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Sentara School of Health Professions In August, the Sentara School of Health Professions, through collaboration with Old Dominion University, began offering its traditional RN program in a distance-learning format at ODU’s Peninsula Higher Education Center in Hampton, Virginia. The program is a live broadcast, which allows students to interact with instructors in real time. To learn more, call 757-388-2900. Sentara School of Health Professions has also completed a promotional DVD, now available online.
View the DVD or learn about the distance-learning program.
COPN Public Hearings Held A public hearing was held September 11 at the Chesapeake Conference Center for the five competing Certificate of Public Need applications: Sentara Princess Anne Hospital, bed expansion at Sentara Obici and Bon Secours’ three proposed hospitals. The Sentara Princess Anne Hospital presentation highlighted the long-term relationship with the City of Virginia Beach, development of Princess Anne Health Campus, the need for the project to serve the growing population in southern Virginia Beach, and the continuing outpatient presence at Bayside. Sentara Obici Hospital focused on its 50+ years of service to Suffolk and the surrounding area, and the need for 30 additional beds to handle the high utilization.
The next step in the COPN process is to present Sentara’s projects to the Eastern Virginia Health Systems Agency (EVHSA) Board at its October 9 meeting. The Board members will vote whether to recommend approval or denial. The decision will be forwarded to the State Health Department and the Commissioner of Health will make a final decision in early 2008.
Sentara Obici Mobile CT and MRI Sentara Healthcare applied for permission to relocate the Sentara Obici Hospital mobile Computed Tomography (CT) and mobile Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) services from North Suffolk Family Medicine to BelleHarbour, a state-of-the-art outpatient medical center scheduled to open in North Suffolk in 2008. The diagnostic application was filed October 1, 2007.
Optima Health Expands to Fredericksburg Optima Health, with 345,000 members, is now providing group health coverage in Fredericksburg and surrounding King George, Stafford and Spotslvania counties in Virginia. Optima is the only Virginia health plan ranked in the nation's top 50 commercial health plans by
U.S. News & World Report and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for prevention, wellness, easy access and member satisfaction. Optima was recently named the top health plan in the state for member satisfaction according to a study by the National Research Corporation, a recognized leader in health care performance measurement.