New Intermountain Transformation Center
Intermountain Foundation is one of only 54 healthcare fundraising organizations throughout North America recognized as a “High Performer"
We are honored to again receive this distinction on behalf of our community members, donors, volunteer board members, and caregivers.”
— David Flood, President of Intermountain Foundation
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, USA, May 9, 2019 /EINPresswire.com/ -- For the fourth consecutive year, Intermountain Foundation has been honored by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) for its exemplary performance in raising funds for its local communities’ health needs.
Intermountain Foundation is one of only 54 healthcare fundraising organizations throughout North America recognized as a “High Performer,” based on analysis in the most recent AHP benchmarking database. High performers represent the top 25 percent of all reporting organizations.
Each year, participating hospital foundations complete a survey that collects detailed information on organizational performance, including fundraising revenue, expenses, and details on specific fundraising programs and staff involvement. AHP analyzes this submitted data and defines high performance as those organizations that are in the 75th percentile for net production.
In the U.S., net fundraising revenue for high performers is nearly seven times higher than for all institutions reporting. Intermountain Foundation’s top performing net fundraising returns indicate that compared to other healthcare not-for-profit organizations, Intermountain Foundation raises significant funds from donors while maintaining low administrative costs.
“We are honored to again receive this distinction on behalf of our community members, donors, volunteer board members, and caregivers,” said David Flood, president of Intermountain Foundation and senior VP, chief development officer. “Their commitment and generosity fuel our Mission to help all people live the healthiest lives possible.”
About the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy
The Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) is an international professional organization dedicated exclusively to developing the men and women who encourage charity in North America's health care organizations. Established in 1967, AHP is the source for education, networking, information and research in health care philanthropy. To view a list of all high performers, visit www.ahp.org.
About Intermountain Foundation
Intermountain Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that supports Intermountain Healthcare’s not-for-profit system of hospitals. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through high quality and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain Foundation, visit intermountainfoundation.org.
===============
2018 CHEMICAL USAGE FOR CORN, PEANUTS, AND SOYBEANS
State-level estimates for 2018 chemical usage for corn, peanuts and soybeans are now available, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. The 2018 Agricultural Chemical Use Survey of corn, peanut, and soybean producers collected data about fertilizer and pesticide use, as well as pest management practices. The estimates can be accessed using the QuickStats online database, found here: http://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/
The Finlaysons and the Intermountain Healthcare Transplant team at Intermountain Medical Center are now telling their story
I’d do it again – in a heartbeat.”
— Brandon Finlayson, Liver Donor
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, USA, May 10, 2019 /EINPresswire.com/ -- What Mother’s Day gift do you get for the mom who has just about everything she needs, except the one thing that will save her life?
If you’re Brandon Finlayson, you give your mom part of your liver.
“He’s my rock star,” says Gwen Finlayson referring to her son, Brandon. “No, I’m just spare parts,” says Brandon, 37, says with a grin.
Although the two like to joke, receiving the gift of life from her son in a rare surgery at Intermountain Healthcare’s Intermountain Medical Center, was not an easy gift to accept for Gwen.
In early February, Gwen, 63, received an early Mother’s Day gift, part of her son’s liver in the first ever left lobe living liver transplant in Utah.
The Finlaysons and the Intermountain Healthcare Transplant team at Intermountain Medical Center are now telling their story.
In 1991, doctors diagnosed the mother of four with autoimmune hepatitis, which is when the body’s immune system turns against the liver cells. Then five years later she was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and told she would need a transplant within three years.
Gwen Finlayson stretched that to 22 more years, but last year her doctors told her it was time for a new liver and put her on the national transplant list.
“I’ve done my homework. Let’s do this,” Brandon told his mom.
Gwen’s number one concern with this offer was for her son. She wanted him healthy and strong for his own five kids. Brandon said he wanted to make sure his kids and their cousins all had grandma around.
After a series of tests Brandon was found to be a match and the surgeries were scheduled.
