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Show HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER FOR SAN JUAN COUNTY, UTAH Volume 90 Number 23 SINCE 1915 50 cents March 9, 2005 Hospital named one of nations best, for second year in a row For the second year in a row, San Juan Hospital has been named one of the top hospitals in the United States. San Juan Hospital officials and employees were ecstatic on March 2 after receiving word that the hospital was on the Top 100 list for the second year in a row. The hospital is involved in a remarkable turnaround after suffering through several years of significant financial losses in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since 1993, Solucient annually names 100 hospitals in the United States who perform the best on a wide series of industry-st- measures. The sets benchmark organization standards in nine areas and comparers each hospital to the standards, "Your hospital has achieved benchmark level score's for overall organizational performance in comparison to your peers nationally," writes Jean (Jheno-wetandard h of Solucient. All of us ex- tend our heartiest congratula- tions on your remarkable achievements. San Juan County Sheriff Lacy in uniform, complete with badge, circa 1905, accompanied by his wife, the charming "Miss Toni". They received the award for best costume at Blandings Centennial Swing Terri Winder photo on March 4. See page 3 for details. to be named Sterling Scholars School will and Consumer Sciences: East Carbon Busi- High host the annual Southeastern Utah Sterling Scholar competition on March 15. Thirty-siSan Juan County seniors will vie for the coveted title of Sterling Scholar against 75 seniors from Carbon, Emery and Grand counties. The awards program will begin at 5:30 p.m. at the Jennifer Leavitt Student Center on the CEU campus in Price. The public is invited to attend. x The Southeastern Utah Ster- ling Scholars are presented in cooperation with district officials and high school administrators, as well as colleges and universities who support the program through the offer of scholarships and other financial assistance. It will be judged by College of Eastern Utah, Southern Utah University, and Utah Valley State College faculty members. The program recognizes high school seniors for scholastic excellence in 12 major categories: English; SpeechDrama; Mathematics; Social Science; Science; Foreign Language; Visual Arts; Technology and Trades; Family ness and Marketing; Music; and General Scholarship. Nine secondary schools, including Monument Valley, San Juan, Whitehorse, Monticello, Grand County, Green River, East Carbon, Emery, and Carbon high schools, participate in the Southeastern Utah Sterling Scholar competition. Similar contests are held in other geographic areas of the state. Nominees are judged on scholarship, leadership, citizenship, and character. Each nominee personal prepares a or her his portfolio outlining scholastic and extracurricular 16-pag- e accomplishments. In addition to the portfolio, nominees will be interviewed by three judges in their respective categories. After judges examine the portfolios and interview each nomiand a nee, two runners-uwinner are selected in each catp egory. Winners will receive $300 and runners-u- p $100. Utah colleges, universities, and technical schools also offer full or part tuition scholarships to winners and runners-up- . The Solucient Top Hospitals Study looks at each hospital in the United States in one of live categories; including small, medium and large community hos- pitals, teaching hospitals and major teaching hospitals. San Juan Hospital, with just 33 beds, is likely one of the smallest hospitals on the Top 100 list. Small community hospitals have between 25 and 99 beds in service. The top twenty small community hospitals are included in the Solucient Top 100. San Juan Hospital made the list as a result of exceptional performance in exceeding benchmark scores in seven of nine categories. The latest study uses publicly available data from 2002. The Solucient study sets a benchmark or goal on each of Are you from Blanding? - See page 2 ing shorter length of stay, lower patient expense, and stronger cash to debt ratio. The hospital performs slightly lower than the benchmark in profitability, although the prof- Centennial Swing a itability is significantly higher than the national average for small community hospitals. The only measure in which the hospital was significantly lower than the benchmark and the national average is in tangible assets per discharge. The hospital was also named Homelessness among students - See page 3 - See 4 page Five Letters to Editor - See pages 6,7 Biggest triathlon yet - See page to the 2003 Top 100 list with a 1 1 Caveman Club award similar strong performance. The 2001 list adds patient safety measures and drops coiling accuracy measures from 2003. San Juan os pi t al is the only hospital in Utah to make the Top 100 list in 200-1Solucient is an information products company that serves the healthcare industry. The 1 success big - See page 12 Repair your credit 1 - See page 14 . company states that the primary goal olSuiucicnt's 100 Top Hospitals Benchmarks lor Success program is to objectively identity hospitals that, organization-wide, are the highest performers in the nation, and to make public the bar that has been set for hospital performance each year. They add that hospital-wid- e measures provide an objective assessment of the efforts... to make the hospital a high performer clinically, operationally, and financially and to provide value to the community. More wedding bells in La Sal -- See page 16 ; Mexican Hat memo- - res - See page 20 I Monticello Hi Lo Pr 46 25 Feb 28 Mar 46 49 48 46 46 1 2 3 4 5 6 52 28 22 28 .02 22 27 22 Blanding Lo Pr 51 29 Hi 53 53 50 53 50 31 .01 28 33 30 35 60 33 tr. acute-car- e meanine industry-standarsures. The measures include mortality, complications, patient safety, length of stay, expense, d profitability, cash to debt, tangible assets and growth. San Juan Hospital performs significantly greater than the benchmark goal in four measures, including dramatically lower mortality, dramatically lower complications, dramatically higher patient safety, and dramatically higher growth in percent of community served. In addition, San Juan Hospital exceeded both the national average and the benchmark goals in three measures, includ Wettest snow-pac- k in 50 years Warm and dry weather is anticipated throughout San Juan County in the coming period of time, signaling a possible break in the wet weather which has marked winter of 2004-05- . reOn March 7, the Sno-te- l Jack-son porting station at Camp reported 31.8 inches of water in 75 inches of snow. This is 244 percent of normal and marks the wettest snowpack in nearly 50 years of measurement at Camp Jackson. The previous high was 31.5 inches of water in the snowpack in 1993. There may be even more to come. The snowpack generally continues to grow through March, with a peak in the latter days of the month. Spring came early in 2004, with the amount of water in the snowpack peaking at 17.2 inches on March 7, 2004. all-tim- e March 7 snow report 31 .8 of water in 75 of snow 13.6 is multi-yea- r average 31 .3 in 93 was multi-yea- r high low 3.9 in 1996 is multi-yea- r Current snow is 234 of normal La Sal snow is 114 of normal News Roundup Letters to Editor Society Sports Community news Legals Classified Real Estate 2 6 8 10 12 1 7 18 1 9 |