Mary Immaculate Honors H. Bridget Shaheen

Each year, at the annual Evening of Sharing and Caring, Mary Immaculate Health/Care Services (Lawrence) presents the St. Marguerite d'Youville Pilgrimage of Love Award to honor a person who leads the way in the journey of love and service and gives far more to the community than he or she receives.

At this year's gala on Thursday, October l7, H. Bridget Shaheen, Executive Director of Lazarus House Ministries, will be honored in recognition of her exceptional community leadership and service. In her role at Lazarus House, Bridget has helped hundreds living in poverty regain their dignity and become self-sufficient members of our community by offering emergency shelter, food and clothing to people in crisis. Under her leadership, today, Lazarus House goes one step further than traditional shelters by also providing transitional housing, advocacy, health services, education and work preparation to permanently break the cycle of poverty.

In addition to her work at Lazarus House, Ms. Shaheen is also active in the Greater Merrimack Valley having served on the Board of Directors of Mary Immaculate Health/Care Services and the German Home of Lawrence. She is also a member of numerous committees and task forces, and is a former Trustee of Lawrence General Hospital. Her other volunteer work includes Prison Ministry (20 years), Cursillo Community (30 Years) and she travelled to Gulfport, Mississippi to help out in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 

St. Joseph Manor Receives Grant

St. Joseph Manor (Brockton) has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Trustees of the Home for Aged Men in the City of Brockton.   The funds will be used to enhance the quality of care for the Manor's residents.  

Seven Covenant staff members completed Covenant Health Systems' first "Lean" Academy program at St. Joseph's Hospital (Nashua) and were awarded certificates.  Representing Covenant's acute and long term care facilities, participants were selected by their CEOs to participate in the inaugural program.  As part of their course work, participants prepared project charters and were trained to champion process improvement and develop and lead "Lean"programs at their own institutions.

The "Lean" Academy program was established at St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua by Jim McKenna, Vice President of Ambulatory Services, Mark McKenna, Director of Hospitality Services, and Natalie Gosselin, Project Manager, Quality & Resource Management. The program is taught using the scientific framework of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control).  The course provides participants with the skills to solve business problems and make systems and processes function more effectively across their organization. It is now being expanded system- wide to make Covenant Health Systems a "Lean" organization.  There are many examples of the positive impact that "Lean" is having in healthcare systems across the country.

St. Joseph Healthcare (Bangor) was recognized with an 'A' Hospital Safety Score by The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits. The 'A' score was awarded in the latest update to the Hospital Safety Score, the letter scores assigned to U.S. hospitals are based on preventable medical errors, injuries, accidents and infections. The Hospital Safety Score was compiled under the guidance of the nation's leading experts on patient safety.

"Earning an 'A' on the Hospital Safety Score demonstrates that this hospital has exhibited excellence in our national database of patient safety measures," said Leah Binder, President and CEO of The Leapfrog Group. "I'd like to congratulate St. Joseph Healthcare for your achievements and encourage you to continue to put a priority on the safety of your patients."  Calculated under the guidance of The Leapfrog Group's eight-member Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, the Hospital Safety Score uses 26 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to produce a single score representing a hospital's overall capacity to keep patients safe from infections, injuries, medical and medication errors. St. Joseph Healthcare was also a 2012 recipient of the Grade 'A' award from the Leapfrog Group.