliness across the eight days had less severe physical health symptoms. "These findings suggest that day-to-day dynamics of loneliness may be crucial in understanding and addressing the health effects of loneliness," Almeida said. "Increasing feelings of social connection even for one day could result in fewer health symptoms on that day. Such a daily focus offers a manageable and hopeful micro-intervention for individuals living with loneliness." Dakota Witzel, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Center for Healthy Aging and the lead author on the paper, said the results suggest that closer attention should be paid to daily, more temporary feelings of loneliness. While sustained loneliness can contribute to the long-term health effects identified in the surgeon general's advisory, these shorter, more variable instances of loneliness can produce shorter-term negative health symptoms. "A lot of research is focused on loneliness being a binary trait -- either you're lonely or you're not. But based on our own anecdotal lives, we know that's not the case. Some days are worse than others -- even some hours," Witzel said. "If we can understand variations in daily loneliness, we can begin to understand how it affects our daily and long-term health." Karina Van Bogart, doctoral candidate in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State; Erin Harrington, assistant professor of cognition and cognitive development at the University of Wyoming; and Shelbie Turner, postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, also contributed to this research. The National Institutes of Health funded this research.