A Medical Device Daily

Dialog Medical (Atlanta), a provider of informed consent and patient education systems for hospitals and physician practices, reported a new contract for its iMedConsent application with CGH Medical Center (Sterling, Illinois), a 99-bed community medical center in the Rock River Valley region of northern Illinois. Implantation of the informed consent application is scheduled to begin in early July.

iMedConsent includes consent forms for more than two thousand medical and surgical procedures; patient education documents for thousands of diagnoses and treatments; and an extensive anatomical image gallery that allows the provider to annotate images and simplify complex topics for the patient. In addition, the application automates the completion of patient documentation ranging from HIPAA disclosures to advance directives.

“The patient has the right to be informed of all aspects of a contemplated treatment prior to undergoing that procedure,” said Mary Jean Derreberry, BSN, RNC, director of surgical, ambulatory care and pain clinic at CGH Medical Center. “Dialog Medical’s iMedConsent application met all of our requirements for a comprehensive tool to assist our providers during the informed consent process.”

Procedure-specific consent forms and other documents, in both English and Spanish, generated by the Internet-based iMedConsent application will be available to all providers via CGH Medical Center’s Intranet. In addition, providers who perform procedures at CGH will be able to access the application remotely from their offices, the company said.

In grant news, U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao reported an award of $3 million in grants to six organizations to prepare workers for careers in long-term care. Successful applications were drawn from a pool of 77 applicants competing for awards of about $500,000 each.

Award-winning organizations include: Capital Workforce Partners (Hartford, Connecticut); the Mississippi Hospital Association Health Research & Educational Foundation (Madison, Mississippi); the University of Alaska (Anchorage); the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments (Traverse City, Michigan); the Workforce Investment Boards of Herkimer, Madison and Oneida Counties (Utica, New York); and Neosho Community College (Chanute/Ottawa, Kansas).

“Our aging population is placing great demands on our healthcare system. Long-term care professionals, in particular, are in great need and these grants will help our nation’s workers acquire the skills to fill this need and develop promising careers in this field,” Chao said.

Activities supported by today’s awards include developing a certified nursing assistant (CNA) career track and delivering on-the-job talent development programs; preparing community college students to advance up the nursing career ladder through a number of credential and certification programs; and implementing a direct care worker career pathway.

These programs and others will provide talent development solutions that are industry-driven and address the long-term care sector’s employment challenges. Programs developed and implemented with the help of these awards will be part of regional efforts to create pools of qualified workers from which the long-term care industry can draw, Chao said.

“America’s aging population is creating demand for the professional development of highly skilled long-term care providers,” said Emily Stover DeRocco, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training. “Today’s awards will allow grantees to combine the strengths of public and private sector partners implementing education programs, and will create a pipeline of workers to meet the needs of the long-term care industry.”