“Scheduled surgeries are one of the benefits of a living donor liver transplant,” said Manuel Rodriguez-Davalos, MD, medical director of Intermountain Healthcare’s Living Donor Liver Transplantation Program, and a transplant surgeon. “They can receive a liver transplant before they become too ill, while waiting on the transplant list.”
Dr. Rodriguez-Davalos also turned to some high-tech help for this surgery, working with specialists at Intermountain Healthcare’s Transformation center to make a 3D-printed model of Brandon’s liver.
Surgeons referred to the model before and during the lengthy surgery.
The live-liver donor transplant is one of the most delicate, technical and time-consuming of all surgeries, said Dr. Rodriguez-Davalos.
“Normally we take the right lobe and take about 60 percent of the healthy liver from the donor to give to the recipient. That said, with the use of current 3-D imaging and 3-D printing technology we can perform precision liver surgery and obtain a left lobe graft which gives safer and faster recovery for the donor with equal or improved outcomes for Mom” said Dr. Rodriguez-Davalos.
Unlike other organs, the liver regenerates. Within months both livers should grow to about 90 percent of the normal size.
Three months post-surgery both the Finlaysons are getting back to life and feeling grateful.
“I’d do it again – in a heartbeat,” said Brandon.
“I’ve got a reset button, a huge blessing and opportunity,” said Gwen. “I’ve got lots of dancing to do at weddings and a trip to the Canadian Rockies on a train.”
In 1983, Intermountain Healthcare performed Utah’s first solid-organ transplant. Since then, the program has distinguished itself as a pioneer in the field of transplantation with the first pediatric living donor liver transplant, Utah’s first adult living donor liver transplant, Utah’s first split-liver transplant (one liver split into two, saving two lives), and the world’s first program to transplant hepatitis C positive livers into hepatitis C negative patients with excellent outcomes.
Sign up as a living organ donor at www.IntermountainHealthcare.org/DonateLife
Intermountain Healthcare is a Utah-based not-for-profit system of 24 hospitals, 160 clinics, a Medical Group with some 2,300 employed physicians and advanced care practitioners, a health insurance company called SelectHealth, and other health services. Intermountain is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare through evidence-based best practices, high quality, and sustainable costs. For more information about Intermountain, visit intermountainhealthcare.org.
====================
Press Release on LLP
NIIGATA, JAPAN, May 11, 2019 - The Ministers of Agriculture from Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United States highlighted that food demand is rising while agricultural production faces significant constraints, such as limited access to arable land and fresh water. In this regard, they agreed that agricultural innovation, such as biotechnology, including precision biotechnology, will continue to play a substantial role in addressing such challenges and can improve farmers’ productivity in a safe and sustainable manner.
These Ministers recognized that the number of biotechnology crops being developed and cultivated worldwide is increasing annually. Yet, despite two decades of experience in the safe use of these products, regulatory processes in many jurisdictions create time gaps in their authorization. This leads to an increasing risk of trade disruptions resulting from occurrences of low-level presence (LLP) of biotechnology crops that are approved in growing countries, but not yet approved in importing countries.
LLP occurs when a small amount of a biotechnology crop that has been assessed as safe in one or more countries according to international standards, is unintentionally present in a shipment to a country where the product has not yet been approved. This may lead to unnecessary trade disruptions, which can affect food security, prices and attitudes toward innovation in both the exporting and importing countries.
The extent of unnecessary asynchronous product approvals worldwide is increasing and requires further actions to address the risk of trade disruption, avoid its negative effects to importing and exporting countries alike, and promote global food security.
For this purpose we, Ministers of Agriculture from Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United States, commit to heighten collaborative work with third-party countries in 2019, and continue advocating for global approaches for the management of LLP that are practical, science-based, predictable and transparent. These efforts will include the universal use of international science-based guidelines.
======================
USDA Radio Newsline
Friday, May 10th Story:
